Humor 5/1/00: Consulting Top 10 & The Butterfly

Hi everyone,

I hope all of you are doing well. One of the things that I learned this
past summer from Carol Carpenter, the VP of Marketing at WishClick, who
was my supervisor, is the importance of good PR. So, I am extremely
grateful and excited to be mentioned in this past week's issue of
Business Week, along with "Leisureplanner", the startup some classmates
and I are starting. If you want to read the article, it is: "For the
Class of 2000, the Sellers' Market Intensifies". I think this will also
be helpful in our seed fund raising process. We'll be completely done
with the business plan this coming week and we'll really be busy in May
pitching our idea to angel investors and VCs.

Some of you may have tried to take the survey I created on Zoomerang
about leisure activities. Unfortunately, Zoomerang's site is
experiencing some technical difficulties. They promise to have it fixed
in 48 hours. If you tried and it didn't work, please try again in a day
or two. Thanks to all of you who have helped out!

This week's thought provoking question is: "If you could change the
ending of any book ever written, which one would you pick and how would
you change it?"

This week's humor was forwarded by Tina Sze, followed by an
inspirational piece forwarded by Susan Hasegawa.

Enjoy!

-Josh.
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A Few Laughs... Consulting Top Ten Lists

Top Ten Ways To Know You're Dating/Married To A Consultant

10. Referred to the first month of your relationship as a "diagnostic
period."
9. Talks to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
8. Takes a half-day at the office because, "Sunday is YOUR day."
7. Congratulates your parents for successful value creation.
6. Tries to call room-service from the bedroom.
5. Ends any argument by saying, "let's talk about this off-line."
4. Celebrates anniversary by conducting a performance review.
3. Can't be trusted with the car--too accustomed to beating up rentals.
2. Valentine's Day card has bullet points.
1. Refers to lovemaking as a "win-win."

Source: The Reporter, 11/8/96, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Top Ten Ways to Know You've Got the Consulting Bug

10. Can't stop using words that don't exist.
9. Worried that whoever dies with the most frequent-flyer miles wins.
8. Use so much jargon in conversation, friends think you're speaking a
foreign language.
7. Constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing about.
6. Always-hyphenating-words-that-don't-need-to-be-hyphenated.
5. Keep seeing bullet points everywhere.
4. Can fit the thematic undercurrents of War and Peace into a two-by-two
matrix.
3. Tired of having a social life beyond work.
2. A two-page story in Business Week is all it takes to make you an
expert.
1. Firmly believe that an objective viewpoint means more than any real
work experience.

Source: The Reporter, 12/6/96, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Top Ten Things You'll Never Hear From A Consultant

10. You're right; we're billing way too much for this.
9. Bet you I can go a week without saying "synergy" or "value-added."
8. How about paying us based on the success of the project?
7. This whole strategy is based on a Harvard business case I read.
6. Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do.
5. I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that.
4. Implementation? I only care about writing long reports.
3. I can't take the credit. It was Ed in your marketing department.
2. The problem is, you have too much work for too few people.
1. Everything looks okay to me.

Source: The Reporter, 1/30/97, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Top Ten Things Not To Do During a Summer Consulting Internship

10. Admit, even for a moment, that you don't know what you're talking
about.
9. Begin a statement with, "In my Strategy class, we learned..."
8. Abstain from using jargon on principle.
7. Ask your manager about the firm's "family friendly" policies.
6. Force a V.P. to explain, in detail, what makes this firm different
from other firms.
5. Tell your manager that reengineering is not really a word.
4. Shake you head and shout, "this is NOT a high performance work team"
during every meeting.
3. Ask a V.P. to quantify the "value added" received by the client.
2. Complain incessantly about a lack of intrinsic motivation.
1. Perform "Potential Industry Earnings" analyses.

Source: The Reporter, 6/2/97, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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The Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening
appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it
struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to
stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it
could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the
butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining
bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small,
shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly he expected
that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to
support the body, which would contract in time.

In fact, neither happened. The butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling, with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to
fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get
through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body
of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight
once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God
allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would
cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We
could never fly!