Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Jan Schaumann

Thinking of starting a new consulting business, called "That's Fucked Up As A Service".

I sit there and you explain your legacy system to me, and all I do is say "That's fucked up." If you agree, you get a discount. If you try to justify the brokenness, you have to pay double.

44 comments
Robert "Anaerin" Johnston

@jschauma So the Japanese concept of the "Loud American", then? (Possibly/probably apocryphal)

A Tumblr thread:

@canadiangold:

best thing i learned today: “The Loud American” role in Japanese businesses 

nobody asked but imma explain anyway

no idea how it came up, but my programming prof was talking about his friend who works for Nintendo Japan who’s secondary role is The Loud American, and my prof explained what that was and how it came about

see, in Japan you do not talk back to your boss. you just don’t, even if they have stupid ideas and want the company to act on them. Like Nissan did sometime back. But since the other employees couldn’t do anything about this terrible idea that would ruin the company, they called in an American who had no reservations about telling the boss that their stupid idea was a stupid idea

and that’s just become a role in Japanese businesses, where they keep an American on staff who plays up the American stereotype and tells the boss what the Japanese employees can’t or won’t out of societal norms
Geogoeroe

@anaerin @jschauma beautiful! Let me know when you need a blunt & direct Dutchie.

Comrade Weez

@anaerin Lovely twist on a very real thing. As a recovering American living in Australia, I'm here to tell you the stereotype is painfully real, even if it isn't readily transportable to a business situation. It's fun to go to restaurants in touristy places and hear the bellowing Americans echoing off the back wall. They don't care if they get a table by the kitchen. @jschauma

jakob.pxi

@anaerin @jschauma problem with "the loud American gambit" is, you probably only get one gaijin bomb, two at most per gig. But it is a valuable strategic asset.

Riley S. Faelan

@anaerin I believe it, because Japan is the strange kind of country where gaijin tarento is a genuine career path for TV pundits.

@jschauma

Uair

@anaerin

Please please please.

I wore out a shirt that said, in big garish letters, Jesus Loves You

And then real little underneath: everybody else thinks you're an asshole.

Almost got my ass kicked for christ a couple times.

jnfrd Jan

@anaerin @jschauma Funny. and in the west it’s the rude German with their impolite „nein!“

Chris

@jschauma I thought that's just called "consulting"

Sylvain Drapeau

@cy @jschauma

Nah, the difference with ordinary consulting is that, agree or not, with a consultant you always pay double.

Abivia

@axnxcamr @cy @jschauma As someone who has done a fair bit of consulting, usually the job is more one of telling senior management how stupid they're being without needing to worry about getting fired. And getting paid double for it (although in fact they're paying for salary plus overhead, not really just double your salary).

Sylvain Drapeau

@abivia

I'm totally wondering why I'm getting well-actuallied on a joke I made in reply to a joke made in reply to a joke.

This feels undeserved, really.

Also, I work in IT. As a consultant...

@cy @jschauma

Abivia

@axnxcamr @cy @jschauma Probably because the text didn't convey to me that it was a joke. Much as my response wasn't intended to make you feel attacked.

Sylvain Drapeau

@abivia

Don't worry, I didn't feel attacked.

Since it was clear (to me) the OP wasn't serious, I didn't feel the need to make it obvious that I was joking.

It kind of was in the spirit of the thread.

Anyways, no hard feelings.

Jonas Köritz

@jschauma during my time as a pentester, that's essentially what we did sometimes. The IT people we worked with would make us add harsh language and warnings to reports to make it easier for them to pull through management approvals for killing legacy stuff.
Boiling it down to just consulting was kind of a product for a while and it sold well. You're on to something 😁

Dave

@jonas @jschauma I still fondly remember the meetings where we'd tell the client "look, this is fucked, that is fucked and oh yeah that over there is fucked as well", the client started yelling at some IT guy and that guy just startet pulling out printed e-mails where he essentially told them the same shit and was told to pound sand.

Those were a lot of fun. (And a lot more often than one would think, though a lot less often than one would hope.)

Jonas Köritz

@Laird_Dave @jschauma the worst instance was, of all places, at a hospital...they started screaming at each other about shit they needed to fix 5y ago and didn't. They took timeouts and breaks to discuss how to go forward 🥴. Weird meeting to have, you tell them one thing and they explode into discussion for an hour.

Dave

@jonas @jschauma time to break out the strategic popcorn reserves

Gabriel Pettier

@jonas @Laird_Dave @jschauma maybe your entire role was telling which side of the stalemate was right, as an independant party with no skin in that game.

Jonas Köritz

@tshirtman @Laird_Dave @jschauma it was, but still didn't feel good at first. By the end of the day we had everyone agree on heavy changes.

Jürgen

@jschauma wrong business model. you should GIVE them money one way and demand an equal amount the other way. you would skyrocket to a place among the billionnaires and i am close to wanting in on the deal - only i know i would feel the urge to bash in heads around the middle of the third story and my moral compass inhibiting me to do so would give way around customer 6 or 7...

Jima :Compromise_bi_flag:

@jschauma @mav This has a distinct value proposition, since management will ignore their employees when they warn of issues like this, but if a CONSULTANT says it, suddenly it's Real. 😉

(Does it count if management denies it's fucked up, but the rank-and-file agree with you? 🤞)

hacktobeer

@jschauma @tomchop I think I am going to adopt this when doing Incident Response and talking to product and service owners!

tomchop

@hacktobeer Hahaha perfect, I'm pretty sure a lot of people will be in agreement. Maybe the discount should be capped?

Martin

@jschauma that would make much better TV than we have currently, if I could suggest a clock face behind them counting up what they owe as they're talking?

Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦

@jschauma I just forwarded someone a link to Bob Newhart's "Stop It" sketch. And now this 😂

Simen

@jschauma Hey! You can't disrupt all cyber security consulting in one toot like that!

Abivia

@jschauma This dovetails with my "you should make this subscription based" service, except you pay double if you agree.

DELETED

@jschauma only double? It's going to take a lot more than double to fix their crap if they fight the fix.

Billy Smith

@jschauma

"It looks like the reason you are paying so much tax, is that your profits are too high."

" I can help you with that. " :D

Go Up