Getting Drunk in First Class

Some of the worst words that a consultant can hear come out of a staffing managers mouth is, “you’re staffed in-town!” Staffing manager’s think this is a godsend because at night they go home to their kids in the suburbs. Their idea of a good weekend is taking their kids out to Chili’s and ordering up some of those delicious chicken quesadillas. Has it slipped their minds that I need to be in a suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower where a maid comes in twice a day to clean up all the shit I left on the bathroom floor? What about those Lincoln logs I sacrificed for the porcelain god? I’m sure as hell not going to plunge those out.

Contrary to popular belief, your life will be a living hell on a local project. The hours are more grueling, the expense account is dismal to non-existent, and your status sinks faster than a 747 with no wings. People have died on local projects because it’s that bad.

Top 3 “Local Project” Myths

“You’ll get to spend more time at home and sleep in your own bed.”
True, getting 1 hour of sleep in your own bed is more than 0 hours if you’re out of town. Notice how they didn’t say, “You’ll be getting more sleep.”

If you have a family at home you can forget ever seeing them, at least while they’re awake. You’ll piss off the wife even more because she’ll expect you home at 5:00 just like every other schmuck who has an in-town job.

“You don’t have to travel.”
Kiss your AMEX good-bye. Instead of plopping your fat ass in a cushy first-class seat in the morning, you’ll be piling it into your Taurus and sipping gas station coffee (which you paid for) on your way to work. No more free vacations to Fiji either.

Forget about taking conference calls at home on Friday whilst on the shitter; ooooh no, instead you’ll be in a meeting room with no windows at the client site sitting at a folding card table sharing a 56k modem with your fellow depressed teammates.

“You can actually do things in your hometown!”
Yeah, you’ll get to fester in your own stench in your car on the way to and from work. The intramural sports teams your friends are setting up all play their games at normal, human-being hours, not consulting hours, so you can forget those too. Dinner with the wife? As long as she likes a 24 hour late-night Denny’s Grand Slam, she’ll be pleased as peas. And, is Aruba in your hometown? Didn’t think so. Peter Luger’s? Make sure you go take out $300 from your checking account. Strip club? Those lap dances aren’t free unless you want the heel of a stiletto shoved down your throat.

Mmmm… delectable!

Crashing the Deal

The best thing to get out of a local project is to try to derail the whole show in the first place. If the client is talking to you in Cambodian, respond in Hungarian. Claim that you scheduled several two week vacations on the second and last week of the project.

When the client asks, “Are you a health care expert,” respond with, “Well sure! In my management 101 class at Harvard we read a few health care management articles from the Wall Street Journal.” If the client has any shred of competence this will quickly disqualify you from the project. If the client is dumb enough to still want you at this point you might be able to negotiate a phat expense account if have enough pull. Whatever you do at this phase, try to sound like a flailing retard. Approximately the same might work with a partner/senior manager if you’re not being interviewed via the client directly.

Surviving the Train Wreck

If, after all of your attempts to act like an ignorant asshole fail and the client and/or partner sucks you into the project, it’s time to bring in the big guns.

The Art of the Shnap

Shnaps are a great way to escape the pain of a local project for 30 minutes to an hour. To take a shnap, you tell the client, “I gotta go drop a deuce, be back in an hour.” You head into the John, slip down your drawers, drop some kids off at the pool, turn off the alarm on your cellphone, put your head in your lap (don’t forget to flush before this step so you’re not huffing your own shit fumes), and sleep.

Get Ready to Shnap!

The Conventional Approach

Have a frank conversation with your PM and make up some bullshit about how this project doesn’t fit your year-end goals… blah blah blah… career aspirations…. blah blah blah…. Whatever you do, don’t tell them the real reason you want off the project is because you miss raiding the mini-bar after a hard day at the office.

If the PM has a shred of compassion they’ll try to figure out a way to roll you off the project. However, the odds of this approach actually working are slim, but it’s worth a shot, right?

Let your boss know who is really boss

This technique was perfected by an Asian guy with a big head who shall rename nameless but it goes something like this: When your manager tells you to come in on Sunday, don’t. Instead, sleep in and act like you didn’t hear the guy. When you roll in on Monday around 2:00 PM smelling like booze and cheap hookers tell the guy you didn’t hear him Friday night at 7:00 PM when he told you that you were going to have to work the weekend. Sure, you might burn a few bridges but when things get desperate, you have to get serious.

If nothing works in your favor, get ready to start taking Zoloft for a long time. Get used to those White Castle “Sliders,” Oscar Meyer Lunchables, and brown bag lunches of canned tuna and fruit roll-ups. You could scrape by even more economically with left-overs, presumably from Chili’s.

Just remember, it will be over eventually. Nothing lasts forever, not even the sour pain of a local project.