House of Lies

by Martin Kihn

  “Did it matter when they started work?” asks Baloo. This story of lazy island people seems to offend her, though she cannot say so.

  “Only ’cause they left early too,” he says.

  “That’s a problem.” Jeff nods.

  “So you know what he did?” Jack says.

  “No,” you all say, wondering where the dinner is.

  “You—he—heh heh hohaoh—he, these island guys had two things.” Jack snuffles. “They were lazy… and they were very religious. Always dancing around and praying to whatever. So this foreman decides to hold a prayer service at seven on the dot every morning. Fifteen minutes dancing around praying. Not a single late start after that.”

  “Unbelievable,” says Jeff.

  Baloo seems about to say something—but dinner arrives. Salad, appetizer, main course—they make no distinction at O’Neal’s. All arrive in a cornucopia of wet butter. You are happy to see the food until it is actually on the table in front of your face. There is some orange peel grating–looking sauce on the chicken. Jack doesn’t miss a beat—he dives right in.

  “Hasn’t changed at all,” he says approvingly. “I’ve been eating this for years.”

  You wonder if perhaps they were saving this actual chicken for him for years. What are you missing? Has consulting so warped you that you cannot eat real food anymore?

  One time, after a particularly odious team dinner top-heavy in its partner-to-other ratio, you and another associate plotted an informal chart based upon personal observation. (See below.)

  Source: Author analysis.

  As this figure shows, while principal time is capped at about 20 percent of total team dinner addressable airtime, partner airtime has a floor of 75–78 percent of total. The most junior green-bean partner, promoted last week, who hasn’t even gone through partner training camp down in the Caribbean—that partner faces an astonishing ramp-up in her expected contribution to team dinner blather of four times what she’s used to. Imagine. While some associates at first find it galling they’re not allowed a peep beyond “I agree” or “That’s so funny”; in fact, examined right, it’s a real relief. Because the horrible truth about the team dinner airtime figure is that it’s nonnegotiable—for every rank. Has there ever been a tired partner who maybe didn’t feel like lecturing, regaling, or reminiscing at a team dinner all night long? You suspect perhaps there has been—but no matter. That burden is not yours, not yet.

  Also, note the touching adherence to medieval constructs of rank order and hierarchy. It may be true, as some have said, that consulting firms are the opposite of bureaucracies—that is, they are team- and task-oriented living organisms with little infrastructure to support a body of pure actors. Compared to other forms of business, consultancies do seem to waste less time in intercube meetings, paperwork, and procedure. But what is team dinner if not a form of pointless meeting? It has all the characteristics of the bureaucratic mechanism: It is (1) meaningless, (2) demoralizing, and (3) mandatory. And the so-called flat-form meritocracy so belabored by McKinsey—this in reality masks a rigid, pitiless system of caste unseen outside Delhi since 1951.57

  Tonight you have said precious little, and are about to say less.

  As mealtime unwinds, and Jack has put those religious fanatic islanders to bed, Jeff seizes a lull to make a tactical maneuver. In retrospect, it appears brilliant. At this point Baloo is slow-burning (she’s young)… Martha has a saintly sick smile on her quivering lips… Davo looks like a terrified man in a coma… you are feeling warm butter reflux shooting up your throat… Jack’s humming something sad… there’s real potential for—

  Not for disaster. A team dinner is never interesting enough to bomb.

  —But it has real potential here to induce a lethargy so profound in its participants it endangers those around them on the road back home.

  So to avoid baking some new road pizzas, Jeff says, “Who gets the points tonight?”

  “They’re mine!” barks Martha in her first and final contribution to the night’s discourse.

  “No—I’m the most junior—that’s the tradition,” opines Baloo.

  “I believe the tradition is, it’s the most junior from the farthest office,” notes Davo.

  “You made that up,” says Jeff.

  “I would not—”

  Jack abruptly stops humming. “You know who has great points is the Ritz.”

  You know for a fact the Ritz has no points—that’s their point about points, actually. But the observation Jack is making is more profound.

