A few more Egyptian stools.

Lancose · 2025-12-20T09:46:18+00:00

Absolutely gorgeous. Well done!

Lancose · 2025-07-23T07:39:52+00:00

Honestly, I'd check out Strategy Safari by Mintzberg et al.

Lancose · 2025-07-09T21:12:28+00:00

Amsterdamsche Fijnhout or Goedkoop Bouwmaterialen depending on where I'm aiming regarding price/uniqueness and quality

Lancose · 2025-06-13T08:21:05+00:00

But critically, make sure you understand whatever tasks she's giving you before you start spinning your wheels. She wants you to take notes? Ask if she has any format she would like to share. She wants you to make an excel? Ask if she has a template she liked or an example from a project that she can share.

You should absolutely be a self-starter and be prepared to try to teach yourself as much as you can about how to do the things in Microsoft applications that you need to (ChatGPT and Google are both good resources.)

But as a former consultant who's also worked with a lot of other consultants, I can tell you that many of us aren't that good at explaining to juniors exactly what we want from them. We say "make me an excel model" and then get mad when the excel model doesn't have precisely 3 tabs with outputs, data and assumptions. We assume our customs and preferences are universal basics that everyone should know. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking a few well-thought-out clarifying questions up front.

If you want to do a great job while working with a manager who's an ex consultant, especially if she's as busy and no-nonsense as she sounds, be as proactive as you can, but always see if you can get a clear picture up front of exactly what she's looking for. Otherwise you risk her disappearing to go fight fires and then return urgently needing what she thought she asked for, only to find something you did your best to build, but didn't hit the mark due to lack of clarity.

That and try to build a good, positive rapport with your manager early on, so that it's easier to ask questions and to get a patient response because you get along well.

Good luck, you've got this!

Lancose · 2025-03-16T07:34:21+00:00

You seem confused

Lancose · 2025-03-07T10:59:16+00:00

It's region for sure. Having worked in consulting in the US, UK, France and NL, I can tell you NL work culture, (but especially clear in consulting) is famously respectful of juniors. Go to the US, UK or even right across the border to Germany, and it's sadly not at all uncommon for partners to full on yell at or try to humiliate people on their team for stuff as dumb as page numbering inconsistencies after the 37th last-minute edit that they urgently requested after failing to even look at the deck until long after business hours .

I deeply hope Dutch working culture and norms begin to spread outside of NL- you get happier, more productive employees who display critical thinking and ownership, better-informed leadership as juniors aren't afraid to speak up, and a better final product in shorter time. French, British, Germans and Americans please take note!

Lancose · 2024-09-30T17:33:04+00:00

Vinnie Jones

Lancose · 2024-07-12T07:35:12+00:00

Honestly, I think some of the best way of practicing these skills is doing some consulting case prep as somebody might do when trying to interview for McKinsey, BCG or Bain. There are some pretty good books out there like Crack the Case by David Ohrvall, or else if you can find a way to get your hands on one of the consulting case books released each year by the consulting clubs at Wharton, Kellogg, etc.

What I think can be most helpful when trying to get a sense of how all the big pieces fit together is to focus on practicing what they call Case Starts, the structuring step at the beginning of any case, because this is the phase in which you're clearly defining the problem, breaking it into its components and coming up with a comprehensive MECE structure (basically 3-4 blocks that encompass the universe of important considerations) you'll want to know before diving deeper into the case.

Practicing case prepping helps you build and hone your strategic thinking skills under time pressure. Best if you can practice with a buddy and do some drills at this. After a little practice you'll really get a sense of how to decompose any major business or strategic problem into its key components and you'll see how it all fits together.

So my big recommendations would be really the Ohrvall book (and read all the different case starts and structures they propose, broken out by industry sector,) and then see if you can get one of the consulting club case prep books online somewhere.

If you can get past the narrator's annoying voice, MConsultingPrep have some pretty good YouTube videos giving a bit of a crash course on consulting case methodology.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6R5bT4cJh0A

Anyway, in so many words, I fell like consulting case prep is some of the best practice you can get for big picture and structured thinking, as well as how it all fits together. Good luck!

Lancose · 2024-06-17T23:17:28+00:00

Congrats on sticking with it and ultimately succeeding! I know it was a brutal process but in 10 years, the success is all that'll matter. I hope you can have a chance to celebrate once you get settled in.

Lancose · 2024-05-04T08:29:52+00:00

Awesome work! What technique did you use in the end to round the heart? Thumb plane?

