Now, you might think that Consulting is a cushy job, but I risk my life and my last vestiges of sanity everyday. Here, in bulleted form (as always) are the perils of the consulting life.

Structure

• Everything has to bestructured into bullet points (dots and dashes. Morse would be proud!): Someone's thoughts, a news paper article. I mean, seriously guys, haven't you HEARD of MECE??*
• Arguments are structured into feedback format, "I have seen you throw your socks right outside the laundry basket and it makes me MAD. You can throw it INTO the basket the next time!!"
• Notice should be made of this blog post, in particular. All sentences are in passive voice and parallelly phrased, even when it makes for ultra-painful sentences like this one.

Conversation topics

• Statements like "You are SUCH a P." are a normal topic of half hour conversations. Hail MBTI!
• Words like "leverage" and "institutionalize" are all in a day's work
• Removal of "work" from the list of topics for conversation results in the descent of a deathly pall  on the lunch table
• The word "interesting" is laced with all kinds of negative connotations.

Feelings

• Inactivity is the most hated subject of all. The word "beach" evokes dread to your tippy toes.
• Inactivity is followed closely by rival consulting firms & bankers.
• Feelings? What feelings? Consultants are uni-dimensional human beings.

Other (aka the "Other" dump)

• Prized possessions include SPG cards, Star Alliance gold cards, corporate credit cards.
• Legroom in economy class is sooo limited.
• Everyone wants to leave in one and a half year. No matter which position they are in.

*Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. Like this list- not really.

Thanks, Heidi, for the inspiration!