As recent college graduates prepare to begin wearing business casual for the rest of their lives, I thought it would be fitting to share some advice from my four years of experience in consulting. There is nothing particularly earth-shattering about my experiences, which means it probably applies to about 99% of people. I encourage anyone else to chime in with advice or agree/disagree with what I have shared.

1. Find the Line, Then Step On It
No, I'm not talking about interns. I’m talking about the line between doing your work (well, hopefully) and telling your manager no. My mentality coming into my first job was that I would work hard, do whatever was asked of me, and I would succeed because of the good work I had done. I learned the way consulting works is that when work gets done, people make money. Or, the partner makes money, and pass on down what he thinks is reasonable. Once you know what is really expected of people at your level, it’s time to tell that unorganized manager who is flailing to keep their job that you’re not staying past midnight anymore this week to work on stuff they could have given you to work on weeks ago when you were asking them what needed to be done. Be respectful, but have self-respect.

The wonderful country of China (and this horrendous project) is still sucking the life out of me. But I get to return to the United States soon. So plan on the intelligence of my posts increasing as well as the maturity of the topics (maybe). This week, I bring you a lighthearted take on the profession we all love. I present: the ABCs of consulting.

A –is for analyst. Don’t get ahead of yourselves MBAs, it doesn’t stand for Associate. The analysts making the (rocking) world go round. While they contribute next to nothing in ideas, they provide the best source of revenue for the firm.

I have been shipped off to a crappy part of Asia for an indefinite amount of time. Such is the life of a consultant. I missed my post last week and have been a bit uninspired this week. Earlier today, I proposed to my coworker that if he writes down his best story from the road in 400 words or less I would post in on the internet. I have edited it down the best I can, but it’s still a bit long. I like this guy, but I have done no independent verification of this tale. So grab the popcorn, it’s story time. I hope you enjoy.

Since I am literally and figuratively on the beach this week, I decided I should keep things a little more relaxed and light hearted. Yes, this week we are talking about music.

I know for some people, music and work don’t mix. For those people, this is probably as far as you need to read. I personally started listening to music while studying when I was in college. Ever since, I feel much more productive when I have my headphones on, enjoying some tunes, blocking out my farting co-worker, and not having to listen to that guy who only talks in his “MD voice” on the phone.

I don’t pretend to be any type of music connoisseur, but I thought I would supply my categories of chosen music and let everyone else weigh in with their own suggestions and preferences.

I like to think that in this point in my career I have worked for some pretty dishonest people. Corporate America has never struck me as a bastion of honesty. Then again, during college, I worked for the CEO of a non-profit who I heard years later was fired for stealing money from the pithy coffers of the organization.

Thus, I was quite surprised to read in this article by Harvard Business Review contributors Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman that according to their study, my superiors are at least perceived by others in my organization to be, on average, more honest than me.

Yes, in a recent article on Bloomberg, William D. Cohan points out that the top executives in the entertainment industry, including Les Moonves, who as a CBS executive cancelled Star Trek, make more than the top executives on Wall Street. This fact in itself is not all that interesting. Wall Street had a bad year…and I have no idea what media executives do exactly.

What caught my attention was what Cohan brings up at the end of the article:

As someone who applied to undergrad not knowing what the “Ivy League” was, I have always felt that the best application to a school is a raw reflection of the individual (along with all important scores and grades). When I heard about MBA admissions consultants, I put them in the same category as the essay consultants my classmates in high school used to try to get into a school they didn’t have the grades to get into. Maybe that was the right category, but I have decided to give them a bit more thought.