Sad to bring this up, but it needs to be done:-I&apos;ll start off by clarifying that these are my own impressions, based on observation during my time as a participant on this site. I&apos;d be surprised, however, if at least some of what I&apos;ve noted here doesn&apos;t ring true for you.I&apos;m somewhat dismayed at the amount of negative personal interplay that goes on on this forum that often has nothing to do with the thread questions, etc.As a relatively new visitor to this site (and I value a lot of what I find here), I am astonished that so many of us resort to comments of the snide, rude, derogatory and even downright offensive variety to try and discredit any person or idea that does not conform to our own (usually blinkered) view.Examples: if you don&apos;t work here / didn&apos;t go to school there / aren&apos;t impressed by this / don&apos;t read that / question the following / <fill in your own classifier>, etc., then you are a lesser being / a twat / a dipsh*t / an idiot / a fool / a waster / a knob / <fill in your favourite denegratory term>, and so on. Take a quick trawl through the threads and you&apos;ll see what I mean.This forum, as I see it, is for people seeking help or clarification or advice about some issues important to them. We are almost all guilty of what I mentioned above. There are a few notable exceptions. Suggest we take a leaf out of Tony Restell&apos;s book - look at his commentary as an example of good, valuable input. This is what we should be trying to do here.A number of participants on the forum are experienced and practicing consultants, so let&apos;s start acting like the impartial advisors consultants are supposed to be. Provide sound, reasoned, gracious responses to the questions posed. This questions are aften put by people considering joining the industry. I&apos;d likely be put off if I saw what a bunch of d*ckheads are in the MC ranks.Some of us appear to be treating this site as a personal soap box to spout views and opinions, often ridiculing perfectly valid questions and coming up with ludicrous petty comments completely irrelevant to the issue.We say we&apos;re consultants. Let&apos;s grow up and act like it.

let me take a guess:Youre in your mid twentiesYou work for a big4 or a 2nd tier niche player, couldnt hack it with the big boys so you come to this forum to blow off some steam and try to make yourself feel better. You drink a lot, mostly at cheap bars that have that pretentious feel - again for those who want, but cant. Your&apos;e single, no matter how hard you have tried - or how many drinks you down on thursday night with your &apos;mates&apos; at the pub. You buy books that you think will sprout some interesting conversation but you leave them unopened on some shelf - waiting for the next trip to bluewater. You are a hypocritical person - spreading flames on threads (20638), yet try to come across as mature and sophisticated on this one. Get real. And one last thing: Consultants dont call themselves consultants - we dont have to. Only those who aren&apos;t, try to label themselves as such.

Nice try, Spellchecker. But Leveraged Sell-Out is better written... and tends to suggest that consultants don&apos;t call themselves consultants because, well, of the stigma.

why would some consultants not call themselves consultants? i&apos;m a consultant... and i&apos;m not ashamed or afraid to call myself a consultant. so...whats wrong with being a consultant?

Spellchecker,You sly dog, you! You appear to be an impressive judge of character. You also seem to be a dab hand at revealing your own.Your assessment of me was so spot on it&apos;s uncanny - with only a few minor errors. I&apos;ll help you out so that you don&apos;t make the same sort of mistakes again when trying to assassinate someone&apos;s character.I am 35. Happily married for 10 years. Two children, girl 5 and boy 4. I live on the Hampshire-Surrey border in the UK and work mostly with clients in the financial services sector in London. I used to work for an IB (as a director) before joining a small MC and risk management firm as a partner/director. To be honest, I don&apos;t event know if we are on a Tier, but that doesn&apos;t really bother us. We have good relationships with our clients (a fair few blue chippers among them) and tend to find ourselves busy most of the time. I don&apos;t remember ever trying to work for the "big boys" as I don&apos;t view them as some sort of yardstick. I don&apos;t often go to bars, as I don&apos;t drink (and, no, I&apos;m not a recovering alchoholic, before you ask). I read the books I buy because I buy them for me, not on the offchance someone might see them. I also know who my friends are and I actually have time to see them in more appealing surroundings than some bar. I have a rather nice house and am successful by all the measures I choose to judge myself by.So, as you can see, with the exception of everything you said, you got it just about 100% right.I find it curious, however, that you are able to go into such a level of detail. It does suggest that this is a life you&apos;re rather familiar with.As for being a consultant / calling yourself a consultant, it seems to me you actually might consider yourself (and call yourself) one. This is a reasonable assumption, given your presence on a board called "Top-Consultant.com".As for my flame in 20638:1. I was pointing out to SPARKLE what can only have been a direct response to SPARKLE&apos;s comment.2. I agree that my own sarcastic comment at the end of the note (about "looser") was not appropriate - in fact, doing it was what prompted me to open this thread. You&apos;ll notice I did say we&apos;re pretty much all guilty of this sort of thing.In closing, I must thank you for your considered and eloquent response to my post. I think that your sterling efforts, more than mine, have effectively proven my point.

