Project manager
A fellow who knows the price of nothing and the value of nothing. A fan of the Gantt chart, and of being elsewhere when the shit of his delusional speculations as to the project’s critical path hits, as it inevitably will, the fan of intractable, stubborn reality. This aspiration is made harder because the unlike the real management consultant he forlornly aspires to be, a project manager tends to be directly contracted or even employed and has fewer obstacles behind which he can behind (such has his brand) and no doors out which he can painlessly exit. Often he has nowhere to turn should things turn properly surreal and is, therefore, apt to develop great skill at dissembling, delegation and survival and, weirdly, bullshit detection. A fellow bullshitter further up your management chain is gold dust: he (it usually is a he) is the one with whom your incoherent excuses have the best chance of sticking.
Dramatis personae: CEO | CFO | Client | Employees: Divers · Excuse pre-loaders · Survivors · Contractors · The Muppet Show | Middle management: COO · Consultant · MBA | Controllers: Financial reporting | Risk | Credit | Operations | IT | Legal: GC · Inhouse counsel · Docs unit · Litigator · Tax lawyer · US attorney Lawyer | Front office: Trading | Structuring | Sales |