A man walked into a consultant's office and inquired about the rates for a study "Well, we usually structure the project up front, and charge £150.00 for three questions", replied the consultant. "Isn't that awfully steep?" asked the man. "Yes," the consultant replied, "and what was your third question?"------------And my tip to all you aspiring little high-flyers out there? A consultant's credo: Learn to be sincere even if you have to fake it.

E&* B*S - now that's a joke. Mo** M**D**ald - that's another consulting joke.Sorry for the asterisks - this joke was judged too edgy in its original form and removed. It's meant to be tongue in cheek.

Why is it that whenever I put my tongue in my cheek, I end up biting it?

Once upon a time there was a shepherd looking after his sheep on the edge of a deserted road. Suddenly a brand new Mercedes screeches to a halt next to him. The driver, a young man dressed in a flash suit and tie, gets out and asks the shepherd 'If I guess how many sheep you have, will you give me one of them?'The shepherd looks at the young man, then looks at the sheep which are grazing and says 'Alright'. The young man parks the car, connects the notebook and the mobile, enters a NASA site, scans the ground using his GPS, opens a database and 60 Excel tables filled with algorithms, then prints a 150-page report on his high-tech mini-printer. He then turns to the shepherd and says 'You have exactly 1662 sheep here'.The shepherd answers 'That's correct, you can have your sheep'.The young man takes the sheep and puts it in the back of his Mercedes. The shepherd looks at him and asks 'If I guess your profession, will you return my sheep to me?'The young man answers 'Yes, why not' The shepherd says 'You're an Accenture consultant!' 'How did you know?' asks the astonished young man. 'Very simple' answers the shepherd 'First, you came here without being called. Second, you charged me a sheep to tell me something I already knew. Third, you obviously don't understand anything about what I do. Now give me back my dog!

But we still got paid, yeah?

Well obviously not because he asked for his dog back...

Clearly the schoolboy error made here is that the consultant undertook the work on a fixed fee rather than time and expense basis. If they'd billed on time and expense, they could have earned more for counting the dogs as well as the sheep.

What inaccurate reportage! Where's this story from - Private Eye?Clearly, being Accenture, the whole point of the exercise wasn't to count sheep but rather to build the relationship. The dog was being outsourced (DPO - Dog Process Outsourcing) not taken as payment.