The Diary of a Reluctant Management Consultant

Friday afternoons are seldom associated with work. Surfing the net, doodling, staring at random spreadsheets, long lunches and Friday afternoon drinks perhaps, but seldom work. So it was a pleasant surprise when several massage therapists arrived on our floor, offering free stress relief massages! They came from a company called Hands On Healing. At first, I thought they were part of a Pentecostal ministry here to cast out evil spirits, heal the infirm and bless the poor in spirit, in which case they were in the right place. They did offer to “lay their hands on us”, but were in fact referring to a simple shoulder and neck massage conducted conveniently in your un-ergonomic office chair. Apparently, someone felt that stress levels were too high and the only solution was massages at your desk. Must be the same person who gave us ‘stress level monitoring’ fridge magnets – I kid you not, I still have mine!

The annoying thing about people who’ve just completed their MBAs, some obscure certification or random training course, is that when they return to work they enthusiastically, but naively, want to implement everything they’ve just leant by next Thursday. Colleagues just back from the “Manage More Effective Meetings” course want to have agendas for any meeting including the one we had to decide what we’re wearing for Steve’s fancy dress party next weekend. I was chastised for not “speaking through the Chairperson” when I called dibs on Batman. Nervous, shy types just back from “Assertiveness Training” want to say no to everything to avoid being taken advantage of. I’ve just come up with a clever way to stop the nervous, shy types from coming to Steve’s fancy dress: ask them! They’re now obliged to say no! How assertive they are!

We’ve been preparing for the Soccer World Cup since 2004 and in just four short weeks, it’s now all over. Sort of like Guns ‘n Roses long-awaited “new” album, Chinese Democracy but far more successful. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to four games, visit a couple of fan parks and get held up at 06:45 on the M1 South by Joe Biden’s cavalcade. But now that it’s over and done with, it’s time to reflect on what are the top ten things I learnt from the 2010 Soccer World Cup

Having been a member of two Toastmasters Clubs before – one at university where we may have drunk more wine than we spoke and the other at Nedbank, it was my pleasure to speak at the 2010 Toastmaster’s “Laduma” Maxicon Conference, held at Gold Reef City. Here’s a quick clip

It has come to my attention that this month is interim performance appraisal month. I became aware of it when I received an invitation to my interim performance appraisal meeting. We all know your rating was already decided weeks ago, after you finished some random task or said something irrelevant in a meeting that either made your boss think you’re the company champion or the fifth floor’s village idiot.

I’m finding it very difficult to get anything useful done at the office. And seeing that I bill by the hour, this is proving to be as annoying as a VIP convoy bludgeoning its way through peak hour traffic (being late for a soccer game isn’t an emergency). Team members are taking leave every second day to watch soccer games, attendance at my meetings is falling as people leave work early, despite me offering to brand only three people per meeting as work-shy lazy bastards (WLBs) and those that do make it to the meetings arrive late, offering flimsy excuses like “We were stuck in traffic”. Apparently, while stuck in traffic this group of WLBs were attacked by a gang of Argentineans fans who mercilessly painted the Argentinean flag on their faces. Given this complete abandonment of responsibility, I’ve decided to exact my own revenge as only a reluctant management consultant can. So, here are my Top Ten Ways to Annoy Soccer Fans at Work

I have no doubt that many of you dear readers are serious-minded, rational, focused businessmen and women that are finding this whole World Cup thing to be a distraction at best and an immense productivity drain at worst. If you went to the bank at 15:00 last Friday afternoon, I doubt you would have found anyone to greet you, let alone help you. Now, I know that this is very similar to your usual Friday afternoon banking experience, but look on the bright side, at least the queues were shorter. FIFA and the South African government assure us that the World Cup isn’t just some frivolous soccer tournament meant to fill the coffers of FIFA and the South African government, but rather it will be a boon to the local economy. So far all the economic benefits that I’ve seen are the following

With only four sleeps to go until the start of the Soccer World Cup, tourists from all over the world are making their way to South Africa, eager to follow their teams through this beautiful country of ours. But South Africa is not your regular, run-of-the-mill-we-have-public-transport-and-electricity countries. So, as a service to all the visitors arriving this week, here are my top tips for the month ahead

There are only ten days left until the start of the largest sporting event in the world, the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Yes, the excitement is building, as this means there are only 41 days left until the end of the largest sporting event in the world. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m as thrilled as the next guy about the World Cup being hosted in South Africa, particularly in my home town of Johannesburg… as long as the next guy happens to be a cynical, crabby, consultant concerned about the impact of a soccer tournament on his billable hours, project schedule and his ability to make it to drinks at News Café next Friday afternoon. Let’s be honest here, all we have ahead of us is four weeks of a bunch of guys kicking a ball around.

As part of my ongoing quest to give you new, interesting and exciting ways to procrastinate at work, I’ve made a downloadable version of your horoscope. Thanks for the feedback, I’m only too glad to assist in mapping out the rest of your working year. I’ll have to consultant the stars again at the beginning of 2011 (it’s so difficult to get an appointment) and prognosticate what the new year will bring to us all. I’m sensing higher inflation, more regulation of financial markets and the Germans upholding the ban on naked shorts, covered longs and Speedos.