Let's Get Brainwashed.

I had a meeting yesterday with a group of consultants. Some of them I have met before, but 2 of them were new to me. So after shaking hands with them, they immediately whipped out business cards for me. Then everyone started whipping out cards and exchanging them.

Now, I don't have business cards at this job. My previous one I did. I felt like the new consultants were waiting for me to give them a card, but I sat down, and they had a look on their faces like I had broken the ritual. I didn't want to say, "Sorry, I don't have any cards," because then I'd sound like a fraud, like I wasn't supposed to be playing this game, but I had won because I already had cards from them. Like I pretended to know the secret handshake and then fouled it up at the end.

So the meeting started. They used lots of terms that make my brain shut off. Here are some examples:

• Entity level
• Forensic accounting
• Risk controls
• Transparency
• Gaps identified/Gaps remediated/Gaps with no deadline
• Compliance
• Business Unit