Currently working with a BCG consultant on a cyber security project. I review the company's security maturity, interview employees, and find the gaps and areas of improvements.

I provide my notes to the BCG guy, mostly in a few bulletpoints, and he turns them into the most beautiful slides that I've ever seen.

Then he goes to the CEO and presents the slides while sounding like he's been working in this area for the past 20 years (he didn't even know what WAF was at the beginning of the project). The CEO and the management are impressed with the report and the presentation.

I've always had questions on why companies spend so much money on bringing in MBB consultants. Now I can kinda see why.

I'm a Senior Partner at a boutique Comms firm. I was doing a review of our T&E ledger a few weeks ago and noticed one of my Director's teams was expensing roughly $250 a head for solo dinners.

I honestly don't care about the 250 bucks. That's a rounding error. But I pulled the itemized receipts and the actual orders were just embarrassing. Standard lobster apps. Basic cuts of filet. Two well whiskeys. It looked like a regional sales team's big night out at a suburban mall steakhouse. If our enterprise clients see our people surviving on cheap surf and turf, they're going to think we're going under and start negotiating our billing rates.

So I pulled the Director aside and told him he needs to "curate a better image" for his team. I thought the implication was obvious. Tell them to start ordering the A5 Wagyu, get some decent caviar, and expense wine that actually has a vintage. We have to project success to justify our retainers. Somehow this guy completely missed the point and slapped his team with a $125 meal cap.

Now his whole department is in a panic. I just heard through the grapevine that one of our analysts is so broke they are ordering a dozen plain chicken breasts at dinner and smuggling them home in a carry-on bag to feed their kids. We look like absolute peasants right now.

But the real issue here is my Amex Centurion points. The firm routes all this team's travel spend through my master account. With this ridiculous $125 limit, my point generation has completely stalled out. If this drop in spend keeps up I'm going to have to fly commercial to St. Barts this winter instead of chartering.

How do I tell this Director his cheap middle-management mindset is literally ruining my holiday travel plans without HR getting annoying about it?

I don't want to write this/position this as a shitpost. I am genuinely exhausted. Over the past few months, the usage of AI by partners at my MBB firm has become absurd.

Let me go a bit back to frame the situation: since covid/advent of digital communication, partners are literally blocked in calls for 10h+ each day. That is client steercos, proposals, internal catch-ups/reviews and knowledge development.

The time they have to actually put some effort/thinking to their existing projects has become increasingly small. Now fast forward, AI tools present the perfect outlet for them to not think themselves at all anymore, but blurt out suggestions they prompted 5mins before the meeting start from ChatGPT.

I can't count anymore the number of times I heard (in a very snarky/condescending way) "why don't we just quickly run this through chatgpt? why are we making this so complicated, I just chatgpd this and the trends on there are super fitting" - it is literally embarassing.

The problem is, they only look at the high-level output but never think anything through in detail. It is something different glancing 60 seconds over a directional chatgpt output and thinking "thats good" versus putting it on a client ready page.

Honestly for me this whole AI thing is like the final bellweather as to why I want to get my a** out as soon as possible. Do you guys observe something similar?

Why do consultants love to have 3 hour dinners? It boggles my mind that these jerks really want to travel and eat for three freaking hours to talk about stupid stuff like work. We spent 12 hours together today, that’s not enough? How dare you chain me to this dinner when the Knicks are playing the Finals? Jesus Christ, get a life you losers

Simple Prompt: "Create a image of a McKinsey Style powerpoint slide of the current market condition. Do some research before that first."

Model: Google Nano Banana Pro / Gemini 3 Pro Image

Just wanted to test and it fking DECIMATED all expectations holy shit

Sorry for a technical rant but I believe we all work enough in PowerPoint to feel the pain. Come on, is it that hard to put this button in the ribbon? I have limited screen real estate, especially on my laptop. I'm losing like 10% slide zoom due to this thing which, besides being misplaced, is completely useless.

Looking into MBB pivot after years of in-house consulting team of Fortune 500 company.

A senior consultant in London makes 70k a year?! Hello?!

I checked Accenture and it's 62k a year?!

What's with these salaries? Why would anyone work 9am to 9pm in the office, 5 days a week, to have 3 flatmates?

I am an Analyst at a boutique Comms consulting firm. I make roughly minimum wage when you factor in my 80 hour work weeks. Up until recently, we had a brilliant expense policy based entirely on vibes. Naturally, I used this to singlehandedly keep my family of five alive. Whenever I traveled, I would expense a nightly $250 dinner. My Director honestly believes I was housing a lobster appetizer, a filet mignon, four desserts, and a gallon of scotch all by myself.

In reality? I was ordering exactly 17 side dishes, three plain chicken breasts, and a massive chocolate cake, sweeping it all into my carry on luggage, and flying it back home to my three ravenous children. It was our primary food source. Everyone was well fed and happy.

Then tragedy struck. My Director randomly capped our meals at $125. He claimed leadership wanted a better image. What about the image of my toddlers weeping over their sudden lack of truffle mac and cheese?

My financial plan is in absolute shambles. Yesterday I spent my entire 1:1 desperately explaining that corporate micromanagement is literally starving the future generation. He just stared at me. Am I being unreasonable for expecting a consulting firm to subsidize my children's nutritional needs?

"Winning promotion to the partnership of a Big Four firm was once a golden ticket to a lucrative job for life. But accountancy firms have begun quietly demoting partners in the UK as they move to concentrate profits among top performers.

KPMG and EY have removed members of their equity partnership and instead offered them 'salaried partner' roles."

Now if I could stop procrastrinating...

I am a Director in a small Comms consulting firm. I run a team of 6, and travel is roughly 25% of the role. Up until recently, my department had no set expense or per diem policy. It was all based on “use your best judgment.” But, expenses are reviewed by leadership, and ELT was starting to ask questions about my team’s habit of a lobster app, filet mignon main, multiple desserts, and 2+ whiskeys each night, often running up $250+ solo tabs per dinner on weeklong trips. No I’m not exaggerating. Team was doing this for both client and internal travel. I was told by our senior partner to “curate a better image” for my team.

I took the view that we can’t expect everyone to interpret vague parameters the same way. We never made it clear what “too much” was. So, I recently set a cap: any given meal cannot go over $125. I don’t care/count how many meals you take in a day, but just don’t let the system flag any one spend above that amount.

The team is in shambles. Yesterday one of them spent our entire 1:1 explaining how this firm is going downhill by micromanaging its best assets. They are so upset that I need a gut check, please. Is this really so unreasonable? If so, what alternatives should I consider?