Getting Drunk in First Class

If there’s one thing that pisses me off being a TD management consultant, it’s being stuck with a god damn team that works their ass off; the type of team that doesn’t appreciate the joys of a 2 hour long, $90 per head sushi lunch. These assholes will fester in their own stench like sardines under flourescent lighting in a conference room for hours on end working feverishly to perfect every bullet point, chevron, pie chart, and bullshit phrase that their Senior Managers’ hearts desire. Here is what a typical day looks like for these people, from their perspective:

6:30 AM - I roll out of bed at 6:30 AM and briefly look at my body in the mirror to remind myself of my miserable job as a management consultant. A few minutes later I’m putting on a cheap ass suit to try to cover up my misery that I call “self fullfillment” and “development opportunities.” Once the blemishes are covered up and the shiny black shoes are tied, it’s off to Starbucks for some crack, also known as coffee.

Ah yes, some good ol’ crack to start the day off right.

7:30 AM - No sane management consultant would dare to start their day off without a cup of coffee. That would be like a cocaine addict checking into a rehab center without one more precious sniff.

Consultants have more in common with crackheads than one might think.

“I’ll take a Venti Verona Red-Eye, 4 shots”

“Would you like room for cream?”.

“Fuck no! I like my coffee like I like my men… black and big!”

I grab that cup of coffee as if I were Jesus during his last dinner before they tacked him up on the cross. This coffee is all I’ve got; It’s the last square meal that I’ll lay eyes on for the rest of the day.

7:50 AM - I roll into the client site with my crack-headed team 10 minutes before the clients show up to make them think that I’ve been hard at work slaving through the night. After all, I don’t want the client to think I have a life and that they’re getting their money’s worth out of my steadfast, dedicated productivity spout. If the lead client partner caught wind of this he’d ram a shit sandwich down all of ours throats that would keep us busy for 47 hours straight without any potty breaks. It’s a bad idea to start the day by pissing off a managing partner.

8:10 AM - First things first, I check email to see what kind of hair brained, cock-eyed bullshit the managers cooked up while catching a 4 hour cat nap. Cringing, I open the inbox and see the bewildering array of unread bullshit that lies in front of me. The only reason the managers cooked this bullshit up is because the managing partner probably threw a temper-tantrum during the 10:00 PM after dinner meeting over some bullshit deliverables that nobody will look at in 2 months. Around this time my precious Venti coffee is starting to run low and the shitty reality of the day starts to set in, and its barely a hair past 8 AM.

8:30 AM - I finish wading through all the shit that piled up over night and try to think of ways to tackle the day. Between the planned client work and the unplanned bullshit, it’s already looking like a 14 hour day at least. Thank god because I love 14 hour days.

9:27 AM - The coffee starts to wear off and I start to crash. This is when things really turn to shit… the challenge after this point for the rest of the day is 1) staying awake, 2) acting like I’m actually interested in the client’s problems, and 3) making sure I’m affable when the managing partner walks in the door. If you don’t crack a good joke or two to a partner you might as well go into the bathroom and try to hang yourself with your iPod headphones. Joke or put an end to your career: You choose.

10:47AM - I’m stuck in some lame client meeting trying to find a happy place while my eyelids are peeled open with Scotch tape. I keep dosing off as I watch the clients fight over some long, dry, ambigious, business requirements list that some analyst, whom also didn’t give a shit, threw together last night in a drunken stupor. I really don’t give a shit about the client’s business problems, I’m just here for the free top-shelf booze, strippers, frequent flier miles, hotel and AMEX points.

I wish Sally Says-a-Lot would just sit the fuck down so we can get out of the meeting.

11:07 AM - I’m still stuck in this god damn meeting that was suppose to end 7 minutes ago. I rattle off some high-level strategy bullshit about how we can all, “Agree to disagree”. They all agree, pack up their shit, and bail out of the room. I still don’t know why the hell I’m in the role I’m in… I know jack shit about the client’s industry, let alone their business; however, I did buy their “<Industry> for Dummies” book last month so I guess I’m an expert now. But then, I don’t really care since only a genius could convince them to pay $450 an hour for my ‘time’.

