I’m speak­ing on this topic at the Young Sta­tis­ti­cians Con­fer­ence, 7–8 Feb­ru­ary 2013. If you’re a young sta­tis­ti­cian and live in Aus­tralia, please book in. It promises to be a great cou­ple of days. Early reg­is­tra­tions close on 2 Jan­u­ary. Abstract for my talk: For 25 years I have been an intre­pid sta­tis­ti­cal con­sul­tant, tack­ling the wild fron­tiers of real data, real prob­lems and real time con­straints. I have faced prob­lems rang­ing from lin­guis­tics to river beds, from mak­ing paper plates to sell­ing pies at the MCG, from tax office audits to sur­veys about the colour pur­ple. Uni­ver­sity edu­ca­tion helps pre­pare you to be a sta­tis­ti­cal con­sul­tant in the same way that Google maps helps pre­pare you to cross the Simp­son Desert. You have some idea of the main fea­tures, but when you get there, noth­ing looks famil­iar. I will describe some of my adven­tures, and explain how to bluff your way through igno­rance, work with inad­e­quate tools, and deal with smelly clients. I will tell you the story of the client who wouldn’t give me the data, the client who wouldn’t tell me the prob­lem, and the client who wanted all meet­ings held at ran­dom loca­tions for secu­rity rea­sons. Along the way we will learn about the skills

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