Two years ago, I decided that my consulting practice needed some marketing advice. We seemed to lose too many contracts and sometimes we were not even asked to bid.

So we found a lady who seemed to know her stuff. She pottered around and told us that we seemed to lose too many contracts that sometimes we were not even asked to bid. She recommended that we change the name of our business and that we pay somebody R7 500 to design a new logo for us.

I told her that, since we had been in existence for 16 years as Mackenzie-Hoy and already had a logo, to wit the word ‘machoy’ in a special font, we were not going to change this any time soon. Oh, she told us, you cannot have mere text as your logo. Oh! No! You must have an image, like Apple Computers. So, I said, what about CAT, Hilti, rotatrim, BKS . . . and so on? So we fired her.

What fool changes the name of the company? What fool changes the company’s telephone number? I do not know how many of you remember what a Datsun car was. It was a Japanese mark, very popular, especially the Datsun Triple S, which went like smoke. Then Nissan bought Datsun. For months, the radio ad went: “Nissan has bought Datsun. Datsun/Nissan, one and the same!” You got the point?

But let us go back to 1990 when I was working for Foster Wheeler. When I told people that I worked for Foster Wheeler, they always said: “Yus, hum, I’ve heard of them.” Foster Wheeler had some wonderful systems to get engineering work done without frills. No impressive tender documents – just a few sheets with requirements, specifications, and so on. They cracked on well. But the company was owned by Foster Wheeler, in the UK, which sold it to South Africans.

Then the UK, fearing an apartheid backlash, said it must change the name. So Foster Wheeler sold themselves to Babcock, which changed the name from Foster Wheeler to Babcock Consulting Group, or BCG. It took the Foster Wheeler draughtsperson about two hours to find out that BCG was the acronym for bacillus almette guerin, a cow vaccine.

Like zebras in the dusk, the orders faded and vanished. The staff told Sasol and Natref and Engen and Sapref, look, we’re still Foster Wheeler. But they did not care and no orders came.

In fact, the culture of Foster Wheeler 23 years ago and that of Babcock could not have been more different; at Foster Wheeler, every day, the pub was open at lunchtime for the draughtsperson to knock off a few beers and the engineers a whiskey or two. On Thursdays and Fridays, it opened at 17:00 till 20:00. Everybody smoked and swore ruthlessly.

Foster Wheeler CEO Mark Meyer had a sign on the wall in his office which read: “When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, when the funds are low and the debts are high and you want to smile but you have to sigh, when care is pressing you down a bit, don’t come to me – I don’t give a bit.” Well, not really ‘bit’.

One of the female engineers complained that the sign was demo- ralising. Meyer took down the sign and put up another, which read: “The floggings shall continue until Morale improves.”

Finally, Babcock sold the crew back to Foster Wheeler UK and it all went forward again. But now we are in new times. Consulting firms Ninham Shand and Africon have become Aurecon. Would I give a project to Ninham Shand? Yes, without a doubt. Would I give one to Aurecon? Who are they? Then there is Van Niekerk, Kleyn & Edwards. Well known. Changed to VKE. No worries – it’s what the industry used to call the company. Then to Vela VKE; that old empowerment thing. But now it has become part of Australian consulting firm SMEC. SMEC who? Well, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all for the good. But we are just staying plain ol’ Mackenzie-Hoy. If it was good enough for my great-grandfather, it is good enough for me.