The weird ways consultants cheat on their customers

The wonderful world of consulting, where creativity knows no bounds - especially when it comes to making money.

As one of these clever creatures, I've developed a pricing strategy that's more like a gentle caress for my clients' wallets, rather than a greedy stranglehold. And let me tell you, it pairs beautifully with the infamous Project Ripoff Lifecycle ™️ technique to create a steady revenue stream. But hey, most consultants are on a mission to find the project that pays the most, and who can blame them? They count hours x hourly rate, and try to maximise the latter. Most of us do.

But there's a limit to how much you can squeeze out of your customers before they start to get annoyed. And let's be real, if you're charging an arm and a leg, they might just decide not to renew that contract next time around. Then you'll be left with a few months of "slack time" - a.k.a. the consultant's version of unemployment.

On the other hand, some consultants take the phrase "work smarter, not harder" to a whole new level. I've seen them automate and schedule pull requests so they can take a day or two off. They do the actual work a few days earlier (not that much effort required), and then schedule the commits and pushes to their branches so it looks like they're working around the clock. And let's not forget the pièce de résistance: a $15 mouse mover that keeps their Teams status looking active, just in case anyone thinks they're out having fun instead of... well, filling the washing machine. Assuming you are doing remote work.

And then there are the "trusted consultants" - masters of creating problems where none exist, making things look complicated, and then "solving" them in time. It's a delicate dance of smoke and mirrors, but hey, it works like a charm. Many of these wizards land extensions, better positions, and even become supervisors and superheroes as the customers learn to trust them. After all, they solved so many issues and helped the customer when there were real problems.

I knew one such consultant back in the mid 2000s who worked on ERPs. He had a clever trick up his sleeve: creating the same "problem" in each project (for different customers), letting it escalate for a week or two, and then proposing the same solution to each customer - which would solve the problem. The customers were thrilled... until word got out, that is. Let's just say he wasn't an independent consultant for long, and his need for job security eventually drove him back to a permanent job - probably for the best, considering his skills were mediocre at best.

But hey, most independent IT consultants aren't trying to pull off any of these shenanigans. They're just regular folks who do their work, get paid, and live happily ever after. Sure, they might not know much about business, and those pesky consultant brokers might take advantage of them. But at the end of the day, they have very little stress.