Consulting Jokes

December 15th, 2006

Being a freelance consultant (and since it is Friday), I thought I'd pass these humorous consulting jokes on.

Awesome consulting jokes I found on the Internet.

Joke 1 (There are tons more at this site)

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 Broni 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 miniaturized 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 are 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!"

Joke 2 (Reference)

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 busboy brought our water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt 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 Kurt Salmon Associates 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 personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-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 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%."

"After you get it out, how do you put it back?"

Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."

Joke 3 (Reference)

You know you've been a consultant for too long when...

  1. You refer to the yield of the tomato plants in your home garden as "deliverables"
  2. You can tell the copier repair person at the client site exactly what's wrong with the machine and what parts need to be replaced
  3. The new client staff come to you for information on how to start the coffee machine
  4. You've succeeded in memorizing the morning and afternoon schedules of two major airlines' flights to your client's site
  5. You can execute five complex tasks simultaneously, but you can't remember what you had for breakfast that morning
  6. You have enough "vendor" ID badges for a royal flush and two pair
  7. You know all the late night security guards at the client site on a first name basis (replace "security guards" with "cleanup staff" or "swing-shift mainframe operators" as you choose)
  8. You use so many acronyms you no longer know which are your company's, the client's or the software vendor's
  9. You feel naked without a laptop hanging from your left shoulder
  10. The project partner tries to hire you
  11. You forego the opportunity to fly home on the weekend, because you really like it in Southfield, MI. (Schaumburg, IL...Bethesda, MD...Norwood, MA...Harrisburg, PA)
  12. You say "Whoopee! Half day!" when you leave at 10:00PM
  13. Your kids point at the phone and say "...that's the one that's broken" when you get home, thinking you must be from the NYNEX, 'cause you sure don't look familiar
  14. You start thinking that life in the US Navy Submarine Corps would give you more time at home
  15. You start referring to your PC by a cute name
  16. You are upset when you come home on Friday night and the lights aren't on, the bed isn't turned down, and there are no chocolates on your pillow
  17. You fantasize about zero-billing
  18. "Vacationing" is spending an entire weekend in your own home
  19. You can call room service and order multiple entrees without looking at the menu;
  20. Writers for the OAG call you to verify flight numbers and times
  21. You have seen more movies at 35,000 feet than you have at General Cinemas (replace Gen. Cin. with your local movie theater)
  22. You have had more phone numbers than Imelda Marcos has pairs of shoes;
  23. The media phrases "telecommuting" and "virtual office" have very real (and frightening) meaning for you
  24. You forget how to turn on the windshield wipers in your own car
  25. New staff point at you and say, "... that's him, that's the old guy ... "
  26. Your resume' looks like a phone book
  27. The client says your rates are too high, and you blush
  28. You introduce yourself to your next door neighbors ... again
  29. Your spouse flies home (to your hotel) for the weekend
  30. You use the word "paradigm" in a sentence
  31. You use the word "granularity" in a sentence
  32. You use the word "robust" in a sentence
  33. Someone mentions a 7:00 meeting and you say, "AM or PM?"
  34. You cry when your PC won't start
  35. You carry on a 5 minute conversation about data warehousing, then you ask what it means
  36. When other people speak of vacations in warm sunny places, you get a lost look on your face, cock your head to one side like a dog hearing a whistle, and say, "...my last vacation was, um, it was, ah, um, er ...."
  37. You have a day off, and you call work because you miss it
  38. You write a workplan for your weekends
  39. Someone asks you what you do for a living, and you can't answer the question
  40. Before starting the car, you insist on telling everyone where the emergency exits are
  41. Before stopping the car, you insist that everyone stay seated until the fasten seatbelts sign is off
  42. You call CTG (computer support group) with a support question just for the entertainment of hearing their answer
  43. A good dinner consists of vending machine snacks
  44. A good lunch consists of vending machine snacks
  45. You insist that your friends submit time sheets at the end of the month so you can see what you missed
  46. You can tell the hotel staff what their room-rate policy is
  47. You believe that e-mail is as good as a conversation can get
  48. Instant coffee tastes good
  49. You can remember 15 client and hotel phone numbers, but you get stumped when asked for your home number
  50. You file more state income tax returns than Microsoft has trademarks
  51. You've been staying in the same hotel, you instinctively call it "home"
  52. The hotel staff recognizes you and gives you the same room every week (this is not always good)
  53. The room service staff feels free to nag and fight with you because they know you'll be back next week anyway
  54. You know all the favorite radio stations of all the valet parking guys
  55. You get more calls from the hotel staff to see if you're OK than you do from your friends
  56. Then you realize the hotel staff are your friends
  57. You can list fifty-seven (and counting) reasons why you have been a consultant for too long.

Joke 4 (Reference)

The start of the new school term always brings out the most interesting questions for computer consultants on campus. The predominant questions this term pertain to "getting into" E-mail and how to access the "Information Highway."

An obviously distraught student came into the consulting office yesterday complaining that his E-mail wasn't working. His attempts to get tickets for an on-campus concert kept resulting in returned mail.

He showed me the mail address he was attempting to reach. I asked him where he obtained such an unusual mail address.

He replied, "The sign advertising the concert said, 'begins@7:30PM'."