Have you ever met a robot? A real drink-the-koolaid true believer of one wacky philosophy or another? Someone who speaks only in the ever-present lingo of his people?
Mine is a “real time” and “metrics” and “elevator speeches” and “projections” kind of consultant. He specializes in fostering fast growth business – apparently by miring the people who grow them in meetings for two hours a day. In one memorable meeting – where he was actually pitching his services to us – I think he fell asleep for a minute. Just stopped talking and went nose down toward the table for what I think was about a 120-count. Later, when I questioned his pricing (saying that frankly it sounded like something he made up on the back of a napkin before detailing how his industry’s pricing is usually broken out – that’s what we call “push back” in Chicago. In Ohia, it’s apparently called sacrilege), he said he didn’t want us as a client if we didn’t like his pricing. Wowee.
Oh, and one more – he’s obsessed with white boards – everything has to go up on a white board (despite the fact that half our team is in Florida and everything has to be typed up for them). Did I mention he’s part owner in a white board company? It’s true.
What was the point? Oh, yes, he’s just one of my many bosses – I’m starting to count them:
2 regular bosses
1 consultant
2 freelance job bosses
3 editors
And, we’re about to add a new part-time CEO.
Do I lack enthusiasm? Well, maybe. How many people do you want condescending corrections from in one day? How many people can think you’re the problem. Since in several of the cases, I’m the only person that works for the bosses, that’s a lot of “constructive criticism” to take in each day. Particularly because there’s no reverse responsibility – as in, when are you going to get me all that feedback / documentation / approval / pricing you promised???
There may be a little overreacting on the horizon … I think I might be one of those people who learn how to scale buildings – that way after I’m eventually ejected from a meeting for breaking into some wacky highly-choreographed version of Coco Cabana, I can climb up and moon the whole bunch of them.
[Leigh, perhaps if you spent a little more time creating tiresome PowerPoints and a little less time planning Coco Cabana routines, you wouldn't be the problem as often :o) ]
posted by Leigh Householder
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