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The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

tech.mit.edu

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Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#61

Post by edster »

Here is my best story about business consultants...

I was contracting at a big three automaker and they had retained just such a firm, possibly even BCG, to "restructure" the IT department.

So they had a team of overpaid consultants come and perform an analysis. I won't even get into the pointlessness of all that. However, the leader of the pack, the alpha male of the consulting team, would physically walk his laptop over to a printer near the admin's desk to print because the information was too sensitive to print over the network.

In true hacker fashion a buddy and I had recently discovered that you could telnet into the printers and with a carefully crafted command actually set the text on the LCD readout on the printer itself. (The spot where is usually says "Load Paper") So we actually wrote a program that would allow us to send any text we wanted to any LCD of a printer.

So of course, this self important consultant became our first victim of the prank. He hooked up his laptop and we starting sending text like "Loading Virus" to the LCD. It actually became a little frustrating because he wasn't noticing the LCD.

Finally, he looked at the LCD and we starting sending text like "Downloading files from computer". This guy just went into an absolute panic and after the first few seconds of frantic inactivity he got his act together and closed the laptop. Of course, that didn't stop the printer from "Downloading files", so he finally ripped the cable from his laptop to sever the connection.

He was in a panic for what I'm sure were some of the longest seconds of his life, but by then we were doubled over laughing just a couple of desks away and he caught on.

I will give him credit for taking the joke well and he never tried to push it up the food chain or anything to involve any management.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#62

Post by wyclif »

arvinjoar wrote: post #13
kolya3 wrote: post #5

Great description of burnout: "What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work."

This is so true. My father took on a nightclub all by himself. It was a stupid move, he lost a lot of money doing that. What he was missing was a partner. Not only to lessen his work load, but also to keep him motivated. This is the reason you see musicians take 5 year breaks, or even quitting music. They are lacking in motivation. Look at the band Queen, They are still making music and touring, but half the band has…

Actually, John Deacon wrote one of Queen's biggest hits, "You're My Best Friend."

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#63

Post by wisty »

eru wrote: post #24
Silhouette wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was another important point: a guy new to the consulting business and with no significant amount of relevant training or support wound up being marketed as an expert and became the senior person on each project he joined. I've seen this in action, both from the client side (management brought in absurdly highly paid consultants to back up what they wanted when their own people wouldn't support it) and the other…

Perhaps because they have connections? A lot of their almumni go on and have jobs as managers, who then hire consultants.

Maybe the presumption of connections is all that is needed. Managers have connections. They need to hire people with connections because connections are important.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#64

Post by jbellis »

tokenadult wrote: post #26

"I wasn’t sure at the time, but having had enough free time of late to ponder such questions, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that having a father who can pay for a top-notch education outweighs the disadvantage of being raised by a hypocrite. Sticking with the job for the sake of a paycheck passes the children test." I wonder how many children get sent to college by dads like that.

I was sitting next to Reg Braithwaite at the first startup school when one speaker (pg?) said something about startups being for young people so they can focus 100% on the company without worrying about kids. Reg stood up and said, paraphrased, "I'm starting a company _because_ of my kids, so they can say that their dad showed them how to follow their dreams instead of doing the safe thing like everyone else."

Respect.

My oldest is 7 now, and I hope he'll be able to say that his father showed him that living with a clear conscience is worth even more than a top-notch education.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#66

Post by [deleted] »

barrkel wrote: post #57
tokenadult wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the submitted article may have more sense of history than most Americans. It is a historical fact that Adam Smith first wrote a book The Theory of Moral Sentiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments in 1759, pondering the issue of why people behave morally when they could simply guard their own self-interest. As Smith pondered the issue more, he wrote An Inquiry into the Nature…

You have completely missed the point. Contrasting economic systems is completely irrelevant . The choice here is not between different economic systems, but between different moral systems. You cannot make a free market your moral system because markets are amoral . That is, it is not that they are not immoral and so should be replaced with something else; rather, they have no moral content - morality comes from some…

[deleted]

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#67

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #66
barrkel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have completely missed the point. Contrasting economic systems is completely irrelevant . The choice here is not between different economic systems, but between different moral systems. You cannot make a free market your moral system because markets are amoral . That is, it is not that they are not immoral and so should be replaced with something else; rather, they have no moral content - morality comes from some…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#68

Post by api »

"I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic successful businesses, and that as consultants, our earnings came from having the luck of being included in an elaborate cargo-cult ritual."

WOW that is dead on. I get the feeling half the world is like that.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#69

Post by eplanit »

I guess Welcome the Real World, is the best response I can give. So sorry that the real world is so non-idealistic and disappointing to you, and that your wonderful skills and knowledge aren't being prized and utilized.

In other words, you're experiencing the reality shock _everybody_ experiences when engaging with, and learning about, the corporate world.

It seems you'd be happier in Academia, a research institute, or perhaps creating something on your own.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#70

Post by barrkel »

barrkel wrote: post #21

Something that leaped out at me: "I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system". Voluntary exchange is not a moral system. A free market doesn't have morals.

I suspect (some) people misunderstood what I was trying to say.

I wasn't trying to say that I thought free markets were immoral, or that they were not moral. (And so we should find a different economic system, or something).

I was trying to say that you cannot replace your personal morality, your moral system, with a free market (whatever that even means). That is, I was trying to say that markets were amoral, without moral content.

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