The following is an excerpt from After School.
When people ask you “What do you do?” what do you say?
I just say I’m a manager and a consultant.
What are your hours like?
On average I’m probably working sixty to seventy-five hours a week. It probably ebbs and flows depending on what we are doing. The summer was probably the worst. From June through July I was working probably sixteen to eighteen hour days for about four to six weeks. I was doing that mostly Monday through Friday; I had maybe a few weekends that I had to work, but I tried to stack it Monday through Friday when I was with my team. I haven’t had a project where I’ve worked eighty plus hours, but that could change. I’ve been pretty lucky in my current position actually. I just got promoted to Manager, so I haven’t had a project formally as a manager. Things could definitely change and increase.
I think other people were hoping they were going to travel to glamorous places and work side-by-side with the CEO on every project. I think I was more realistic that it could happen…it definitely happened on current project…but that wasn’t always going to be the case.
Do you like it?
I like it. It’s tough because I think a part of the reason I like it might have just to do with the luck of the projects I have gotten on and the timing sequence of those projects. None of the projects I’ve been on have been similar to anything that I did before or during Business School. I remember thinking that I was either going to love it or hate it. And I thought at the very least, as long as I’m learning have pretty cool people that I’m working with that I have the minimum I need to be happy.
So when I compare my experience with my classmates and then other people in my class at my company, I think much of the reason that I’m happier is that my expectations were really low…all I wanted were those two things. I think other people were hoping they were going to travel to glamorous places and work side-by-side with the CEO on every project. I think I was more realistic that it could happen…it definitely happened on current project…but that wasn’t always going to be the case.
I think listening to a couple of other folks in my class who are at the firm that are maybe not as happy helped as well. They’re not as happy with the types of projects that they’re getting. I don’t think I did anything different to get those projects; I just think I was open to what I would be willing to do. The only red line I told my staffing folks and my mentor was I just didn’t want to do Government work, because it’s the only thing I knew before business school. They’ve honored that, so that’s probably another reason I’ve been happy.
The pure intelligence enables me to learn from others on a consistent basis.
What’s the best part of the job?
There are two things that are great about the job. One, you get to learn different things over the course of different projects. I’ve had great clients relative to what I was hearing and what I’ve experienced before Business School. Most of our clients are very appreciative that we’re there. They may be stressed out because they don’t know what exactly is going on, or sometimes they’re a little suspicious at first of why we’re there. Most people think it’s like job-cutting but I think we do a really good job of co-creating with our clients. They never feel like they’re out of the loop on what’s going on, which fosters a very trusting relationship. This helps us get our projects to completion.
The second part of the job that’s great is working with the teams within my firm. There are some very smart people that I have worked with that are literally two years out of college. And then my partners have all been really great too; they’ve had twenty-plus years of experience. It’s been nice to have a cross section of people with different backgrounds and different years of experience.
The pure intelligence enables me to learn from others on a consistent basis. It could be something as tactical as “Whoa, your model is amazing. How did you do that?” and having a twenty four year old sit down next to me and show me what his thought process was.
My partners will talk about the experiences they’ve had the last twenty years in the media or what they’ve seen as evolution in consulting. They can almost immediately sense what a client’s issue is and what the extent of support we need to give them is. This is awesome, because I’m obviously not at a point where I feel like I have enough experience under my belt to be able to say “Ok, this type of project is a ten million dollar fees project because we have to have about fifteen to twenty people for the next four months to work on it”.
What’s the worst part of the job?
There is a lot you’ve got to do to get to the interesting parts of the work. It’s hard to get good quality data. Sometimes it’s hard to trust the folks on your team. And it’s not because they’re not trustworthy; There’s a very natural sense of “I can do this myself” so you could potentially overload yourself in the job very easily.
Going it alone, especially if you have other roles and responsibilities, can burn you out. I think a lot of the reason people end up leaving consulting because they unnecessarily overburden themselves. They think that that’s the only way they’re going to be successful in this job and eventually realize they have no work-life balance at all.
If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.
