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

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

#171

Post by duhprey »

api wrote: post #124
tomjen3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it is not that simple, because just doing what others do works very well in most cases and you don't have the time to start questioning _everything_ - why do you shower in the morning? Why eat three times a day? I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works.

No, it's worse than that. I have seen this before. There is an entire portion of the business world that merely goes through the motions of being successful businesses rather than actually being businesses at all. It's really weird. You could look at it as investment fraud with plausible deniability. Take money, hire consultants, look busy. The only thing is, I don't think it's that explicit or intentional. I think t…

There's always been something wrong, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, with the idea of getting a degree solely in "business"... I think I get it now.

Reminds me of a shirt I saw somewhere from a cartoon I've never seen: "What's this? I'm going to go do some Science on it!" Seems very similar to: "I'm a business man"

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

#172

Post by CWuestefeld »

tkahn6 wrote: post #119
barrkel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a government protect human life with physical force? Remember, the justification must be from a free market, not with reference to some other moral system. What, in a free market moral system, prevents slavery? The justification must come from the free market, if free market is to be the moral system.

The justification must come from the free market, if free market is to be the moral system. How can there exist a free market without the guarantee of the protection of private property? Without that you have anarchy (whoever is physically strongest wins). I've never heard of someone invoking the idea of a "free market" without implying that the agents of the market are protected from physical harm. This is by no mea…

How can there exist a free market without the guarantee of the protection of private property? Without that you have anarchy

See "anarcho-capitalism": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through taxation, and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market.

You continue...

> > What, in a free market moral system, prevents slavery?

> The government.

No. Slavery is prevented because the income generated by those would-be slaves is less than the income generated when those people fill the role of "consumer".

Also, if there are non-consensual exchanges, then by definition it is not a free market, but that simply avoids the question...

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

#173

Post by praptak »

tomjen3 wrote: post #115
api wrote: post #68

"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.

The problem is that it is not that simple, because just doing what others do works very well in most cases and you don't have the time to start questioning _everything_ - why do you shower in the morning? Why eat three times a day? I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works.

"I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works."

My definition of cargo-cult is when you copy everything except the parts that are hard or make you face unpleasant reality.

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

#174

Post by ig1 »

shrikant wrote: post #122
ig1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty standard at both banks and large tech companies that when they make you redundant or fire you that they ask you to sign something similar. I'd be surprised if say Google or Microsoft didn't have something similar in their standard redundancy pay-out contracts.

I worked at a fairly large UK-based bank, and whatever I signed when I left the place had nothing of the sort. But then again I left of my own accord, and wasn't laid off or 'made redundant', so the situation might be different then.

Yes. It's normally only the case when the company asks you to leave. If you google for "non-derogatory statements" you can find plenty of discussion about such clauses.

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

#175

Post by jeremytliles »

microcentury wrote: post #39

"At my salary level, and with my expected advancement path, I could comfortably retire in my thirties." I've heard this or statements like it in quite a few articles over the years, but I've never actually met a retired thirties business consultant. Do they exist and am I just missing them? The only ones I know are well into their thirties, working 70+ hours a week, and looking forward to making even larger boatloads…

I forget his name at the moment, but the author of "The Management Myth" retired early from management consulting to write a book on philosophy.

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

#176

Post by jeremytliles »

pw0ncakes wrote: post #162

I had a job like that. I was supposed to use my analysis and creativity to build models for client forecasting, but if they didn't confirm what the brand team wanted to hear, they'd be rejected. It sucked. I was fresh out of school and cared more about getting the right answer than appeasing clients. I lasted 8 months in that job. No regrets about leaving. Also, $16k is piss-poor for a severance package in a brand-na…

I think I missed the part where he had the leverage to make that kind of demand. Perhaps even the brand-name consulting firms have figured out that ridiculous severance packages don't make a whole lot of sense.