  Tentatively, Jeff echoes your thought: “I didn’t think they gave points.”

  “Oh no, not those kinds,” says Jack—

  And there is a palpable lift in the collective stream of consciousness as Davo, Martha, yourself, even Baloo elevate by midges in your slick vinyl chairs and come alive, if only for a moment as it seems… it begins actually to seem… maybe you are going to hear something you didn’t know about points…

  “They’re not explicit about it,” Jack explains. “But they keep track in their system of repeats and they know exactly how loyal you are.”

  “Better believe it.” Jeff nods like a Methodist echo chorus.

  “And they ramp it up faster than Hyatt or definitely Marriott.”

  “Marriott is the worst,” choruses Jeff.

  “What’s so bad about them?” asks Baloo.

  “Oh, what isn’t?”

  And so on… and on… what you are talking about, of course, are loyalty programs at national hotel chains. Hotels, airlines, car renters, credit cards, everyone offers frequent travelers such as yourselves so-called rewards for repeat business; and you will have more say about these loyalty programs in their place. For now the issue is merely this: There is no topic of conversation more galvanizing, powerful, and useful among groups of top-tier management consultants than the accoutrements of travel—hotel facilities, American v. United, Hertz v. Avis, points and (now) top secret points…

  Galvanizing, common-ground, and—this is absolutely critical—noncontroversial.

  About one hour later—you don’t want to look at your watch—you find yourself popping the trunk on your Matador Red Ford Taurus in the back parking lot of O’Neal’s. You are standing next to a very quiet Martha; you suspect that she shares your aversion to night, that she is at heart a morning person. But that would be a guess.

  “There’s a restaurant in New York called O’Neal’s,” you say to her.

  “Oh, I know. Across from Lincoln Center. I thought it closed.”

  “Really?”

  “City Ballet dancers used to go there. There’s a mural from the seventies—Peter Martins is in it. Balanchine used to go there and eat at the bar.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I was a ballet dancer.”

  At this moment Martha—a woman you have barely noticed in your life and was worried about making ten seconds’ worth of conversation with in a parking lot in [Sadtown], Illinois—steps forward, takes a first position with convincing port de bras, pliés—and executes a perfect double pirouette.

  Things to Do in Cleveland When You’re Dead

  By the time you get to the Marriott, your little Taurus clock reads 12:47. You will have to arise at 6:30, fresh and ready to party again. Where is the point in a team dinner, exactly?

  That which you are trying to avoid has already occurred.

  So much time is spent in hotels they are better called hometels. In time they become not a home away from home but a home away. Hometels for business travel are newer and more replete than those you recall from your moments in publishing and television, when road tripping meant Motel 6 and Days Inn and gut runs to Arby’s. There are high-speed lines for Internet access and two short double beds, with a king unavailable. To you this bed configuration makes no sense—you don’t know anyone who shares a room in these hotels… have never even walked past a room so superoccupied… yet every one of them has two crampy double beds with one a
ll empty… and then what you think, in the spirit of your new occupation, is: McKinsey ran an algorithm for them demonstrating slightly higher revenue potential for the double bed strategy…

  Like dogs, hometels all have their own thing called personality. The Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn is a purebred akita: beautiful, attentive, aloof. You arrive there in the morning and are handed a water bottle and towel, for no reason.

  “Welcome back, sir,” they say.

  You have never been there before.

  The Westin is a Siberian husky: all glamour, no participation. Sheratons are the golden retrievers of Hometelville: They demand attention. “Do you know the Sheraton Service Promise?” they bark when you check in, order dinner, pick up your dry cleaning, take a crap in your bathroom. “Are you aware of the Sheraton Service Promise?”

  One time, very late at night, you checked in to a Sheraton in Parsippany, New Jersey: “Have you been here before?”

  “Yes.”

  In fact, you have been staying at this particular hometel for four months and always check in with the same older, leather-faced woman who asks you every week if you’ve been there before. You are a very memorable man, evidently.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you aware of the Sheraton Service Promise?”

