DAY OF THE CONSULTANT
When I started teaching way back when the old king was still alive & wars were fought on horseback, in school you had teachers, a Headmaster/Mistress, kids & a guy from the local education authority who popped in once a year to check that the toilets were still painted cream & green. And that was that. Now we have Educational Consultants. These are sharp, smooth, crisp young men & women who know a great deal more about teaching than we do. They arrive in small groups bearing laptops & they help us all immeasurably with advice & guidance about absolutely everything from how to run a computer network so that it crashes everyday & not just Mondays to the precise distance between the painted bars of the parking bays. They will quote Euro rulings, will be totally up to speed on the latest government u-turns & will give out generally with all the zeal of the newly converted. But when one is caught alone by the coffee machine, out of hearing of the flock, s/he will agree readily that it’s all crap but that you’ve got to make a living somehow.
My pal Geoff sent me the following. It says it all.
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW emerged from the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd scrutinised the man for a long time, then, looking back at his peacefully grazing flock, he shrugged & calmly answered, "Sure."
The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his notebook and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he printed out a 150 page report on his miniaturized printer then turned to the shepherd and said, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep."
"Absolutely right. You’d better take one of the sheep," said the shepherd, apparently nonplussed.
He watched the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.
Then the shepherd said: " If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
The man considered for a few moments. "OK, why not? he chuckled. After all, what could a mere shepherd know about the complexities of the world of commerce?
"Clearly, you are a consultant," said the shepherd.
"That's correct," said the yuppie, astonished. "But how did you guess that out of all the possible options?"
"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you know jack-shit about my business... Now give me back my dog."
1:00:00 PM 
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