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

#177

Post by gjm11 »

jacquesm wrote: post #168
gjm11 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone was claiming that being moral about the NDA does "weigh up" against working there in the first place. If he were trying to paint a glowing picture of his own morals, he wouldn't have written the article in the first place. (Since he appears to have been there for something like 6 months before getting fired, I'll hazard a guess that his severance pay wasn't all that spectacular.)

10 K+ per month is not unusual, and depending on his contract they may have to 'buy you out' (for instance, after three months they might have signed a years contract with you including the first three months). So the severance could be anywhere from $5K up to a very substantial amount of money. The fact that they're willing to pay another $16K just for signing an NDA suggests it was a pretty high salary.

He already said, kinda, what the salary was: with bonuses and whatnot, he expected to be getting $200k per year.

Given what he's possibly done to their reputation (I don't know; perhaps everyone already thought they were corrupt and dishonest anyway) that he wouldn't have been able to do if he'd signed the NDA, I don't see that an explanation in terms of salary is required: getting everyone to sign the NDA greatly reduces their exposure to this kind of bad publicity.

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

#178

Post by yosho »

In college, I used to debate with myself on which career was better, ibanking or management consulting.

In the end, I chose to pursue management consulting, which I've been doing for the last 2 years.

Now, I debate with my friends on which career is worse, ibanking or consulting because frankly, after sifting through so much corporate BS, I've come to realize that all these jobs need to be prestigious in order to get ivy league grads to pursue them. In reality, we're either glorified excel junkies, or overpaid powerpoint formatters.

I'm crossing my fingers now hoping that this start-up I'm working on takes off... I really do want to leave the corporate world for good. The realization that the preparation we had in college is absolutely useless in the real world, and that any semi-intelligent high-schooler could do our jobs is a depressing thought.

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

#179

Post by pw0ncakes »

jeremytliles wrote: post #176
pw0ncakes wrote: post #162

I had a job like that. I was supposed to use my analysis and creativity to build models for client forecasting, but if they didn't confirm what the brand team wanted to hear, they'd be rejected. It sucked. I was fresh out of school and cared more about getting the right answer than appeasing clients. I lasted 8 months in that job. No regrets about leaving. Also, $16k is piss-poor for a severance package in a brand-na…

I think I missed the part where he had the leverage to make that kind of demand. Perhaps even the brand-name consulting firms have figured out that ridiculous severance packages don't make a whole lot of sense.

What I'm talking about isn't that ridiculous. Paying 6 months' salary is a small cost compared to the cost of a termination lawsuit or a negative article being written about the firm.

I'm guessing they gave him 2 months pay and nothing for the move back, from Dubai (which is a dangerous place to lose your job, by the way). They also seem to have given him nothing in terms of exit counseling.

To answer the question you raised: his article and the fact that it got published is the leverage he had. I bet it's circulating around BCG right now. It has the potential to be a morale and image problem, and not the Goldman Sachs style of image problem (where people hate GS but consider them good at what they do).

There are rational reasons for firms to pay decent severance packages. It's not just something they do to be nice.

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

#180

Post by Silhouette »

gaius wrote: post #164
Silhouette wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really isn't. Not at any of the small businesses I ever worked for, where the guys at the top probably decide these things themselves. Not at a very, very large business I worked for, where the guys at the top probably didn't know the name of anyone in my building and everything was done by HR and Legal automatons. And not at any medium sized businesses I have ever worked for, either. The only time an agreemen…

The only time an agreement like this is standard is when you know you're doing something you shouldn't be, and you know you're about to lose your legitimate influence over people who could out you, so you try to buy their silence because to you the cost is cheap. What country are you in? In the UK this is pure boilerplate text.

I'm in the UK, and I have never had anything even close to this proposed to me, by any employer, of any size, regardless of how happily I left.

It's only boilerplate text if you're the kind of person who also accepted the "We own copyright to everything you ever do, at work or otherwise" clause in the employment contract.

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