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ble to ms outlook users or similarly tantalizing taskbar icons for lotus notes and thunderbird users why would i and all of my ilk hang around our laptops sure there are meetings to be consummated numbers to be crunched and spiffy decks to be made but does anyone honestly think marginally sane individuals can or will do that for the duration of their working days who will deny the sweet twinge of anticipation that accompanies the momentary change in cursor to herald the arrival of an email it even applies to those emails meant for specialized mailing lists that usually have two sub lists in them along the lines of 1 accountants against ifrs 2 everyone else sure they re not quite in the same league as the surge of adrenalin and other hormones that accompanied subject lines in the days of yore that went pictures of anna kournikova but hilarious one liners mandatory use of access cards udf for domestic passengers all have their place in a day s work not content with all the targeted communication on company email servers some even like to register on websites to receive minute by minute updates of peanut prices in eritria or better yet alumni email groups now those of us afflicted with elevated levels of cynicism would be feeling just that cynical about the role of such emails in instilling work life balance but take a look at this exchange not more than a few hours ago with a client from i to recipient are we on for the meeting tomorrow size 2kb response yes confirmed for 2pm size 63kb interest piqued at the 30 fold increase to email size with less than double the words communicated i scrolled turns out to the innocuous question i posed the email system had added xyz allows reasonable personal use of the e mail system views and opinions expressed in these communications do not necessarily represent those of xyz disclaimer the information in this e mail is confidential and may be legally privileged it is intended solely for the addressee access to this e mail by anyone else is unauthorized if you have received this communication in error please address with the subject heading received in error send to postmaster1 xyz com then delete the e mail and destroy any copies of it if you are not the intended recipient any disclosure copying distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it is prohibited and may be unlawful any opinions or advice contained in this e mail are subject to the terms and conditions expressed in the governing xyz client engagement letter opinions conclusions and other information in this e mail and any attachments that do not relate to the official business of the firm are neither given nor endorsed by it xyz cannot guarantee that e mail communications are secure or error free as information could be intercepted corrupted amended lost destroyed arrive late or incomplete or contain viruses wtf so let s recap they re saying we don t know if you re the one to have received this email we don t know if it s what it s supposed to be and if you re not the one who was supposed to get this our lawyers will wring all signs of life out of you also let us know which idiot sent you this and we ll lynch the sender not to be outdone the recipient s email system responded in kind with warble of its own kind it doesn t take much of a stretch of the imagination to see a few exchanges to mutate into something like new and improved disclaimer you were not supposed to read this email if you however have please delete the email destroy the computer on which it was accessed the viruses on the email will probably render your machine as a big ass paperweight anyway set fire to the email server that routed it and jump out of the nearest window if not you will be hunted down by crazed network administrators who will then ping you repeatedly while invalidating all your passwords and then dynamically reduce your mailbox limit to one byte less than every incoming email you receive while only letting disclaimers through thank you share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading view 2 comments maximizing productivity in blah work on february 7 2008 at 5 19 pm what is it about cafeterias that invokes the worst in every human discipline assuming of course that the only human disciplines are planning and designing flimsy albeit that assumption may be its worthwhile to consider the aspects of that area meant to satisfy one of the basic needs of humanity the purpose of this post is not to petition for work areas to allow for satisfaction of other more primal needs a look at the plan for any office building would clearly show that the design of an office cafeteria has to be a separate subject in itself called something like working drone nutrition area design a hybrid science combining the science of architecture with psychology this must involve complex algorithms to ensure that the area is at 125 utilization irrespective of your attempt to delay your lunch hour till the point your bodily functions start to recede into something resembling a comatose cabbage it turns out that the excess 25 are usually people who have entered a zombie like state while waiting for tables to become available no one has seen what happens to them but it wouldn t be impossible to believe that the cafeteria staff moonlight as suppliers of crash test dummies it d be too easy if all it took to get a table was for the planets to line up to spell burp it would take more like a political party that does not rely on divisive groupism to make itself heard heck nothing s that impossible having sufficiently exulted over the capture of your very own slab of formica topped plywood one surveys the options nowhere is the disparity between the haves and the have nots as prominent as on the cafeteria table the haves has stay at home wife who wakes up to cook for me shamelessly parades his assorted array that boasts nutrition taste and the odd dollop of love the have nots have no chance of living past 35 coz of the cafeteria food meanwhile look through the menu that has all of 4 options counting extra ketchup and know by rote anyway before picking what they do everyday the effect is that the average lunch thus lasts about 11 minutes 8 of which the haves spend screwing the lids on their stay warm tiffins and the have nots spending suspiciously poking at their food to check for unwarranted movement and looking at when they can back to their microsoft office document productivity soars if that s not brilliant use of psychology i don t know what is technorati tags blah work share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading view 2 comments anatomy of a kickoff in blah consulting work on december 5 2007 at 5 05 pm engagement kickoff meeting we ll call the key participants entity a hint starts with a p ends with an artner and entity b hint john grisham there are others involved and by relative importance they will be called non entities why not just refer to them with their names three reasons client confidentiality lest the managers of the unethical use of information for material gain department of every competing organization to our client is trawling the internet and other dark places to find information that they can use two this is only a representation of a gazillion similar meetings occurring all over the world