Re: Why people dislike 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?
>

Not quite sure what planet you are from. I'll venture my own opinions however.

I've been a consultant since 1993. My speciality is Oracle and C/C++ programming under Unix.

The money is quite good and unless there is a special need I am not expected to work more than a 40-hour week and I bill all of my overtime when there is a special need and I'm asked to do overtime. Permanent employees are often expected to "donate" 10 or more hours a week.

I am often put in the role of a miracle worker. My specialized knowledge is such that I can walk into a crisis situation and turn a disaster into success. For that, the company I am contracted to is quite grateful. In addition, I often have a depth of knowledge that is not held by the permanent employees and that generally means that in many cases I am more qualified to perform certain tasks. Because I must constantly think about job security I am always actively working to learn new things that will make me valuable in the marketplace. Permanent employees often do the same thing year after year and never really learn new skills.

What I dislike as a consultant is that I am really not a part of the company I work for. They get paid vacations, training, perks, etc. The permanent employees get nice, slick equipment to work with and I often have to use whatever happens to be available. If they need a new hard drive, books, etc. they are often empowered to simply put in a written request and it is rubber-stamped. I have to resort to subtle hints and suggestions and generally have to wait months for something that I really need to make my work easier. Real employees get offices with doors and windows. I get stuck in whatever small cubicle that happens to be available on the day I show up for a new position. When real employees travel they tend to use company-issued corporate credit cards and when they return they just voucher the charges. I have to pay for things with my own credit card and then put in an expense report and get reimbursed and end up paying the interest on charges that I accrued for trip.

So, it is a mixed bag. I get paid a lot because I have to put up with a situation where I am at a disadvantage by not being a permanent employee. If I were offered a permanent position in keeping with my level of skills and experience I'd probably take it even if I had to take a cut in pay.

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