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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: Why people dislike consultants
Interesting theories. I guess you're in the USA. I'm in the UK, where things may be different, but I'll answer from my point of view.
From what you say, I would guess you've not been in the business too long, forgive me if I'm wrong. I don't agree that people do not like computer consultants very much. I think permies are sometimes jealous of our earning power and depth of knowledge. They tend to grow out of this as they mature and their own earning power increases. Eventually, some of the permies even end up as consultants themselves!
Could you avoid hiring a consultant for the day by surfing the web? Maybe for some simple problems. Wouldn't you rather get a consultant in and pick their brains on the subject in question, as well as read around on the net? That way you get the best of both worlds.
My guess is you've had experience of bad consultants. There are bad consultants, just as there are bad permies. At least with consultants you don't have to hire them again, it's as simple as that. If you find a good one, stick with them.
Regards,
Simon
Quoting for uk.consultants:
morlej_at_my-deja.com wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> It seems to me, from my experience in the industry, that people do not
> like computer consultants very much. As my experience mostly falls in
> the Oracle domain, I thought this would be a good place to ponder this
> issue.
>
> I thought I would scribe some of my thoughts to provoke the discussion.
> Some may be a little contentious, to shake the bag a bit, so to speak:
>
> Q1. Who commissions a consultant?
> A1. Your boss - somebody with enough approval authority to pay for the
> service. This is the first bone of contention - is it true that when a
> consultant appears, he/she is not entirely expected/wanted by the
> people doing the work?
> Nobody can dispute that you really need help once in a while, for any
> number of reasons. How CHEAP would consulting help need to be in order
> to allow the purchasing decision to fall back into the hands of the
> guy/gal with hands on keyboards? Would this kind of model make the help
> more welcome?
>
> Q2. Why do consultants get commissioned in the first place?
> A2. Bandwidth. Surely most of the value that a consultant brings is
> already available in an increasing number of online resources? Is a
> consultant not a redundant figure? What possible extra value can a
> consultant bring? Is it purely the case that there is not enough time
> to surf for the answers?
>
> Q3. Are consultants good enough to rehire?
> A3. Mostly not. This results in a large proportion of the chargeable
> hours being spent by the consultant finding his/her feet, only to never
> return. Net result to the permanent employee: lots of wasted time, and
> only a small gain made.
>
> Q4. What do consultants NOT offer as a service?
> A4. What people actually need. Things like a nicely organized approach
> to performance analysis, complete tools for space management, and so
> on. Consultants enjoy being enigmas, and cherry picking the nice work,
> like narrow-band performance investigations, and the best bits of
> architecture work.
>
> Am I wrong, or are these common feelings? If I were a consultant, I
> would want to know what I could do to be a shining light - perhaps
> asking the following questions in addition to those above:
>
> What are your most common performance problems?
> What duties takes the most time in your job?
> What duties do you dislike the most?
> What can I do to help?
>
> Just my two pennies!
>
> James
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Received on Mon Nov 15 1999 - 10:26:11 CST
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