George S May Intl Co Lured me into working for them with deceiptful, false statements Park Ridge Illinois

I am an unemployed middle-aged business executive. Having posted my resume' the usual Monster, Career and Hot dot-coms, I received a call from a woman from the George S May Intl Co (M), asking me if I was interested in a "man-men consotin paseeshen.? (First signal). It was not until the woman's third "man-men consotin paseeshen," that I finally understood that what she was trying to say was "management consulting position." I agreed to receiving a call from the woman's director-of-personnel boss the following day, at a specified time. The man's call came three hours late. (Second Signal). After two telephone conferences and an impressive web page and video I saw on M, I fooled myself into believing that indeed I could work for these people and make $70,000 a year while providing small- and medium-sized firms across America, Canada and Mexico with valuable business consulting.

I was flown in to Chicago and lodged at a fairly-decent hotel in Elk Grove for five nights at M's expense, along with twenty more people aspiring for the same man-men consotin paseeshens, for an intensive training program which was supposed to start on Monday and finish on Saturday, 8 am through 6 pm, with daily one-hour lunch breaks. The plan was to fly off on assignment immediately upon completion of training.

Training at M is a very unpleasant experience. The subject material is presented without a clear plan, and all of the concepts are slapped at you in a disorganized and hastily manner that leaves you wondering when and how in the world you are going to have time to look over and organize in your crammed and scared mind. You are not allowed any time for yourself at night, for plenty of meaningless but cumbersome homework is left everyday, for which you have to stay up until 1, 2 or 3 in the morning.

All of the M top executives who participate in the training at a mentor level, emphasize primarily the need to bill clients, at M's current rate of $235 per hour / per staff exec, and collect all moneys due to M, e-x-a-c-t-l-y, on Friday. This amounts to roughly $10,000 per week per client, if the company's ideal number of staff hours are worked. The trainee's cut of the loot is, approximately, 10%. The subjects of ethics an quality work are mentioned, but the curriculum is 90% filling forms and collecting money. A good amount of role play on how to convince clients to buy billable hours and expansions thereof and force them to sign money-binding agreements is dispensed during class.

No formal training of any kind by qualified professionals on the subject of consulting is given by M.

The truth is this. Trainees for the man-men consotin paseeshens at M are very simple, ordinary people with business experience and varying amounts of common sense. Only a few accountants in the training group had sufficient knowledge to give clients valuable advice, in accounting. The rest are grossly overvalued individuals who should not be allowed to go around scalping small companies out of $10,000 a week.

From the things that I have seen, heard and read on the George S May Intl Co, I conclude that there are indeed small businesses in the U.S. that produce enough money to absorb two, three, four or even five consecutive weekly $10,000 pops from the big M and realize a benefit from a needed organization in an amount that can very well exceed M's fees.

Many small firms cannot withstand big M's lust for money, and have to absorb the loss from her billings with pain and time or, much worse, go into forced liquidation.

If you are a small business owner, do not pay $30,000 to some simple folks with equal or less common sense than you, but who know close-to-nothing about your bread-earning activity. Get your a*s in gear and fix your company yourself. Get specific help from specific sources when needed, such as in accounting, production, inventory management, sales, marketing or advertising. Remember the yellow pages? They work. Use them. Look up your professional needs on a one-by-one basis and get a few quotes before you make any decisions. Perhaps you will save or earn an extra $60,000 this year, but you will only spend $5,000 in the process. Not $30,000. Do not give away $25,000 to the big M. She is not even a charitable institution.

By the way, I do not work for M. I quit training when told that I would have to finance George S May's hotel, car rental and other traveling expenses with my own funds and begin to be reimbursed on these three weeks later. This means that to work for M, and go on the possibility of perhaps, probably not, being paid in an uncertain future, being constantly away from home all week Sunday through Saturday, I would have to lend her $2,000.

A company that mistreats her clients, abuses her employees.

Third signal and OUT.

Tom Atlanta, Georgia
U.S.A.