11. As soon as the contract with Greater Galactic Group, or GGG, is signed (bigger is better, right?), the very impressive Billing Partner disappears, except when it's time to discuss more money.
10. That partner is rapidly replaced by a phalanx of nice kids with fuzzy cheeks or ponytails (or both) wearing n ice suits, walking the walk, talking the talk, and happy to learn on your time.
9. Those nice kids also are charging you more than 3 times their salaries.
8. The reporting ratio of people billing your job (ratio of workers t o managers) is greater than the reporting ratio they're recommending to you.
7. You find out that one of those partners billed all his clients a total of 33 hours in a single day.
6. Words like "total", "synergy", re-invent", "strive" and "coordinate" are chanted more than once per sentence, with no numbers in sight.
5. You suddenly discover you're paying for a truckload of programmers writing C Code for some vaguely-defined purpose. If they're actually deliver ing something, you hear: "Whaddya mean, Test? Don't you trust me?"
4. GGG turns out to be a subsidiary of Fleecem, Soakem and Howe, who certify your company's financial statements (or who can decide to qualify their certification).
3. When you ask if the consultant is also working for a competitor, or the financial advisor is also a broker, you hear "Yeah, we have a Chinese Wall policy to avoid conflicts of interest." Yup.
2. After GGG misses another deadline, you learn that the lead partner had asked for a golf date with your boss, before telling you that the deadline will be missed.
1. And the Top Reason...: A buddy at Consolidated Industries proudly shows you a consultant's report written just for her, and after glancing at the title you already know what's on Pages 2,3,4,5....
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