  “Jesus, yes.”

  “How many nights are you with us?”

  “Three. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you do that Sheraton promise thing?”

  “It’s our promise to you that we’ll—”

  “No—I know that. What I mean is—I mean, did the company say you have to say that? Is it required?”

  She doesn’t know what to say here. “It’s our promise to you that—”

  “I know—I know—whose idea was the promise?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there a Mister Sheraton? You didn’t always have this promise—”

  “One or two keys, sir?”—she is starting to look alarmed. But you are not: You are simply not a night person, and you are genuinely interested in understanding this promise. It’s written on a large blue banner affixed to the wall behind reception, but it is too late to read.

  “What happens if you break the promise?”

  “One key, all right?”

  “I mean—are there repercussions?”

  The Sheraton Service Promise, late of song and story, was announced on September 6, 2002, from Sheraton HQs in Toronto and White Plains, New York. The culmination of a $1 billion effort to revamp the chain, the promise reads thus:

  If you’re not satisfied, we’re not satisfied. Sheraton’s Service Promise ensures you’ll have a great stay, or we’ll make it up to you with an instant discount, points for our rewards program or even money back. All you have to do is tell us.

  The chain has even put a price tag on your feelings.

  Minor discomfort = “an apology plus a $15 value or 500 Starwood Preferred Guest Points”

  Major discomfort = “an apology plus a $25–$75 value” (paid with credit, gift certificate, or points)

  So: You are given a 10 percent discount on your next stay at a hotel that has already offended you. This is presumptuous. Or you get points which, as well shall see in a moment, are actually worth less than nothing.

  You feel dissatisfied—very dissatisfied. Your discomforts in hometels are legion, but none of these has anything to do with the hometel itself; they are existential, perhaps congenital. There is only one aspect of the Sheraton itself that brings discomfort: the Sheraton Service Promise.

  It annoys you, it really does.

  You would like to complain but the “reward” is simply a slight enticement to return and hear even more about the Sheraton Service Promise—an enticement that means nothing to those who, like yourself, don’t pay for the hotel room anyway.

  Your promise to the Sheraton became: “I will never stay here again.”

  So the Marriott is your hometel of choice, the humble black lab with its hard nylon bone. The selection of hotel chain is not trivial. Top-tier consulting teams tend to stay at the same hotel, congregating in the lobby around 7:45 a.m. for the drive to the client site. This car pooling is done not to save money, exactly, but because not driving is a signal of rank, and the senior principals and partners must be driven; they generally do not rent cars. Associates rent cars. Partners have cars. Limos get them at airports and take them to lunch. And in the mornings, they ask the team to meet them in the lobby…

  So the Marriott.

  The Marriott does things “the Marriott Way,” as it calls it—but this is somehow less offensive.

  Pride in the knowledge that our customers can count on Marriott’s unique blend of quality, consistency, personalized service and recognition almost anywhere they travel in the world or whichever Marriott brand they choose.

  You might quibble with “unique,” since every hometel room is absolutely identical, but you cannot quibble with this: Marriott staff don’t pummel you senseless with a nonstop litany of “Are you aware of the Marriott Way, sir?”

  Your way is: Stay out of my way.

  You open the door to your room. Tonight, you remember the number: 518. Fifth floor, halfway down the hall. Many times you cannot remember your room. Why would you? Which week is it anyway? Numbers are not written on the card keys, of course; so you spend your time flashing ID at the front desk and asking, “What room am I in, again?”

  Don’t try your card key in a door unless you are sure it is yours; they are deactivated by insertion into the wrong room.

  You put down your [firm] backpack, a relic of new hire orientation, and stand quietly.

  Breathe out.

  Breathe in, counting, counting…

  You are asleep on your feet, and even the effort of unlacing your shoes seems too monstrous. So you fall onto the double bed. Your jacket is still on; your feet are on the coverlet, toes down. Your mouth buried in pillow. The eyes close and…

  Shit!

