The Diary of a Reluctant Management Consultant

South Africans unite to support Ghana against Uruguay, but only until next weeks's planned xenophobia

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:

Wanted for facepainting

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:

The vuvuzela - the reason why I'll be taking a pair of ear plugs and a taser to the World Cup games

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:

• If there is one thing overseas visitors are going to remember about South Africa is that innocuous looking plastic horn called the vuvuzela. They will remember it because it will be the cause of their inevitable deafness. The urge to support your team with a monotone vuvuzela drone will have certainly put some money in the pockets of horn manufacturers, traffic light vendors and ear specialists.
• An unintended consequence of the vuvuzela is the rocketing demand for ear plugs. My local chemist is sold out, but fortunately my armed cousin tells me a little known secret: gun shops and shooting ranges still have stock. Another unintended, but fortunate consequence of our high crime rate.
• Face paint manufacturers from China are smiling simply because there are six different colours in the South African flag. That’s a lot of face paint. Don’t forget, for large surfaces, use a roller. The global supply of orange face paint is also finished as the Dutch have bought it all.
• I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the enormous benefit that the five, spectacular new stadiums will bring to the country. We’ve already managed to squeeze out a couple of National Geographic “Megastructures” programs. And let’s not forget the hundreds of Rands to be made from the cable car going over the Moses Mabhida Stadium. It remains to be seen if Africa’s Big Five will now include a few white elephants.
• Vast improvements have been made to our roads. Some of these improvements include fixing them, as opposed to just putting up a sign that warns of pot holes. Previously the average Joburger would be frustrated in just three lanes of stagnant traffic. But thanks to the upgrading of the highways we can now be frustrated in four lanes of stagnant traffic.
• Tourism dollars are pouring in! We fully expect the number of tourists to be attacked by wildlife to increase. Just because you saw the Lion King doesn’t mean real lions are as wise and as well spoken as Mufasa. They’ll still eat you… as they did the Taiwanese tourist from a couple of years back, who stepped out of his vehicle to give his wife a biscuit!
• 20,000 people at the Sandton fan park – that’s a lot of portable toilets! Turns out there’s money to be made in poo!
• Thanks to World Cup, economists are being kept busy, desperately trying to calculate the economic benefits of the World Cup.

South Africa, found rather cunningly at the southern end of Africa

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:

• The name of our country, South Africa, is quite a clever little clue indicating exactly where you can find us, i.e. the southern bit of Africa. This tip is particularly for the American I met on the plane in February who, when I said I was from South Africa wanted to know “so, where in Africa would I find that?” The southern part, I believe.
• South Africa is a big country, roughly about three times the size of Germany. We have game parks the size of England. Thus, our cities aren’t all within an hour’s driving distance. In fact, with the traffic, even the cities that are within an hour’s driving distance aren’t an hour apart!
• It’s winter in South Africa. Most photographs or short, promotional videos of South Africa always have us basking in the African sunshine, frolicking in oceans and barbecuing with people of different races. This is true for most of the year, but winter here can actually be quite cold. It snows in certain parts and the mercury drops to below freezing in several places, particularly overnight. So, if you’re going to an evening game in Johannesburg or even worse, Bloemfontein, you may want to wear something warm, unless you’re from Yorkshire, in which case a t-shirt will suffice.
• As private vehicles will be prevented from accessing the stadia (or ‘stadiums’ if you went to a government school), you will need to take a “park ‘n ride” bus or a minibus taxi to get to the game. Public transport here is not quite as organised as you might find it in your home country, so please do not be perturbed if your bus is late or if your taxi drives up a one way, hooting annoyingly at all the cars driving in the opposite, but correct, direction. Rather conveniently though, taxis will stop to pick you up on the side of a five lane highway.
• When South Africans tell you we have robots at every major intersection, it’s not that we’ve automated everything, it’s because we call traffic lights ‘robots’. We don’t know why either. They don’t normally work.
• ‘Now’, ‘just now’ and ‘now now’ are all used interchangeably, and contrary to what you might think, none of them mean ‘immediately’ but rather refer to some arbitrary time in the future, anywhere between now and next Thursday.
• Beware soccer hooligans: the South African Police does not have a reputation for having a kind and caring approach for dealing with unruly behaviour. They have guns and use them regularly, sometimes even for police-related matters.
• South Africa’s real treasure is that great man Nelson Mandela. If you’d like to take in some of Nelson Mandela’s “Madiba Magic”, please feel free to take Nelson Mandela Drive, go across the Nelson Mandela Bridge, shop at Nelson Mandela Square, visit Nelson Mandela Bay and catch a show at the Nelson Mandela Theatre.
• We use the metric system, so please beware. When the speed limit on highway says 120, that’s kilometres per hour rather than miles per hour. We also drive on the right side of the road, i.e. the left, unless of course you’re in the aforementioned minibus taxi in which case you might find yourself going at 120 miles per hour on the wrong side of the road. Welcome to South Africa. Please enjoy your stay!

The world's most annoying sports tournament comes to South Africa.

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.

Like British Petroleum, for South African businesses, the next month will be a complete write-off. All I hear in the canteen, in meetings and disciplinary hearings is what games people are going to, which fan parks they’ll be visiting and which pub they’re planning on waking up in the next morning. How anyone’s going to make it to work in any sort of productive state is beyond me. Absenteeism will no doubt rise and dodgy doctors will be writing dubious medical certificates, informing employers of mysterious illnesses that are only prevalent for a day. During the 2002 World Cup, a senior manager of the client we were consulting to, at least had the foresight to take the day off every time Italy played. We raised this as a concern with the client as we needed heaps of his time… well, just enough to determine that he was redundant and could be replaced by a machine. Fortunately, Italy didn’t make it very far that year. Co-incidentally, neither did he.

The forecast of receiving over 200,000 international visitors (down from an initial 500,000, which sounds suspiciously like Arthur Anderson did the numbers) does mean that business travel in the country will be severely curtailed. So, the joy of leaving for the airport, getting stuck in traffic, fighting for parking, pushing grannies out of your way to make it to your gate on time, only to find out that your flight has been delayed by a volcano, will have to wait for another four weeks.

Of course, getting around town will be equally challenging. Firstly, due to FIFA’s own making, because they say FIFA will take one lane of every major highway in each host city for their exclusive use. That’s great, but how will they stop our beloved minibus taxis from taking one lane from FIFA for their exclusive use? Secondly, traffic will be hampered by the Johannesburg Metro Council itself, as they have a particular knack of doing things at the most inopportune times. For example, last week they choose to hang up the competing countries’ flags on lamp posts, at 16:30, during peak hour traffic. That makes sense doesn’t it? Bring the entire highway to a grinding halt by putting up flimsy flags. Some of the flags have fallen off already, which means I’m probably going to struggle to get to News Café this Friday too!

While I grumble about the World Cup messing with my routine, soccer players are arriving en masse and are being whisked away to fancy five star hotels, where they may just want to store their valuables in the hotel-provided safes (you know, just in case). And while fans are painting their faces in anticipation, FIFA are preparing sue small children for playing soccer in the street and attempting to trademark the word ‘fun’!