In September, I will celebrate my one year anniversary with McKinsey. So far, it has been an amazing time: I have enjoyed my projects, loved my teams and learnt a lot; had great lifestyle, work trip taking me back home and a lot of fun.
But sadly McKinsey decided to give me an early birthday present that I really didn’t want: a banking study.
The day I got back from my lovely and relaxing holiday in Russia, I was summoned into a client workshop despite being booked off work sick for two days. What a great start - but what a good indication of what was to come.
My client is based in downtown Johannesburg - an area famous for dodgy people and chronically congested roads. Adding to this lovely external environment, I am working for a client where management thinks that they have got everything under control; middle management think they desperately need our help and senior management has little clue what is going on.
To spice up this lovely set-up, I got a senior manager from overseas (i.e. no one to go home to at night) who is determined to increase the scope of the study on an hourly basis, a manager who loves to satisfy any requests no matter how silly they are, and colleagues who seem to spend their day not working but bitching about the incompetence of the client…
Adding all these lovely ingredients together, you get one lethal study with no impact, no fun, bad lifestyle, terrible hours and zero sleep.
Happy anniversary and welcome to the real world of consulting!
But sadly McKinsey decided to give me an early birthday present that I really didn’t want: a banking study.
The day I got back from my lovely and relaxing holiday in Russia, I was summoned into a client workshop despite being booked off work sick for two days. What a great start - but what a good indication of what was to come.
My client is based in downtown Johannesburg - an area famous for dodgy people and chronically congested roads. Adding to this lovely external environment, I am working for a client where management thinks that they have got everything under control; middle management think they desperately need our help and senior management has little clue what is going on.
To spice up this lovely set-up, I got a senior manager from overseas (i.e. no one to go home to at night) who is determined to increase the scope of the study on an hourly basis, a manager who loves to satisfy any requests no matter how silly they are, and colleagues who seem to spend their day not working but bitching about the incompetence of the client…
Adding all these lovely ingredients together, you get one lethal study with no impact, no fun, bad lifestyle, terrible hours and zero sleep.
Happy anniversary and welcome to the real world of consulting!
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