  Your breath stinks. You haven’t called your wife. You haven’t set the wake-up call.

  Hometel life consists of a series of strategies for managing torpor. The body cannot be trusted. Ritual is salvation, autopilot redemption. Your strong need for sleep must be shunted into appropriate channels for treatment. Over the months you have observed the following:

  Top Five Torpor Management Mistakes Made by Consultants Late at Night

  Mistake Consequence

  Use in-room digital alarm clock “Wake” to music—hah!

  Turn on heating unit Warm cozy feeling—bad!

  Close window shades No blaring a.m. sunlight—bad!

  Don’t call wife No wife

  Don’t gargle/brush teeth/splash face Awakened by own stench

  Order an in-room movie See only seven minutes…

  Kicking off your shoes, you call your wife. She is online, as she often is. The room is very cold—that is good. You set the wake-up call, open the shades, drink some water, and lie down.

  Every part of you says: Go to sleep.

  So that is what you do.

  You’re asleep. You have no issues with insomnia; rather, with its opposite. And your dreams have become more productive… less whimsical than during your artist days. Back then you often thought of yourself as a big-knuckled monkey swinging from tree to tree, terrified to fall. Now, having fallen, you dream of going to the gym. This is literally true. You dream about being in health clubs and running around tracks, cutting into weight stacks and pumping metal till your corpuscles bounce. You dream about heaving large palettes of reps in a muscle-tee while women watch obliquely.

  Freud called the dream “the fulfillment of a wish,” and you wish he were wrong.

  You dream about being healthy. You dream about becoming attractive again, as you were as a poet and a miserable younger man.

  And these dreams are the closest you ever get to the gym.

  Those who don’t know think this life may be glamorous.<
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  6:30 a.m. Thursday.

  Delighted to have had you with us. “The weather in [Sadtown] this morning is mild and debris,” says the automated or prerecorded vocal wake-up unit. At least that’s what it sounds like. You never quite put these early-a.m. phone sets up to your ear. There is drool on your ear; your eyes are gummed shut. What town is this? What is the debris?

  … stumbling to micturate in the flash-frozen light…

  … you have an early-morning erection, a common phenomenon among young men, but then why do you have one?… plus there is no purpose to erections on business trips and especially on top-tier management consulting business trips. What’s going to happen—sex? With whom? With what preamble? Why?

  There is a piece of white paper, folded up, on the carpet by the front door. Somebody slipped it in during the night. You pick it up and look at it.

  This is not unexpected, this paper—something any other industry might call a bill or an invoice becomes in the euphemistic parlance of the hometel a “guest folio.” The folio wherein they put a work of art, just for you. And it is a creative act, charging so much in so many ways for so little. Teams of bullshit artists must have worked around the clock devising secret ways for you to rack up pain. You used to be surprised it was possible to commit so many folio-able acts in a mere three nights—but it is. Oh, it is.

  And there is no argument for room service: none. It is hideously expensive, tepid, long-winded, chilly—you wait eight hours for the privilege of having an asshole barge into your room with his palm sticking out, lifting the silver cover off a mound of crap like it’s worth something. You’ve had room service chicken that broke pieces off your teeth; $30.00 New York strip steak that gnawed at your digestive tract, demanding to be released… and it’s not just that a piece of fruit costs $6.95, two-minute “jumbo” shrimp $9.50, or an invisible sliver of double devil chocolate cake $4.95… no, what really eats at you is that there’s an automatic 19 percent service charge added to each and every item and still the guy wants a tip. Are you being small? Perhaps. And perhaps a few tunes on the radio might help to dull the pain. What could be simpler—more basic? Free airwaves for a free people. Most hometel rooms come equipped with something brown that does indeed look like a radio: knobs, dials, the letters F and M printed in white somewhere… but when you go to turn it on, well… nothing. Static. You move the tuning knob up, down, sideways—nothing. On AM you can sometimes detect—depending upon where you are standing—the faint religious tones of a fundamentalist song-and-rant man, or maybe it’s live Nascar racing, hard to tell.