NSS: Offered some work

[brainsmile]

Hmm... I don't know what consulting actually entails but I was offered some potential work by a former colleague I just got in touch with. Anyone want to enlighten me on what consultants do?

[Butch]

Act like you know what you're doing . . . and tell everyone else what they need to do! ;)

[JaQnAbOx]

It depends on what field you are in. Basically you provide your "expert opinion"

if you are pretty familiar with taxes and what you can write off and what not, you can get away with alot and even deduct from your current job. (Thats what i heard from a friend who started her private non-profit consulting company on the side)

[Daedalus]

Lay off the ones that are experienced and well-paid, hire some recent college graduates, and farm out a bunch of work to India. Avoid conflict if at all possible. The standard things.
Amusing that your former colleague has offered you some work, but you ask the folks here what that work entails? What does your former colleague think is involved? :D

[Grimm]

Consult is a combination of two words:
Con - To swindle (a victim) by first winning his or her confidence; dupe.
Insult - To treat with gross insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness.


So, your job is to make them thnk you know more than you do, and much more than them. Then you charge them very high rates to do what their existing employs could already do.

[Markel]

One word answer: Dogbert. :D

[CornMonkey]

funny you should bring it up... i recently got this email from a friend:


A cowboy was moving his herd of cattle out of a remote
pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of
a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a
Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses, and a
YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If
I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have
in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then
looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly
answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook
computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to
a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS
satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA Satellite
that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe
Photoshop and exports it to an image processing
facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he
receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has
been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC
connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex
calculations. He uploads all of this data via an email
on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a
response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report
on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and
finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have
exactly 1586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my
calves," says the cowboy.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and
looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the
trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can
tell you exactly what your business is, will you give
me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then
says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did
you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the cowboy.

"You showed up here even though 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 anything
about my business.

Now give me back my dog."