Everybody's an IT Consultant

Consultant Oh at work

I have a new job.

And I didn't have to prepare a resume, send out applications, or even attend interviews. Just a little observation, and re-examination, did the trick.

I've been seeing numerous "IT Consultants" mentioned in our newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet, but not a single Software Engineer, Programmer, IT Analyst or System Administrator. If you flip through Saturday's Recruit, you'll probably find hundreds of such jobs, but you'll have to dig really hard to find any "IT Consultant" positions. So where do all these IT Consultants come from?

Then I took a hard look at my job and brought out the checklist. I work with clients. Check. I gather requirements from them. Check. I propose solutions. Check. I occasionally ask them to piss off when they demand too much. Check. I mock at their intelligence levels. Check.

Hey, I'm an IT Consultant too! :D

From today, I'm going to ditch the modest title of Software Engineer and call myself an IT Consultant. Nevermind that most of the time I'm sitting in front of the computer writing code and fixing bugs. Just picture this: Oh the consultant in a smart Raoul shirt and Kenneth Coles, complete with tie and cuff links, lugging a laptop around town and rescueing clients from the doldrums of IT ignorance. The Rob Thomas imitation hair will have to go, though.

Besides, going by the trend nowadays, Software Engineers will likely go extinct in the future. All we have to do is create the designs and there are programs to generate code. By then, like a true consultant, we'll just have to talk and talk all day, with lots of coffee to go along.

All you wannabes out there, fret not. It doesn't matter the nature of the job, as long as it's IT-related and you're not doing it for yourself. So even if all you've ever done was to create a web-page for someone, you qualify as an IT Consultant too. Anyway, now that the Internet boom is over, the once-ubiquitous Webmaster is no longer an official occupation, but merely a secondary post pushed to the lowliest IT guy in the company to keep him off his tea-breaks.

So let's all be IT Consultants. :)

Cool. With this new job, I'm already looking forward to tomorrow and the long week ahead.

Yeah, right.