Just give me 2 hours with a book and I’ll tell you all there is to know about anything!

11:09 AM - I return to my conference room just to find out that my team got dumped on by a seagull manager. They’re all running circles and going ape shit, which causes me to take a deep breath and hold back from lashing into them with the frayed metal spine of my spiral notebook. It’s not even noon and I already want to engage in genocide. I take another deep breath, sit down, and glare into my laptop screen, hoping for that unmistakable iridescent tan on my skin. Isn’t this how “going postal” begins?

11:43 AM - I’m getting pissed off because my team is still working on the god damn PowerPoint edits. They don’t even have a clue that its getting close to lunch time, nor do they care. Fuck, they probably still think it’s 9:30 AM… but who the hell knows, we’re practically stuck in an airplane lavatory without any windows after someone just had explosive diaherrea and didn’t flush. You think that sounds bad? Clients would rather throw consultants into a dungeon if they had one; hell, some of them do!

The awe-inspiring view from the consultants conference room.

12:56 PM - The PowerPoint nazi’s are out of fucking control now. There is no hope left. The manager keeps popping in every 5 minutes saying, “I think we need to wordsmith the deck to say blah blah blah… insert some visionary consulting bullshit here… blah blah blah.” At the end of the manager’s rants the team is left scratching their heads wondering what the fuck just happened. I watch in dismay as the team hunkers back down and starts puking out more bullet points, chevrons, and process flows into some bullshit slides.

3:29 PM - Time to hit the fucking vending machine. I reach into my bag to pull out a fat wad of quarters as if I were heading to a polish strip joint. I take my sweet ass time as I swagger to the breakroom so I don’t have to sit around in hell and watch my team slave away on PowerPoints. What a miserable existence.

Another trip the the vending machine. Where are the cigarettes and bottle of Jim Beam?

7:45 PM - The partner strolls in for his pre-dinner reaming. He reviews the team’s deliverables and decides it’s all crap. To add insult to injury, the shithead says, “I think we need to scrap this approach and leverage our existing deck. We just need to productize a few things in the deck. First, we need to roll-up all the datapoints into a higher level category.” Instead of throwing out all the slides that we spent the last 14 hours dilly-dallying over, we just toss ‘em into the appendix. Fair enough eh? Isn’t this the same dickhead partner that takes client calls on his global cellphone while sitting pretty on his catamaran in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Dubai?

9:02 PM - Christ already! I just want a 3 pound fresh Maine lobster and a glass of some expensive bottle of Bordeaux and a couple ‘o busty strippers shoving their muffs in my face. Instead, I’m stuck in this god damn conference room watching my life piss itself away. I gave up on those fucking slides at around 1:13 PM in protest of the PowerPoint nazi’s. These clowns just don’t get it, they don’t realize that if this shit gets finished up tonight, there’s still just as much work to do tomorrow. These types of consultants are stupid… the work will always be there… you won’t, so get over trying to over-extend your sorry asses to impress some seagull partner! He’s not going to be impressed as it is, so why bother?

9:18 PM - Its about god damn time! One of the consultants yawns and announces that they are tired. I pounce on the opportunity to say, “Yes! We’re all tired! I’ll call a car and we’ll go back to the hotel”. Wow! They bought into it! They’re actully packing their shit up and heading to the hotel. Unbelievable.

10:02 PM - Great. Just great. The seafood restaraunt that sells the 3lb Maine lobster is closing their doors. These assclown PowerPoint Nazi’s cost me my dinner and are now forcing me to settle on the grilled swordfish and potatoe fingerlings from room service. Looks like another porn ‘n’ fish night for me! Boo ya Jim!

11:26 PM - I’m half way through the hotel porn and the swordfish has been devoured. Exhausted from a day of PowerPoint and IM-ing, I finish up with my movie, clean up, rub one out, and go to sleep. Can’t wait for the same shit tomorrow. Maybe I’ll just stay up all night and work on the deck some more so I can impress everyone with my perserverence and dedication.