"The Life span of a Consulting Promise" or "On the shortest management consulting career ever"
Dear all,
as I have just recently churned out my long planned and overdue Swiss report, you might have expected the usual period of silence. For, in my new time-consuming, demanding job as a management consultant for a large, well known consultancy, I was bound to have little time for the next few months (years?) to indulge in my literary ambition. The Australia report would take some time.
Alas, how quickly things can change. Here I am, with ample time on my hands, typing away. So, before I proceed to share my travel experiences with anyone willing to read, I will detour quickly on the shortest management consulting career you will ever hear about.
Strutting into the office on my first day of work, I was energized on that mix of anticipation and worry that often grips you when you start something new. I was ready to dive into the consulting world open-eyed and without all the prejudices I had associated with "the suits" over time. During my studies at university, the prospect of working for the McKinseys and BCGs of this world seemed like the ultimate pinnacle of professional success. Then, in the real working world, I found that, for most of my colleagues, they were despised as arrogant but superficial, PowerPoint wielding arc-angels of job-annihilation; as superfluous and ridiculously overpriced insurance vehicles, only designed to take responsibility for vital decisions off incompetent corporate leaders.
So, which of the two, or what in-between, would they - WOULD I - turn out to be?
Things started out nicely - a bunch of flowers welcoming me, a large office to be shared with just one other college, a sign with my name engraved on the door, an assistant to help me with administration of all sorts. Great little cafeteria, with free drinks and fruits and serials, and a free Sushi lunch announced. I was impressed.
The office was pretty empty, but with consultants bedding down at the client site during the week, I was not surprised. The people who were there were nice and friendly. I had been told to meet a director, who'd brief me on my first assignment, and to meet my practice head the following day.
As good as at all had started, things slowed down considerably after. The director never got around to meeting me, being "too busy" delivering some PowerPoint masterpiece to spare half an hour on me. My practice head came flying into town the next day, actually finding a whopping 30 minutes between various phone conferences to talk to me. Interestingly, he hadn't much of a plan as to where to use my Mobile Internet experience, which surprised me since this was the precise thing he had hired me for. I was referred back to the director, to help him with some pitch which he didn't know whether it would have any mobile work in it at all. Other than that, there was to be another meeting two days later, unless I has happy to wait an unspecified number of hours until he was through with a few more phone conferences. As it was 9pm by that time, I figured I'd be happy to meet in two days.
In true spirit of continuity, nothing happened for the rest of the week. The director was being busy, my practice head postponed the meeting, and I was sitting on my arse in my empty office. I kept myself busy emailing half of my new company regarding mCommerce work and people who were working in the field. I found a fair number of them (though dispersed all over the bloody globe), and a few projects, though most of them had already finished, and few new ones were happening. I also heard of the closure of a group who'd done non-PowerPoint, real-world implementation work -- a group to which I had hoped to transfer in time.
I was unhappy to hear about this, since it meant that a shift was underway to move the company away from the very implementation qualities I had chosen it for. Still, I remained optimistic that, if I could link up with the competent people I had identified, there would be a lot of potential for learning and doing some cool work.
When my practice head rushed in to "talk about something unpleasant" on Friday evening, I still had no clue. When he started talking about "financial difficulties" the company was facing, and "creditors who were holding a gun to the company's head" I suddenly felt that twinge in my stomach. When he announced that the night before a staff cut had been decided, and that he would have to let me go, I was dumbfounded. He proceeded to assure me that "even several partners had been given notice", that this was nothing personal, that he was sad for me since I had been looking forward to work with them and it had been a good fit, and that he had CRIED when he had to tell some other people whom he'd also hired personally and who'd been doing great work. Handed me a paper to sign, offered "any help he could give" -- and that was the end of my consulting career.
I notice: The date on the letter informing me of my being laid off corresponds with my SECOND day of work there. This amazes me. The decision to fire me was supposedly taken on day FOUR of my work there, and I was told about it on day five. How come they already wrote my pink slip on day two??
Then the pinaccle. A few days into week two: I am still at the consulants' office because I am supposed to assist them with some work until I leave for good two months later (only then can they legally can stop paying me). In the morning, I find my computer accounts locked, access blocked. I am presented with a printout of a posting I made to a website just after they told me I'm fired. The posting contains an accurate and truthful description of what happened to me. They accuse me of committing libel and damaging our "relationship of trust" (how's that for comics?). They threaten to fire me with immediate effect (as in, not paying me even the two monthly salaries they legally owe me, and blocking access to unemployment benefits for several months!!).
