Humor 11/23/97: Consulting Humor

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend. It snowed here in Boston on and off,
but it was fun despite the weather. This week, the recommendation for a
movie, CD, book or something else is the movie, "Anastasia". It's
fairly enjoyable.

This week's humor email contains two parts, both involving Andersen
Consulting. The first part comes to us from Lisa Hwang, who works at
Andersen Worldwide, and the second part comes to us from Jennifer Pham,
who works at Andersen Consulting. Sorry to those of you who have
already received a copy of these humor emails from them. I have to
admit, I use most of the Andersen jargon quite often.

Enjoy the humor, and have a great Thanksgiving! Take the time to thank
God for the blessings in your life. I hope you will have a safe trip if
you're traveling.

-Josh.
_________________________________________________________

Part I

Three consultants were in the urinal performing their morning
constitutional.

The first consultant finishes and walks over to the sink to wash his
hands. He then proceeds to dry his hands very carefully. He uses paper
towel after paper towel and ensures that every single spot of water on
his hands is dried. Turning to the other
two other accountants, he says "At KPMG, we are trained to be extremely
thorough".

The second consultant finishes his task at the urinal and he proceeds to
wash his hands. He uses a single paper towel and makes sure that he
dries his hands using every available portion of the paper towel. He
turns and says "At Ernst & Young,
not only are we trained to be extremely thorough but we are also trained
to be extremely efficient".

The third consultant finishes and walks straight for the door. "At
Andersen, we don't pee on our hands".
_______________________________________________

Part II - Andronics

Alex,

I thought I would make one last contribution to your infamous funny
email archive. This is original material! This is a list of annoying
Consultant-ease that we collected on a 7 month project in Florida. We
levied a fine of $.25 on anyone who used one of these terms deemed
Andronics. After seven months, we had close to $70 bucks. Please
forward this to your distinguished group of email aficionados who will
hopefully replicate it around the world (or at least throughout the Big
4 who have been responsible for creating this ridiculous vernacular).
Help save the English language from irreparable damage.

Add Value, Value Added, Value Add, Addition of Value, Value Additive,
Evaluating the Value Add. (We need a fresh credo)
Subject Matter Expert (SME) ("We need to get an Excel SME to teach us
how to sum a column of numbers.")
Up to speed (In reference to knowledge)
Metrics
Stake in the Ground (Are we a surveying company?)
Raise a Red Flag
Robust (This adjective was traditionally used for things like cigars,
now we use it to describe software and strategy)
Slice and Dice (In reference to data. Are we making fruit salad or
databases)
Piggy Back (...off an idea. A kids game turned management consultant
strategy)
Laundry List
Soup to Nuts
Craft a Message (I have heard very few well crafted messages at
Andersen, especially full of this language)
Wordsmith (Again, strong language compared to what is actually written
or said)
Make that Happen
Back Pocket (...idea. Now, in addition to a wallet, Consultants keep
ideas and strategies in their back pocket)
People, Values, Culture (PVC) (referred to as a civil right . e.g.,
Making fun of one's religion of is a PVC violation)
Sidebar
Offline (When any truth or candid conversation is about to be spoken in
a meeting, someone always asks to take it offline)
Head's up (Why are people always giving me a "head's up" about this or
that? My head is typically up during waking hours)
Touch and Go (Isn't this a military exercise?)
Touch Base (e.g., "I will touch base with you next week." That
sounds like sexual harassment to me.)
Low Hanging Fruit (need I say more?)
Deliverable (Probably the most widely used and annoying of the
Andronics.)
Issue/Resolution (I hear people refer to getting their car fixed on the
weekend as 'resolving an issue')
Per (...your request)
Ducks in a Row
Radar Screen (I know the PDA phenomena is really taking off, but I
don't know anyone who actually has a radar screen on them)
Living Document (sometimes referred to a breathing also. hmmm.)
Caveat (A very specific legal term now used by consultants to put
disclaimers on everything they say)
In Sync (Are we consutants or members of an Olympic swimming event?)
Key (I read an article on the Knowledge Exchange that used the adjective
'key' no less than 20 times in 6 paragraphs.)
Bubble up (when analysts finally get their collective voices heard by
the Partners)
Trickle down (opposite of bubble up, except this happens much more
quickly)
Log (as a verb... not in the timber industry)
Showstopper (An event which may kill a project instantaneously... like
analysts passing hate mail about clients on the client's email server)
Single/Multi-thread (denoting one or many people working on something)
Multitasking (I hate this)
Paradigm (Mix one part Covey to 100 parts original thought, not the
other way around)
Dovetail (Norm Abrams uses these joints on the New Yankee Workshop.
Consultants use these to interface platforms)
Continuum (I think Shaheen coined this in the 1995 annual review, it
took off from there.)
On the same page
Octel (as a verb. We like to verb words)
Notes (as a verb)
Roll anything (off, on, out, up. People at Andersen are always rolling)