and three it would make the story less fun to tell prologue entities a and b arrive within 4 5 minutes of each other about 10 minutes past scheduled time with non entities in tow it is important here to note that the number of non entities could vary depending on the scope of the engagement first few minutes are spent on one or more of the following traffic how they started from home office at daybreak weather in proportion to how much rain there has been work making sure that no actual details are mentioned smiles and nods all around from the non entities one of the non entities usually the newest has twiddled with the focus and sundry knobs on the projector to maximize graphic impact it s a mechanism to soothe his frayed nerves not unlike when fbi agents when in a potentially volatile situation finger their coat buttons except they re doing it to gain ready access to the 45 in their hip holster the meeting the assortment of boxes arrows pyramids et al start their procession on screen as entity a waxes eloquent the typical exchange goes along the lines of entity a i have been involved with 117 similar engagements and i ll be closely monitoring every stage of the project i ll insist that every deliverable is sent to me atleast 2 hours before it is due none of which i ll see coz my blackberry can not open attachments our approach combines the collective wisdom of three generations of fruit flies with the essence of all the information there is in the world that will be superimposed with our patented frameworks that table in the economist on the page i used to mop up my spilt coffee this morning looked good entity b being a very a result oriented ceo i d like to see atleast five generations and that other generation born after specialized in breeding in the north of the andes read about it that morning in a google news sidebar others read too you smug bastard entity a not a problem only yesterday i lunched with the senior scientist who supervised that particular generation glanced and nodded briefly in a buffet line at a symposium on dog allergies when i bumped into him causing the elbow of his jacket to dip into my paneer makhani 67 slides later entity a in summary it would be safe to say that implementing our solution will increase topline by 467 and deliver you to the land of milk honey and playmates potentially if all planets line up just right if elvis comes back and if other less likelier things happen you might get more than just carpal tunnel from signing our invoices entity b 467 in topline growth sounds about right but we would also reduce the need for capital expenditure completely while achieving a 97 decrease in operating costs and as a natural extension of that exercise ensure that someone walks my dogs twice a day sharp intake of breath from the non entities but the sound is drowned by that of furious scribbling epilogue pleasantries exchanged as the group files out of the room entity a turns to the biggest non entity and says with a smile don t worry i ll ensure there is no scope creep you only have to walk his dog once a day also don t bother copying me on the emails henceforth just contact my secretary to schedule for the final presentation technorati tags blah consulting work share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading comment of frameworks and matrices in consulting work on july 26 2007 at 9 22 am unlimited expense accounts first class travel 7 star accommodation fortune 500 ceos eating out of the palm of your hand those are the images associated with the most sought after profession on any b school campus no wonder that most other career choices pale in comparison combine that with the exalted day zero status and you have a heady mix nay this is not a rant against management consulting or even against the insert day 0 firm here of the world but a different perspective from that of a management consultant with a firm the mention of which causes the listener s eyes to narrow as they do a mental search to make some kind of connection by way of reference but fail given the number of day in the life of sessions conducted by the usual suspects and the fact that these guys are also the most articulate you re likely to ever come across it d be an achievement for any b school grad to not know everything that happens between the moment the sharply dressed mc shrugs on his savile row jacket to the power handshake with the client ceo as he and his team marvel at the slick deck you just presented so what s the same profession like when shorn of its splendour when you re rooming at hotel staywell instead of the oberoi ok i made the hotel up but you get the idea when you have to convince your client that flying budget is just not the way to go and when you gotta stand in line to get into a beatup ol black and yellow to get home after disembarking from that hard earned full service flight do it yourself small clients smaller budgets much lower billing rates smaller teams so a lot of grunt work that might otherwise have been smoothly delegated to that lower life form know as analysts you do yourself this includes calling your respondent group to setup appointments to preparing that industry pack for the first internal brainstorm session with your principal primary research travails small firm lean staffing lots of pillar to post when one of the key value propositions of the firm is in depth supplier buyer behaviour by doing in person research means umpteen 1 2 day trips to random ass cities with meetings lined up by you am only guessing here but an mc from a top tier firm could possibly get away with a robust methodology applied to a dipstick survey unassigned what s that you ve huffed and puffed to send the report to the clients post the final meeting with all those extras the client wanted some that your client couldn t care less for but your boss wanted including that sensitivity analysis on the financial projections that took into account armageddon you hit send and even before the length of your back comes in contact with the backrest of your chair a principal strolls in saying you re done with engagement xyz right rhetorical question really and you re off to the kick off meeting for the next project and then your buddy from insert day 0 firm here calls and says how he s been home for the past week coz he s unassigned you start fantasizing about that last scenario you modeled high profile pia pain in the ass when a habitual consumer of mc services read any multinational or indian company featuring on any forbes list all hell breaks loose the story usually is that the company isn t chuffed about their last encounter with insert day 0 firm here and hence is looking to de risk what it actually means is to have your happiness sucked out of you for the duration of the engagement with review meetings aplenty you work and rework your deck till the project folder has more versions than windows has bug fixes but all said you re still looking to answer questions that someone who runs a business has asked and to see even a portion of your recommendations implemented is the high that makes most of the above worth it of course that doesn t mean i have anything against travelling first class technorati tags work consulting share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x 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