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.