Memo to self - have nothing to do with Accenture
Horrible story of a company gone wrong and one man who was hired and quit after three days.
From
An Exercise in Futility:
Trusting Yourself, a.k.a., Accenture Blows
About 3 months ago, I ran into an old colleague at a trade show. We spent most of the conference together, talking about technology and business. It was a good time. This guy, who I�ll call Bob, is about 10 years older than I am and I always respected him on a technical level and I considered him somewhat of a �career model� � not so much a role model, because, well, he�s a liberal. Despite that, he and I were friends.
When I say he was successful at my company, I mean to a degree � at one point or the other, during his almost decade-long tenure here, he pissed everybody off. When he left, there were a handful of people that he wasn�t really on speaking terms with. Of course, I�m not really on speaking terms with them either because they�re dufuses. No harm, mo foul.
Long story short, we got to talking about the industry. Since he left my company he has been promoted a few times at his new company such that he is now at the director level and has hiring responsibility. He offered me a job.
The numbers were good and the picture he painted of his company was very positive. Since he worked where I work and he reported to the very same people to whom I currently report, it was easy for him to portray �where he came from� (also �where I am�) very negatively. It wasn�t a hard sell.
The company was Avanade. A joint partnership between Accenture and Microsoft.
A few red flags came up when I heard the words Accenture, because even when I was still an undergrad, I knew about Accenture�s absolutely poisonous reputation as a merciless body shop whose business model revolves around hiring as many naive undergrads as it can find and working them to the bone because they don�t know any better. When you have a reputation for sucking people off the streets like a hoover, your employees become keenly aware that their replacements are lining up outside the building and they know that if they don�t concede to slave-like working conditions they�ll just be replaced by someone who will.
I voiced these concerns to Bob, who assured me that Avanade, despite being now owned almost wholly by Accenture, was nothing like that. Avanade had a unique culture where it considers its people its most important asset. This guy was a friend of mine. Why would he lie? Avanade was more Microsoft than Accenture, said he. Okay. My bullshit alarms were ringing but I gave him and Avanade the benefit of the doubt.
Note to self: wrong move.
What follows is such a tale of woe it had me cringing. And then it got worse.
Good news is that his old company did hire him back again.
Posted by DaveH at January 26, 2010 8:06 PM