What A Ripoff!

When I was back home, my Dad showed me this book, which he was reading. Its called "Rip-off!: The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine" I'm going to read it after him.

I was talking to him last night and he mentioned the controversy about the HSE project which is after costing upwards of €165 million, €50 million of which has gone on consultancy fees. I hadn't heard about it, but when I searched for it, I found loads of articles (here, here, here and here) Turns out it was Deloitte that is ripping off people, but I wouldn't have been surprised if it was my beloved ex-employer, another consultancy firm.

Having worked in consulting, and didn't think very highly of it, I can totally understand what happened though. I heard that my ex-employer were charging about €2,000/day for my services. Now I can assure you, I wasn't earning anywhere near that. It's crazy that a recent graduate can command that cost, considering I knew crap all.

My Dad was saying that people were earning that same amount a day, so God knows how much they were charging the company for their services.

It's projects like this that give IT a bad name. When really it's just stupidity of the project owners in not realising what the consultants are charging for. Consultants are very good at exploiting weaknesses in the companies and telling them how great the result will be, and then leaving them very short of what they said.

In my one project at the consultancy firm, it was about 3/4 weeks late, when the total project was only about 5 months. I could explain in great depth why it was a total sham, but I won't. I'd be here all day. It was just one of the reasons I left the industry. The money is great there, but I couldnt sleep well knowing my work was a complete joke.

P.S. I love my ex-employer, and I think their legal department is one of the finest in the world. But hopefully I won't get a call from them!