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Time vs money...which would you choose and why?
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Allowed? Of course. You’re an at-will employee of a professional services firm focused on client service.
You have three protest options:
1) Negotiate with your project leadership
2) Network to a new project
3) Network to a new firm/career out of Consulting
@A3 no
I’m more abrasive than most but would offer Monday to Friday midday (at most) or offer to onboard my replacement. Sunday travel is reserved for very critical meetings Monday morning and not a standing Monday morning meeting. If it’s recurring it needs to be moved or known we are calling in remotely. Only a shit engagement leadership team with no spine would let that stand and I would not work for them.
I would all of the sudden have a lot of church activities all day Sunday that are very important to me to attend or personal things going on late like couples counseling. But again you shouldn’t have to lie to avoid weekend travel but I’ve done it before and would do it again.
Looks like I’m converting to Christianity then
I’ll give a study one or the other if it requires it (Sunday night flight, Friday night flight) but both is out of the question unless it is an extremely good reason. I’d push back on it.
It’s hard without have a real feel of the situation, but finding out from your manager and or project leadership the need for this type of visibility and offer alternatives. Bringing it up and taking about it isn’t going to get you labeled as a slacker. You have a right to know why you’re required to sacrifice so much.
Background: Entry level, no kids but an annoyed girlfriend and confused roommates
Ridiculous. They need to find local resources if they want to have a M-F schedule. I’d pushback.
This just happened to me a few months ago. I was first told we would need to be on site M-F for six weeks, and then move to M-R with some remote weeks for the next 6 weeks.
Then when we get a final green light to book travel they asked us to not only book flights after 6pm on Friday, but to also fly out on Sunday MORNING so we could do some team building lunch and dinner BS. I kindly and courteously told the person requesting this that the strain this would put on my wife and kids would be too great. I offered to fly in Monday and leave Friday at 5pm for the first week because sessions were already planned for late Friday. I mentioned that I had spoken to several members of the team and there is a lot of contention and anxiety about how this is going impact everyone. I suggested that future Friday sessions be moved to earlier or later times M-R to maintain a semblance of balance. I said the last thing I would want is for us to not use our time efficiently on site. She kinda blew me off but agreed to Monday flights for week 1. We get on site and it is apparent to everyone that being there Friday is entirely pointless. By week two we were back on the regular schedule.
That’s insane wtf
Everyone responding this is the norm - you know it’s not. Standard is Sunday to Thurs. My engagement partner won’t LET me fly out on a Friday if I fly in on Sunday. You might as well just move there!
For how long you have to do it?
Looks like the norm for phase 1 of the engagement (3 months) which will most likely be extended
Is that allowed? Yes it is. We are expected to support the project needs. It could be S-F travel, late nights, all nighter, canceling vacations etc. You will notice that you have to make some sacrifices.
EY1 if a vacation is planned and in the system ahead of time there is no excuse. If leadership can’t effectively plan around that then they shouldn’t be in leadership positions. There is 0 reason anyone should be canceling a vacation unless they are the only person at the firm with the skill required to do the job which is never the case. Poor leadership is not an excuse
I’d push back. Do this Sunday fly day and work with the client and leadership to go home on Thursday’s because otherwise you’re going to burnout real quick
This is standard travel in Asia. Only in the US and Europe do Monday - Thursday travel standards seem norm.
“Only”...the entire western world
https://joinfishbowl.com/post_n87gi
I.e., it’s not worth it. Do everything you can to push back
Thank you all for your input! I appreciate it. I’ll do this for a couple weeks and see if this is the case moving forward and go from there. If so, I’ll raise my concerns to project leader
Good plan. An option you can present (if it gets to that point) is partial team coverage on Mondays and Fridays. If you have 6 people, agree the 3 will fly in Sunday night and out Thursday night. The other 3 fly in Monday night and out Friday night.
Monday 6 am flight and leave by Friday afternoon is the most I will do. I'd rather join a different project or firm than do that.