Fire off (a dramatic way to send and email)
Readiness (Someone told me one time that they were assessing my
promotion 'readiness.' I thought it sounded funny)
Pound (#) out (of a voicemail)
To Punt (Part of the sports analogy craze)
Ball in/out of court (more sports analogies)
Drop the Ball
Take a S.W.A.G. (Super Wild Ass Guess)
Lay of the Land (I heard a manager say that he spent the first week at
the client assessing the 'lay of the land'. Again are we a surveying
firm?)
Topology (in reference to a Local Area Network)
Hammer Away (We all secretly want to be carpenters.)
Gray Area (Everything is a grey area when you don't know what you are
talking about)
Raise/Lower the Bar
Guru (It is amazing how little real experience it takes to become a
guru at something. Same goes for SME)
Process (way overused)
Due Diligence (I heard a guy argue that he had performed 'due
diligence' in helping with the housework)
Driving (in reference to using a PC, or a process. Ever have someone
walk up to your PC and ask if they can drive?)
Walk the Path (in reference to navigating in an application)
Gameplan
Doing anything "in or out of the box" (I wonder if the person who
created this analogy envisioned an entire industry building up around
it?)
Data Mining (Are we consultants or spelunkers?)
Drill Down (Are we consultants or roughnecks?)
Mapping (Are we consultants or cartographers?)
Checkpoint
Granularity (We do a sieve analysis on our ideas)
Regarding (this or that, constantly)
Tagging (as in returning/making calls)
Synergy (Back to the Covey recipe)
Thumbnail (as in estimating)
Strawman (I have yet to understand how building a strawman is analogous
to putting together preliminary ideas)
Flesh Out (...ideas)
Latest and Greatest
Screen Pop
Matrix (Every idea in the world is not two dimensional, therefore
everything cannot fit into a matrix)
Bottleneck
Critical Path (I saw a group of people trying to determine the
'critical path' for performing a pub crawl after work!)
Critical Mass (Physics, not people)
Proactive (Covey lives!)
On Board (used when a new person is welcomed to the project)
Ramp up/down
Strategic vs. Tactical
Level ( High, Low, Lower, Higher, Mid)
Take a step back
'x' Thousand foot view ("Lets take a 50,000 foot view of the situation,
then we'll dive down to 10,000 feet and take another look.")
In terms off.
Going forward
In the Near/Long term
Cross Pollinating (Bees do it on flowers, why can't we do it with
ideas?)
Framework
Painting Broad Strokes (In other words, we had a large effect on the
organization)
In the Loop (widely used and highly annoying)
Percolate (similar to 'bubble up')
Silos (Change management folks love the organizational 'silo' analogy)

Humor 11/17/97: Bessie

Hi everyone,

Welcome to all of you who are new to my weekly humor email. I try to
send out this email to keep in touch with my friends from all over.
Please let me know if you want me to take you off of the email
distribution list. The humor email will only be sent once a week and
will be relatively wholesome.

This week's recommendation for a movie, book, CD, or something else is
the movie, "Looking for Richard". My roommate Richard and I watched it
tonight. It's a film about Shakespeare's Richard III. We both really
liked it. If anyone has seen the movie, "Wings of the Dove", please let
me know whether you would recommend it.

I'll be here in Boston for the Thanksgiving holidays. Let me know if
you're interested in visiting Boston during this time.

This week's humor email comes to us from Vivian Chiang, in Taiwan.
Enjoy!

-Josh.
__________________________________________________________
Subject: Bessie

Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough
to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to
court.

In court, the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning farmer
Joe. "Didn't you say, at
the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?," questioned the lawyer.

Farmer Joe responded, "Well I'll tell you what happened. I had just
loaded my
favorite mule Bessie into the......."

"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just
answer the question. Did
you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'"

Farmer Joe said, "Well I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I
was driving down the road..."

The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish
the fact that, at the
scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene
that he was just fine.
Now several weeks after the accident he is
trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to
simply answer the
question."

By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe's answer
and said to the lawyer,
"I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule Bessie."

Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well as I was
saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and
was driving her down
the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign
and smacked my truck
right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown
into the other. I was
hurting real bad and didn't want to
move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew
she was in terrible shape
just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came
on the scene. He could
hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked
at her he took out his
gun and shot her between the eyes.

Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and
looked at me. He said,
"Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her. How are you
feeling?"

Not Quite Humor, 11/9/97: A Touching Story

Hey,

Rather than send out a humor email this week, I thought you might really
enjoy this story. It was forwarded to me by Vivian Chiang, from
Taiwan. Sorry if you've already seen it.

For those of you in the Boston area, I hope to see you at the NAAAP
Professional Development seminar on Thursday night. It should be very
informative. Take care and talk to you soon!

-Josh.
______________________________________________

Subject: A touching story

He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary's
School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me,
but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance,
but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional
mischievousness delightful.

Mark talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again
that talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me
so much, though, was his sincere response every time I had to correct
him for misbehaving - "Thank you for correcting me, Sister!" I didn't
know what to make of it at first, but
before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day.

One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once
too often, and then I made a novice-teacher's mistake. I looked at
him and said, "If you say one more word, I am going to
tape your mouth shut!"

