Consulting: Never, Ever Do This

I was at a client recently who’s business is providing electricity to a local city. We were trying to figure out what caused a piece of hardware to fail and as I was going over options in my head I asked him, “Hmm…perhaps a power surge?”

He looked at me like I asked if his mother might have a penis. After an uncomfortable pause he responded very deliberately, “Yeah…we don’t have those here…”

Important Safety Tip: Never imply that your clients who work in the power business might have been the victim of an electricity surge.

They don’t take kindly to it.