"Give me the view from 10,000 feet"
One of the most atrocious examples of consulting-speak that I see on a day-to-day basis is asking for the "10,000-ft view" — a euphemism for "give me the general idea, but leave out those annoying details that I don’t care much about." If you don’t care about the details, just say so — don’t give me some contrived "oh I’m thinking at a level far above you ground-cannon-fodder" term to avoid saying what you actually mean.
Of course, instead of suffering in silence, what I should do is really give them that "high altitude view" that they so crave (a la Dilbert):
Ahh… the life of a termite
It’s beginning to look a lot like September
What does September mean? To countless parents out there, it’s time to for your good-for-nothing kids to head back to school. But, to the select group of college/MBA students out there, it’s something much more horrifying: recruiting.
Last year, I posted a brief sketch on how recruiting works and some general tips on how to improve your chances. I’ll probably extend the series somewhat this recruiting season, but to get everyone off on the right foot (and more or less give away a pretty key hint), here’s a brilliantly constructed video from consulting firm Deloitte:
Yes, it can really be that simple.
Love Consultants
They say that “All is fair in love and war.” So, if consultants can help businesses with all sorts of issues, why not help you. Personally. With your love life?
Well, they do. In Japan. (hat tip: V Liu) Enter companies like ACYours, which “provides counseling to people in unhappy marriages”
What kind of counseling?
“[ACYours] deals with some 6000 couples a year. Of these, 300 are truly desperate: the husband wants to leave the wife and the wife doesn’t want to go, or vice versa. Counseling is not enough. As to whether he breaks the couple up or helps them stay together, it all depends on who’s paying the bill.”
With Japanese society moving past traditional gender roles, it seems that an entire industry has sprang up, built around helping men/women with troubling relationships. The article discusses multiple scenarios, but they seem to fall into three major categories:
- Using a professional seducer to catch a straying spouse in the act
- Using a professional seducer to “encourage” a spouse/significant other to stray (to give you grounds for a breakup)
- Getting back together with an ex by:
- (possibly) hiring a professional seducer to sabotage the ex’s current relationship
- Giving the client a personality/appearance makeover so that he/she can keep the ex’s interest
The article has some juicy tidbits about the lives of these professional seducers and the services these agencies provide. For instance, how much can a professional seducer make?
“Kyoko’s work is not prostitution, as no money is handed over. She earns a basic salary of £2,000-2,500 a month [$48-60K/year], plus bonuses when a case is successful, which they usually are. She can earn up to £5,000 a month [$120K/year]”
Impressive. But, what about your own personal life? How does one maintain “work-life balance” with such a job? Kyoko apparently lies to her boyfriend who thinks she’s merely a secretary. And, what about those professional seducers who are married?
“Takashi has been doing this job for five years. His wife doesn’t like it, “but the salary is high, so she doesn’t complain”. He works on three or four cases at a time; he can make in excess of £3,500 a month [$84K/year]. His five-year-old son thinks he’s a private eye who catches bad guys.”
Hmmm… maybe I need to update that CV…