It wasn't ten seconds later when Chuck blurted out, "Mark is
talking again." I hadn't asked any of the students to help me watch
Mark, but since I had stated the punishment in front of the class, I
had to act on it.

I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. I
walked to my desk, very deliberately opened my drawer and took out a
roll of masking tape. Without saying a word, I proceeded to
Mark's desk, tore off two pieces of tape and made a big X with them
over his mouth. I then returned to the front of the room. As I
glanced at Mark to see how he was doing he winked at me.

That did it! I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked
back to Mark's desk, removed the tape and shrugged my shoulders.
His first words were, "Thank you for correcting me, Sister."

At the end of the year I was asked to teach junior-high math.
The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom
again. He was more handsome than ever and just as polite. Since
he had to listen carefully to my instructions in the "new math," he
did not talk as much in ninth grade as he had in the third.

One Friday, things just didn't feel right. We had worked hard
on a new concept all week, and I sensed that the students were
frowning, frustrated with themselves - and edgy with one another.
I had to stop this crankiness before it got out of hand. So I asked
them to list the names of the other students in the room on two

sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told
them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their
classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class
period to finish the assignment,and as the students left the room,
each one handed me the papers. Charlie smiled. Mark said, "Thank you
for teaching me, Sister. Have a good weekend."

That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a
separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said
about that individual. On Monday I gave each student his or her

list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" I heard
whispered. "I never knew that meant anything to anyone!" "I didn't
know others liked me so much!"

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. I never
knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it
didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The
students were happy with themselves and one another again.

That group of students moved on. Several years later, after I
returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we
were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions about the
trip - the weather, my experiences in general. There was a light
lull in the conversation. Mother gave Dad a side-ways glance and
simply says, "Dad?" My father cleared his throat as he usually did
before something important. "The Eklunds called last night," he
began. "Really?" I said. "I haven't heard from them in years. I
wonder how Mark is."

Dad responded quietly. "Mark was killed in Vietnam," he said.
"The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could
attend." To this day I can still point to the exact spot on I-494
where Dad told me about Mark.

I had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark
looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think at that moment
was, Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only
you would talk to me.

The church was packed with Mark's friends. Chuck's sister
sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Why did it have to rain
on the day of the funeral? It was difficult enough at the grave
side.
The pastor said the usual prayers, and the bugler played taps. One
by one those who loved Mark took a last walk by the coffin and
sprinkled it with holy water.

I was the last one to bless the coffin. As I stood there, one of
the soldiers who had acted as pallbearer came up to me. "Were you
Mark's math teacher?" he asked. I nodded as I continued to
stare at the coffin. "Mark talked about you a lot," he said.

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates headed to
Chucks farmhouse for lunch. Mark's mother and father were there,
obviously waiting for me. "We want to show you something," his
father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on
Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of
notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded
many times. I knew without looking that the papers were the ones
on which I had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates
had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that" Mark's mother
said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."

Mark's classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled
rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top
drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me
to put this in our wedding album." "I have mine too," Marilyn said.
"It's in my diary." Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her
pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled
list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said
without batting an eyelash. "I think we all saved our lists."

That's when I finally sat down and cried. I cried for Mark and
for all his friends who would never see him again.

THE END written by: Sister Helen P. Mrosia

Humor 11/3/97: Bad Days & Poor Planning

Hi everyone,

I hope all of you had a good weekend. I certainly had a great time,
especially at the Swing ballroom dancing event this past Saturday. For
those of you who came, thanks for coming despite the downpour. I think
we had about 40 people. For those of you who couldn't make it, I hope
you can make it next time, perhaps sometime in December. Rich are I are
thinking of either organizing a group lesson in Waltz, Tango, Rhumba, or
Swing II. Let me know which dance style you would prefer. Sorry for
those of you not in the Boston area and can not partake in the fun.
Maybe you can organize something in your area.

This week's humor comes to us from Dave Shim. Enjoy!

-Josh.
____________________________________________________________

Subject: So you think you had a bad day!

This is a bricklayer's accident report that was printed in the
newsletter of the English equivalent of the Workers' Compensation
Board. This is this Bricklayer's report ... a true story.

Dear Sir;
I am writing in response to your request for additional information in
Block #3 of the accident reporting form. I put "Poor Planning" as the
cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust
the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working
alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my
work, I found I had some bricks left over which when weighed later
were found to weigh 240 lbs. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand,

I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached

to the side of the building at the sixth floor.

Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the
barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied
the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 240 lbs
of bricks. You will note on the accident reporting form that my weight
is 135 lbs.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost
my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say,
I
proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity
of the third floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward
at an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull,
minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3,
accident reporting form.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until
the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley
which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately
by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold
tightly to the rope, in spite of the excruciating pain I was now
beginning to experience.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the
ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight
of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you
again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent
down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I
met
the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles,
broken
tooth and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel
seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the
pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks,
in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above
me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the
rope
and I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back onto
me.