From The Onion:
The Pentagon announced Monday that it had developed a new chemical weapon called “ennui gas,” a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life.
Symptoms include uncontrollable sighing, repeated utterances of the phrase “What’s the use?” a confusion and bitterness regarding one’s place in the universe, and an increased proclivity to listen to Lou Reed records.
“Because ennui gas is a nonpersistent substance, it is highly probable that its victims will someday feel whole again,” said Christie, suddenly furrowing his brow and gripping his temples. “Then again, no one is truly whole, are they? We are all just pieces of flesh and bone masquerading as life, and the world will go on without me, my absence unnoticed, death as futile as life. Pain hath no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower.”
Christie then lay down behind the podium and told members of the press to leave, repeatedly stating that there is no point to it all.
Call me weird for holding a personal grudge against a dictionary fragment, but this one is slightly grating. ‘Consult’, like a type of uncle, is inherently shifty. Even the meaning of the word is a runaround, disclaiming actual results: it’s just a consultation.
I brought this up to Marc who explains,
Consulting is an awesome word. It means you can double your rate without actually adding any new value to whatever you’re offering.
Like the uncle, consulting had a chance until it fell in with the wrong crowd:
- Consultants turn up to tell your boss whom to fire.
- Consultations are scheduled by opaque firms before you can figure out whether you need them.
- Consultants are unemployed schmoozers with clammy handshakes frantically handing out business cards.
The whole value chain is nebulous when people consult consultancies (staffed, I suppose, by consultants.) Calling oneself a “consultant” seems to shirk any attempt to clarify your role.
Decrying a similar term, ‘solution’, Erin Kissane says:
The hard work of breaking down complex ideas into easily grasped benefits and clearly described features is inescapable. And if no one anywhere in the company seems to be able to articulate those benefits and features, it’s probably time for a stiffer cure than a rewrite.
Voila. The problem with ‘consulting’ is the same weepy problem dropped on your lap by “synergy”: existential despair. Fraught with meaninglessness, the vacant term is will shabbily house whatever rickety concept you drag in. This is why there are “hedge fund consultants” as well as “prostitution consultants”, despite the two fields being widely disparate (though on second thought..)
