6 ms·

You're right that bullshit sells well. From OP, something about it runs in the family: >socio-economically advantaged teenagers are more likely to be bullshitt

You're right that bullshit sells well. From OP, something about it runs in the family: >socio-economically advantaged teenagers are more likely to be bullshitters than their disadvantaged peers. I had the misfortune of seeing this up close in consulting in tech. Your customers are idiots, that's why they hired "experts." They don't know how to judge expertise (otherwise they wouldn't be hiring you). They hire based on emotions, recommendations and epaulettes because that's the best they can do. All three of those are completely subjected to cronyism, in my observation. My experience here made me a firm believer that institutions and businesses really need to be allowed to fail. The most epic stupidity (and toxic politics) always comes from the ones that were furthest from that principle. And I'm never doing that again. There is nothing I can buy with paychecks from interacting with that toxic, idiotic side of humanity that makes it worth it.

mgkimsal 7y ago
> They don't know how to judge expertise (otherwise they wouldn't be hiring you). I've had this realization many times that, in most cases, I likely sound exactly the same as the 5 BS artists that came before me, and there's very little I can do to distinguish myself outside of long-term relationship building and delivery. Others before me have said the exact same things, just not delivered (or hosed up a project beyond belief). Me saying something may sound exactly the same as the previous X times - they've heard it all before. I've got a few clients I've worked with for years - they trust me implicitly because I've delivered (and when I haven't, I've made good, pushed through, fixed stuff that needed fixing, etc). After years of experience, there's deep trust. When I say "XYZ", they have a high degree of confidence in my ability to deliver. Outside of spending years developing those relationships, I'm not sure how else you can get a level of confidence even close to that.
kthejoker2 7y ago
"Consulting doesn't work because you can't sell consulting to a competent organization and you can't deliver consulting to an incompetent one." Hale's Law* *i.e. me.

mgkimsal 7y ago

> They don't know how to judge expertise (otherwise they wouldn't be hiring you). I've had this realization many times that, in most cases, I likely sound exactly the same as the 5 BS artists that came before me, and there's very little I can do to distinguish myself outside of long-term relationship building and delivery. Others before me have said the exact same things, just not delivered (or hosed up a project beyond belief). Me saying something may sound exactly the same as the previous X times - they've heard it all before. I've got a few clients I've worked with for years - they trust me implicitly because I've delivered (and when I haven't, I've made good, pushed through, fixed stuff that needed fixing, etc). After years of experience, there's deep trust. When I say "XYZ", they have a high degree of confidence in my ability to deliver. Outside of spending years developing those relationships, I'm not sure how else you can get a level of confidence even close to that.

kthejoker2 7y ago

"Consulting doesn't work because you can't sell consulting to a competent organization and you can't deliver consulting to an incompetent one." Hale's Law* *i.e. me.