When Price Waterhouse planned its merger a couple of years back with Coopers & Lybrand, I and my fellow editors at Accounting Today spent a day or two tossing around some amusing names to give the new organization. I think we came up with some appropriately daffy choices like "Waterbrand" and "Pricecooperhouse" but we never imagined that the branding organization that actually got paid millions of dollars to take this challenge seriously would come up with the mouthful we now call PricewaterhouseCoopers.
But they did.
And when the former Andersen Consulting dreamed up the nonsense name "Accenture" to define its new multi-billion-dollar consulting practice, I thought for sure that was the end of silly names for a while.
But it wasn’t.
This week, in an apparent effort to closely align itself with the day of the week most despised by the entire workforce, PwC Consulting announced that henceforth it will be known, simply, as "Monday."
Now you’ve got to ask yourselves, did they really think this one through? I see the tenuous thread to positioning themselves as the company to go to on Monday morning when you’re at your lowest ebb and need someone to get problems solved and send you on your work week with a smile, but it’s a reach.
And they’re leaving open the unpleasant possibility of being tagged one day as the Monday morning quarterbacks of the business consulting world – too much knowledge, but a little too late to be of service.
And how about all those negative song references, like this one from the Mamas and the Papas: "Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day. Monday morning, sometimes it just turns out that way." Or Bob Geldof’s ode to a deranged schoolgirl planning to shoot down her classmates, explaining her decision thus, "I don’t like Mondays."
Then, of course, there’s the international issue. Since Monday is a global consulting firm, how will "Monday" translate in, say, Russia?
Well, according to the Web site, "Calendar of the Ages," in Russia, Monday means "do nothing." Hmmm.
Like it or not, the business world is now stuck with "Monday" -- seven days a week, 365 days a year. And I supposed after a while I’ll get used to it.
Now we’ll all just have to wait to hear what Deloitte Consulting will choose for its new name, expected to be announced later this year.
Hey, I hear Tuesday’s available.
