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When Bean Counters Meet Byte Crunchers: The Hilarious Tale of Consultants, Slow Laptops, and Petty Revenge

Let’s set the scene: You’re a hotshot developer, hired as a consultant for a big-name pharma company. The pay is good. The people are nice. The work-from-home policy is so dreamy, you could code in your pajamas (and maybe you do). There’s just one problem—your company-issued laptop moves at the speed of a 1997 dial-up modem.

Meanwhile, the in-house employees are zipping around on shiny, high-end machines, breezing through code like it’s a TikTok trend. You, on the other hand, are left watching your computer churn for ten minutes every time you hit “compile.” So what’s a consultant to do? Well, if you’re Reddit user u/frisco-frisky-dom, you lean into the chaos, savor the coffee breaks, and let the “petty revenge” unfold.

When Penny-Pinching Backfires

The story, shared in glorious detail on r/PettyRevenge, is a masterclass in how short-sighted cost-cutting can end up costing way, way more. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Consultants get slow, underpowered laptops. Employees get the Ferraris of the laptop world, while consultants are handed rusty scooters.
  • Everyone is running the same heavy, resource-hungry software. The work is identical, but the hardware is not.
  • Consultants warn management: “If you want us to go faster, give us better machines! It’ll save you money in the long run.” Even the employee devs back them up.
  • Management (and a particularly stubborn business contact) refuse. Why? Because “consultants don’t need the best laptops.” Oh, how wrong they were.

What happens next is a symphony of slowdowns. Every line of code takes forever to compile. Instead of three minutes (on the good machines), it’s a solid ten-minute wait. Multiply that by the number of daily code tweaks, and you’ve got a time sink big enough to drown in.

The consultants, ever the professionals, do exactly what their hardware allows: slower work. When complaints arise, they gamely screen-share the glacial progress. “Look! It’s compiling! Nothing I can do!” And when the laptops are busy, well… what better time for a coffee break, a little laundry, or maybe a quick scroll through Reddit?

Coffee Breaks and Corporate Irony

This is where the petty revenge truly shines. The consultants warned the company. They proved the inefficiency. They even had the employee devs on their side. But no amount of logic could sway the bean counters. So, the team leaned back, let the clock (and the billable hours) tick up, and let management reap what they sowed.

After six months of missed deadlines and ballooning bills, someone in power finally connects the dots. “Wait, why are we spending so much time (and money) on these projects?” The answer, of course, is spinning away on a dozen overloaded hard drives. The solution? New, high-powered laptops for the consultants.

The punchline? Two months after the long-awaited hardware upgrade, the OP finds a better job and rides off into the sunset—leaving behind a legacy of legendary coffee breaks and a cautionary tale for the ages.

The Universal Truth of IT

If you’ve ever worked in IT or tech consulting, this story probably strikes a familiar chord. It’s the age-old paradox: the people who need the best tools rarely get them, while the ones who attend meetings about meetings have the latest and greatest gear for their PowerPoints.

As the helpdesk agent in the story put it: “I’ll NEVER understand why the Directors and VPs need top of the line laptops when all they run is Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and meanwhile the ones actually doing the heavy computing get 5-year-old laptops.” Amen, helpdesk friend. Amen.

Lessons Learned (Or Not)

This tale isn’t just about petty revenge (though the coffee breaks are a sweet touch). It’s about recognizing the real cost of penny-pinching in the wrong places. Upgrading a few laptops might seem expensive—until you realize how much wasted time (and consultant billing) those slow machines rack up.

So next time you’re tempted to skimp on your team’s hardware, remember: the true price might be measured in hours, dollars, and endless, endless coffee.

What about you? Have you ever been slowed down by bad tech at work? Or maybe you’ve pulled off a bit of petty revenge yourself? Share your stories below—let’s raise a mug to all the unsung heroes with slow laptops and quick wits!

Original Reddit Post: Give me a slow laptop coz I am a consultant - expect slower throughput