Combat Consultant Badge

- My Combat Consultant Badge -
A red cross signifying specialization in health care.
A quill signifying further specialization in writing about health care.
(Formerly the logo of Campbell Health Management, Inc. - a company
that helped win billions of dollars of health care contracts over a span
of some 20 years and left it's founder, as his wife fondly referred to
him just today; "A babbling idiot."

Well it was just time is all. After more than 20 years of serving as a consultant to absolutely anyone who asks*, yes...it was time to award myself the Combat Consultant's Badge.

Those who know me and my deep, abiding sense of modesty will be surprised to learn I have decided to accept the Badge on behalf of all the pitiful consultants who came before me and those who will drag themselves along after.

I promise to dutifully work on my acceptance speech and plan to deliver it on a date, time and location known only to me and its presenter...also me.

Reflect, if you will, back for a moment to the great Northridge, California earthquake of January 17, 1994.  It was a Sunday. We had a small team of consultants working on a billion dollar plus government contract proposal for Blue Cross of California (then Wellpoint, now Anthem). We were at their headquarters in nearby Woodland Hills...the only ones other than some security folks in the large building there.

It is noteworthy to learn that consultants are often the only ones working in client offices on Sundays because regular company employees like to bail...as would anyone in their right mind. Consultants, who are not in their right mind, tend things on Saturdays and Sundays and late on weeknights.  With them, it's the billable hours...sometimes 90 hours a week, sometimes 0 hours a week.  You gotta' get'em while you can Vern.

We were parked in cubicles on one of the building's upper floors. Suddenly, the entire building began to shake...big time.  I, being a natural born leader (at least I was once recognized as such by one person...I think) and a quick decision maker and all simply shouted; "Get under your desks!" We all did. Fortunately, that was a pretty decent guess.  The shaking was so intense that immediately thereafter, my still hot morning cup of coffee fell off the desk and soaked me while I was in an extremely undignified hands and knees position. After a few moments, the shaking stopped and we were all thinking about what sort of effect the quake would have on our billable hours. Quickly, we decided "none." That was it for the day and we headed out for our hotel.

There was a long covered walkway at the building exit and we noticed much of the ceiling had fallen, leaving the walkway underneath a mess.  Someone mentioned they had just re-stuccoed the structure. The hotel was only a few blocks away and we gratefully camped out there for what was to be no further danger.

This is just one of many combat related incidents that have happened to me and others of my ilk over the years.  Their stories, like mine, are painful to recall but recall we must...for it is only through these valuable life hacks that we learn to set our coffee out of harm's way before diving under a desk during an earthquake.

*The reference to "anyone who asks" is part of the "damned if you do" dogma of a consultant's life. That is, if someone asks you do something and you have absolutely no idea what they are even talking about you say "yes" anyway.  Then, you find someone who knows how to do it, or you fake it, or both...