A tribute

A pallid hue prevailed in the conference room during dusk. The pillars cast spectral shadows across the hall in the fading light. The prevailing gloom reflected my mood, and it wasn’t helped by the weather outside. The heat. The oppressive, unrelenting heat, coupled with the depressing humidity, sapped my strength and made me sweat. Shiny beads of sweat ran down my forehead and spine. It usually took all my attention to avoid it dripping down on my keyboard. But not today. A task was at hand right now, and it couldn’t wait for the air-conditioner to come on again.

As the numbers flashed in front of my eyes for the millionth time, I realized that I had been staring. Staring at the same worksheet for what seemed like an eternity without actually looking. These numbers had the potential to kill. They could spell impending doom for a poor hapless employee sitting halfway across the world, sipping his morning coffee and unaware that his world will come crashing down in the next review cycle. These numbers could wake up, swallow a company whole, and then hibernate like a satiated boa until it was time to feed again. Numbers were ruthless, unforgiving and obscene in their portrayal of the truth. In a world in shades of grey, numbers were black and white.

And these numbers were mine to play with. I was a magician, manipulating them, tweaking them upwards, downwards and sideways. I juggled with them, conjuring up dark interpretations to suit my own fancy, attempting to mix up the blacks and whites to create my shade of grey.

Step back a bit.

My seemingly innocuous actions could have a butterfly effect on the sheltered prey I was pointing towards. There were lots of predators out there, hungry, ravenous, waiting for my signal to pounce. I was two degrees removed from the victims I was exposing. Did that absolve me of my guilt? Could I live on with these deaths on my conscience? What was I committing myself to, as I groped about in this daily miasma of data?

What could I do? I was but a pawn. An unwitting pawn in this dirty, bloody game, a game that ran high above the ceilings I could ever aspire to reach. Being an accomplice was the only way I could climb the wall that, I believed, reached these ceilings. Did they actually reach up that high? I didn’t know. But did I care? Maybe I won't. Eventually, I won’t.

The world wished for a bright new day tomorrow, but first I looked forward to a dark night.

New Ventures

So, Answer First and The Consultant are musing on future career prospects while checking out the world wide web on the beach*.



*Being a euphemistic name for being jobless. Such are the glorious uncertainties of The Consulting Life

One year later...

Answer First, Zero Defect & The Consultant are happily sitting in their semi-retirement home in a small village off the road to a National Park in India's Silicon Valley. It has been an uneventful sabbatical from the murky world of consulting. But how did this happen?

Cue Music... (Pink Panther Theme. Pardon the obviousness of the choice). The background cuts to montages of 'decks', conference calls where the three consultants find something better do to (in one famous example, sleep), bad laptops, debriefing sessions and intercontinental flights. Close up shot of airline food that fades to black & white.

And... CUT. Present.

Answer First morosely chews on an unlit fag, "Do you chaps ever consider getting back to the ol' life?"

Zero Defect remembered himself between comparing paint swatches and sofa fabric for the hearth, "Uh? Kind of..." He remembers the portentious words he typed on his slides with the entire life of companies hanging in the balance.

The Consultant pipes up, "Of course. I am not sure I have any skills to survive in the real world anyway."

All three ex-consultants look at each other and shudder at the thought of the real world.

The Consultant adds shrilly, "I know that the TV series was bad and all, but..."

By now, Zero Defect has collected his thoughts and uttered the final say, "Of course, we're going back to save the world... "

Cue Music- Mission: Impossible Theme.

We never said that we were creative, did we?