It seems to be obligatory to have a “humour” section on a blog and I am happy to poke fun at the management consultancy profession.
Let’s get the retaliation in first, consultants can be smug, intolerant and some even display a touch of arrogance – not any consultants I know of course . . . . . . . . .
Here’s a few jokes to lighten our the day in dark times
What’s the oldest profession in the world?
A physician, a civil engineer, and a consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.
The physician remarked…
“Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world.”
The civil engineer interrupted, and said…
“But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world.”
The consultant smugly leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently…
“Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?”
The consultant and a flock of sheep
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd… “If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?” The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered “sure”.
The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130-page report on his miniaturised printer then turns to the shepherd and says, “You have exactly 1586 sheep. “That is correct; take one of the sheep.” said the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.
Then the shepherd says: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?”, “OK, why not.” answered the young man. “Clearly, you’re a consultant.” said the shepherd. “That’s correct.” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?” “No guessing required.” answers the shepherd.
“You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don’t know crap about my business…… Now give me back my dog!“
Process re-engineering and the string in the waiter’s fly!
Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange. When the sommelier took our wine order, I noticed she also had a spoon in her pocket. Then I looked around saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.
When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, “Why the spoon?” Well,” he explained, “the restaurant’s owners hired a consulting company to revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon is the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our staff are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 person-hours per shift.”
As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it with his spare. “I’ll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now.” I was impressed.
I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter’s fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off, I asked the waiter, “Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?”
“Oh, certainly!” Then he lowered his voice. “Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in the men’s restroom. By tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.”
“That’s great, but how do you put it back?”
Well,” he whispered, “I don’t know about the others, but I use the spoon.”
How you know when you’re married to a consultant
You know your partner is a consultant when he or she…
Referred to the first month of your relationship as a “diagnostic period”.
Talks to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
Takes a half day at the office because, “Sunday is your day.”
Congratulates your parents for successful value creation.
Tries to call room service from your bedroom.
Ends any argument by saying, “let’s talk about this off-line.”
Celebrates anniversaries by conducting a performance review.
Gives you a Valentine’s Day card with bullet points.
Refers to lovemaking as a “win-win”.
The Consultant Takes a Vacation
A consultant booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life. …at least for a while until a hurricane came unexpectedly. The ship went down and the man found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing. Only bananas and coconuts.
Used to 4-star hotels, he had no idea what to do. So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice, longed for his old life, and fixed his gaze on the sea, hoping to spot a rescue ship.
One day, as he was lying on the beach, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye, it was a rowboat, and in it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She rowed up to him. In disbelief, he asked her:
“Where did you come from? How did you get here?”
“I rowed from the other side of the island,” she said, “I landed here when my cruise ship sank.”
“Amazing,” he said, “I didn’t know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there? You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you.”
“It’s only me,” she said, “and the rowboat didn’t wash up, nothing did.”
He was confused, “Then how did you get the rowboat?”
“Oh, simple.” replied the woman “I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove the bottom from Palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree.”
“But…but, that’s impossible,” stuttered the man, “you had no tools or hardware, how did you manage?”
“Oh, that was no problem,” replied the woman, “on the south side of the island there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But, enough of that,” she said. “Where do you live?” Sheepishly he confessed that he had been sleeping on the beach the whole time. “Well, let’s row over to my place, then,” she said.
After a few minutes of rowing, she docked the boat at a small wharf. As the man looked onto shore he nearly fell out of the boat. Before him was a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman tied up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man could only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walked into the house, she said casually…
“It’s not much, but I call it home. Sit down please; would you like to have a drink?”
“No, no thank you” he said, still dazed, “can’t take any more coconut juice.”
“It’s not coconut juice,” the woman replied. “I have a still. How about Scotch-on-the-rocks?”
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk. After they had exchanged their stories, the woman announced…
“I’m going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave, there is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom.”
No longer questioning anything, the man went into the bathroom. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. “This woman is amazing,” he mused, “what next?” When he returned, she greeted him wearing nothing but vines, strategically positioned and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckoned for him to sit down next to her.
“Tell me,” she began, suggestively, slithering closer to him, “we’ve been out here for a very long time. You’ve been lonely. There’s something I’m sure you really feel like doing right now, something you’ve been longing for all these months? You know… ” She stared into his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing:
“You mean… ?”, he replied, “…I can check my emails from here?”
END for the moment