&apos;We are almost all guilty of what I mentioned above&apos;Are we? I dont mean to offend you but what happened to the principle of being innocent until proven guilty?Also whilst there are some offensive and petty minded contributors even on this site there are many, and my point is that there are more, who are not.

A good point, hardhat. And I apologise if I&apos;ve appeared to tar all with the same brush.I did mention that there are some notable exceptions.I also did mention that these were my personal impressions based on traffic during my time on the site.Maybe it&apos;s just the bad stuff that sticks out in my mind as being inappropriate. The human condition - our survival instinct programmes us to see the thing that&apos;s out of place.

I agree with Boxer. One thing is to be tough and straightforward with someone and another thing is to be outright vulgar and nasty. Sometimes there is a fine line, it is true, but it tends to be fairly easy to spot those who that wiith a cool mind (for eg. VI is a good example of someone like that) and the un-nameables who dont. I &apos;ve learnt a lot here. I still do. Sometimes I have to plough through miles of sh*t to get to a good balanced answer. It is a pity.

BOXERSHORTS: Get a sense of humour.If you want nothing but dry factual comment then ask your wife, friends and colleagues for their opinions on the issues bothering you.I find it amazing that such a mature and intelligent man would really trust the content of such a forum as this where most people choose the moniker &apos;Anon&apos;.This is a competitive industry attracting competitive people, if the answers lacked wit, cynicism and bite we would all lose our competitive edge.In answer to your main moan, you will find that interesting and thought provoking threads drive serious comments, those that do not get picked up have therefore not made the grade.My final point is simple. This is a forum, a democracy of comment and debate where we are all equal and where each contributor has a fair chance of success. What it is not is a self help group, where all needy beings are cared for and assisted.

Hi Dave,You&apos;re absolutely right about this not being a self-help group for needy beings. It is, however, a forum where people can ask for advice, opinion and experience about a particular issue around consulting and can expect a reasonable response.I must point out that I never asked for dry factual commentary either. My sense of humour is well-developed and I appreciate banter and wit as much as the next person.My point, which you appear to have missed (and I&apos;m sorry you consider to be a moan), was that there are too many occasions where the line is crossed. Responses get nasty. This is inappropriate and has no place on a forum which IS set up, at least in part, as a source of help for people in the MC community.I&apos;m sure none of us use this site as the source of all truth, but there is value to be had in many cases, otherwise it wouldn&apos;t be frequented like it is.I agree that threads which are not interesting do not get picked up. They are the ones that have a "1" next to them. Interesting and / or controversial threads, on the other hand, do spark debate and this is sopmthing that I&apos;m all for. I just don&apos;t see any reason for it to descend into some personal spiteful war of words as it does on occasion.As for an interesting and thought-provoking thread, I&apos;ve just set up one that I think meets these criteria - it interests me anyway(ref 20937). Let&apos;s see if it &apos;makes the grade&apos;.

Boxershorts is right. The often deeply insecure and fatuous comments on here are amusing up to a point, after which they become dull and fruitless. Why shouldn&apos;t consultants call themselves consultants? Companies consult them on what to do. Whether that is always a good-value process is irrelevant to the label. I long to read more about the realities of the industry, about how consultants and consultancies improved or failed to improve the organisations they are engaged by. Endless twitter about tiers, rankings and other rankings that perhaps matter more in one&apos;s early-20s create far more heat than light. However, it&apos;s also a problem common to sector-specific forums with anonymous postings: witness the mutual bitching of carhackc.co.uk

This intellectual masturbation is pathetic. Why don&apos;t you just whip em out and compare sizes??

900cc iOr is that not what you meant?

k - do you mean:a) intellectual masturbation about ranks, tiers, etc. (in which case I agree with you), orb) about this thread being intellectual masturbation (in which case, your comment is an example of what it&apos;s all about)?

I have to agree with you, "Boxershorts"...I am considering a career change and have been looking into management consultancy, which led me to stumble across this site. After looking at other forums I was really shocked (and also put off the industry) by how negative and egotistical a lot of the messages on this forum tend to be. It would appear to be a playground to air thinly disguised insecurities. And thank you Spellchecker for giving me a bit of a chuckle on this lovely Saturday afternoon; you responded to a message about contributors being negative and egotistical by being, er, negative and egotistical! Priceless! You walked straight into that one...and please take this in good humour; I&apos;m not being nasty so please don&apos;t give me a long defensive message back.