It took me a full day before I had even worked through the shock enough to stop feeling nauseous, and to start feeling real anger. Then I prepared my guns. I decided that, should they act on their threat, I would take them to labor court to enforce my rights. I started looking up laws, talking to friends who had studied law, etc. What I found was that, despite all their barking, the consultants simply could not fire me for the post in the fashion they threatened. None of the legal requirements for a "libel" accusation were met, and in any case there would have to have been a warning first. I ducked in the trench, and waited, ready to fire my weapons.
Nothing happened.STEP ONE: I am hired away from a pretty safe job and a respected position with my old company, with an chance of international projects, perhaps a transfer to the US in time, assistance with doing an MBA and great training, and cutting edge work.
STEP TWO: The day before I hand in mz resignation letter at my old firm, I CALL the very same man who fired me now, and asked him whether any job cuts may be on the cards! They had just fired people in the US, and the market for tech consulting was looking increasingly shaky, so I asked him "Is this going to be a hot seat? I will be in probation time for 6 months when I come to you -- I don't want to find myself out of a job when this continues! Are you planning any further cuts?" He SWORE that business was great, no cuts would happen, that "those people had been hired for a specific project which didn't materialize", that they "had been hiring conservatively though the boom and hence now had no reason to lay off people", and so forth. I was reassured, and quit.
STEP THREE: My old company, upon receiving note of my planned departure, made an attractive counteroffer - more money than my new company, and a more senior position. But I had committed to my new company at that point, and in accordance with my misguided sense of integrity, I stuck to my guns and rejected the offer. I had told the consultants I'd work for them, and so I would.
STEP FOUR: I start work clueless about the fact that my forced departure has already been arranged, before I can even prove my value or contibute anything. After a week in the office where nobody knows what to do with me, I am fired unceremoniously, into a job market which has collapsed since, with tech companies firing people left and right, and my old company sitting on a hiring freeze. Had they bothered to inform me of their intention to lay me off, I would have been able to cancel my resignation with my old employer and keep my old job. But no, they cluelessly let me run into the extended knife of irreversible unemployment.
STEP FIVE: When I, outraged, share my experience with a few website community members, I am accused of LIBEL and doing damage to their REPUTATION!! Despite having already put me into a financially insecure position by laying me off with two months legal notice, they threaten to fully pull the financial carpet from underneath my feet by refusing to pay even those two months pay that are supposed to keep my head above the water while I am finding a new job.
STEP SIX: After missing the legal deadlines to take any action, they suddely wake up three weeks later, and try to bully me into signing a self-gagging order with a ridiculous fine, without any effective leverage on me, just hoping I'd be stupid enough to sign on vague threats. They practically PROVOKE me to go to the press, when it is exactly that they want to avoid.
How could I know all the consulting prejudices are that well founded...
So here I am, wondering whether my guardian angel is trying to tell me
something in regard to my career choices. I had mixed responses from you
out there regarding my transformation into a suit&tie consulting
highflier. Some people approved and congratulated, others went as far as
to question my sanity, and suspecting that I had somehow mutated into
somebody completely different in the time we hadn't talked. I for myself
was anxious that I might get hard and maybe cynical if the work and/or the
people would turn out shallow, greed-driven, unethical. I saw people with
severe chins and stony expressions pass me by in their navy suits, when I
sat in a cafe late after my 2nd day of work with the consultants. I
wondered if that was my future, and swore I'd get out the moment I'd feel
my chin metamorph.
And yet, ultimately I had wanted to find out for myself what being part of that strategy management consulting "elite" is like in real life, rather than relying on second hand information. Now I have first hand information. I am angry, tired and disappointed. I am not sure where to go from here.
Maybe it's gonna be a small tech
company, where I can have some real impact, produce more than colorful
slides, and leave the suit in the wardrobe. Or maybe I'll do something
completely different, such as exploring my lingering ambition to work for
an interesting NGO. Who knows. But I am bruised. I am a little harder. A
little more cynical. A little less trusting. And a little less the person
I wanna be. This was one experience I could have done
without.
Best Regards,
Ingo