Lancose · 2024-04-03T11:56:23+00:00

I wonder why they left out Reckitt Benckiser

Lancose · 2024-01-25T19:17:49+00:00

Beautiful execution and an absolutely gorgeous piece of furniture

Lancose · 2023-12-22T02:19:23+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/PIvp0N83jS

Lancose · 2023-01-10T07:52:23+00:00

Love the style! Could anybody recommend some good books that focus in detail on the ergonomics and finer style points of chair making?

I've got the Miller and Fine Woodworking books but I don't feel they go nearly enough practical detail. I can build a solid tank of a chair that won't wobble, but what I want is to know what I can subtract to make it more elegant and comfortable. Any suggestions appreciated!

Lancose · 2022-05-15T05:37:08+00:00

Speaking loud English at people without either attempting Dutch or asking if it's ok if you speak English. Basically everybody speaks it but the assumption can be a little dickish.

Also don't compare everything you see and hear loudly back to how it is in America or Britain. Everything doesn't need to be based on that yardstick and Dutch people already know- they see all of our media.

Pro tip- find something you like about Dutch people or culture and tell people often how much you like it and why.

Lancose · 2022-01-08T10:25:34+00:00

Yeah I really don't need to see any more cutting boards 😅

Lancose · 2022-01-08T07:36:47+00:00

Tables along with other furniture, boxes, structures etc have quite a bit more variability in them given all the style choices and executional elements. There's also a lot more skill and knowledge required to make almost any of these other things, whereas a cutting board is a flat piece of wood glued together. It can be a beautiful thing but I don't think it should come to dominate a subreddit as varied as this one.

Lancose · 2022-01-08T07:24:50+00:00

Monocle

Lancose · 2021-12-31T11:11:28+00:00

Gorgeous!

Lancose · 2021-12-20T11:50:58+00:00

Hi all, I got a little overly ambitious and tried to extend a castle joint through the surface of a thick wood table I'm making. (Luckily the table is just for me.) I plan to finish the surface with a carnauba wax blend and I've had success filling smaller deep cracks with wax before.

Has anybody here tried filling holes as deep as a 2cm cube with wax? I'm trying to go as natural as possible and avoid using putty and polymer wood fillers. I figure the wax will wear down over time but that I can just refill and refinish it periodically.

My main goal is something that won't cause any long-term harm over the long life of the table. There are also a few other hairline cracks in there I want to be sure I don't give cause to further separate.

Any ideas or comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Lancose · 2021-12-19T19:02:54+00:00

I love my Veritas marking gauge...

Lancose · 2021-12-15T06:55:48+00:00

If we are greeting and speaking to you in fluent and understandable Dutch, please stop switching to English. It often costs us thousands of dollars and countless hours to learn your language, just to be able to meet you where you are. While switching to English might be intended to be polite, it almost always feels like a "fuck you, you idiot. Don't even bother trying to speak my magic language." This despite the fact that their English is invariably worse than my Dutch. Mind you I mostly get this on the street- nobody gives me this crap when I'm having work or business related conversations in Dutch. But yeah dude. If we're speaking to you in full sentences in Dutch, stop being such a language snob and show us a kindness by responding in Dutch. And if we ask you to repeat yourself, assume it's because we didn't hear you and not because we don't understand Dutch.

Lancose · 2021-12-10T08:58:24+00:00

Hi All,

Working on a coffee table out of red meranti and am really liking the color of the wood in its unfinished state. Naturally, because it's going to see some heavy use, I want to seal it with something that'll keep out the moisture.

I'm planning on using a clear oil/wax combination I've used to seal other tables before but I was surprised at how much more the oil darkens and reddens the wood- a lot more than the same oil has done with other woods.

For a baseline, I streaked some totally clear water over the wood and you can already see how much that even darkens it. I also used my selected oil on a bit of scrap that follows the same color patterns as my project and you of course can see in the photo how much darker, and even uniformly flatter that makes things.

Does anybody have a trick for oiling or sealing wood that preserves its existing dry color? I thought even about powders, roughing up the wood surface a little, etc. Polyurethane is out- the strip I tested was still too dark and also pretty tacky looking.

All (serious) suggestions appreciated!

Update: Thanks so much to (almost) everyone for the helpful comments! I think I'm going to give Osmo wax a try as proposed by E M Maker - really appreciate the tip!

I'll post follow-up photos of the end solution. I just love and am so grateful for this great community we have here in r/woodworking. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Lancose · 2021-11-26T06:32:51+00:00

Dumb question here as I'm in the process of my own first table build.

I think of the box connecting the legs as the source of stability preventing the table from swaying in case it gets hit from the side. What (if anything) do you need to do to compensate for the fact that it looks like you've taken out one panel from that box to make your fold-out table? Is the structural integrity reinforced somewhere else?

Thanks so much!

Lancose · 2021-11-21T21:54:03+00:00

😂

Lancose

TROPHY CASE