Consulting

There are meetings where everyone in the room knows the truth and nobody says it.

I’d been through the existing codebase. The designs were rough; the code behind them was worse, not catastrophically wrong, just badly built, in the way that happens when a team has been too busy to be honest with itself, and too stubborn to revisit the amateur choices it had made along the way.
I’d written it up. They’d seen my assessment and recommendations, but a new deck was better.

The meeting opened with a presentation: architecture diagrams, process flows, the kind of thing that takes real effort.
I didn’t say much.

The manager called me in.
I already knew.
I’d known for weeks, in the way you know something before you’re willing to say it out loud.
The conversation was ten minutes.
The decision had already been made, by both of us, long before that.

Consulting rule #1: Smile, nod, and translate chaos into meaning.  
Rule #2: Don’t let your sarcasm show.  
Rule #3: Break Rule #2 when appropriate.  

Trying to be client-friendly while carrying a sarcasm habit is like juggling flaming swords in a library: impressive if it works, disastrous if it doesn’t.

This is my daily dilemma: I’m in a customer-facing role, but my personality leans dry, cynical, and borderline allergic to buzzwords. I can steer through three political minefields per call and blueprint clarity from chaos, yet it still leaks out like House M.D.’s smirk when calling out bullshit.

Imagine, if you will, that building a SaaS application is like constructing the perfect sports car. Sleek, powerful, a marvel of engineering.

I, of course, am Jeremy Clarkson in this scenario — the architect with the vision, the genius behind the wheel. My engineers? Well, they’re supposed to be the pit crew, precision-tuned experts ready to make my dream a reality.

“I hate and categorically refuse quick wins”, I angrily yelled.
The managers in the meeting jumped. They weren’t used to seeing me lose my zen and calm temper so often.

“I have a huge ethical problem with this organisation’s culture of quick wins. We are adding more layers of band-aids before even healing the scares”, I continued.