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Rising Star
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Chief
during busy weeks: i walk away from my laptop when i need to go do things (within reason, i.e. work out or make dinner) in the evening and ignore pings unless they’re absolutely a fire drill. nothing is more important than my own health and fitness. if i have pre-made plans like a dinner date or other things, the team gets notified earlier in the week and i log off early.
during not busy weeks: i log off at 6, or 7 at the latest, and go about my life. i maybe check pings at 10 or 11 before bed to see if anything popped off that i need to deal with the next day.
i have weekend work maybe 2-3 weeks out of the entire year. my expected TC is ~$200k this year <5 yoe.
the LEK life is a sad one. unfortunate that people feel that they can’t push back.
A few differentiators
1) we focus on developing “stand alone” analysts and associates with a sense of ownership for their workstreams. Supported by some tools like a OneNote agenda for the day which the manager can keep an eye on, most folks become self sufficient and don’t require handholding. My teams always know what the goals are, what the deadline is, and then…I trust them to execute. Day to day I don’t really monitor who is on when as long as we are slightly ahead of schedule.
2) your point about getting important presentations out the door is true. We do work as a team to get things to the 100% line, which does include some late nights occasionally. But again, the perspective is very different. Because we promote ownership I as a manager am basically never in the position of holding the team on line until they get their work done. It’s more that this is their responsibility as the workstream owner and we can all leave as soon as they feel proud of their deliverables. I as a manager am only there to support them and make sure they are staying aligned to the partner/client vision. In reality they keep me online, not the other way around. If I have associates that don’t care about their work and I have to keep them online to finish I will likely roll them off the team.
AC1,
I think there are a couple differences.
We don’t divide the work like that between tenured and junior folks on the team. We usually do pair a first year with a more senior associate and then there is an expectation that the senior will mentor the junior throughout the day and cut off a meaningful bit of work for the junior to focus on with supervision/support. The junior would then present directly to the partners regarding this bit of the workstream that they own.
We review regularly with the partners on the project. Frequently this looks like every single day there being a live problem solving meeting with the engagement director and responsible partner. In my current project we meet with them multiple times per day in order to cover all the workstreams. Because of this there are no big high stress days. The partners actually meet with individual associates quite regularly to get deep on the workstream and provide support. Again, huge focus on there being no big reveal days.
Rising Star
I do government consulting so it’s all quite different but here’s my life.
Im an SC/SME/IC level. I make 160k. I work 40-45 hours a week, depending on if I eat lunch at home (no travel, 1-2 days in office a week). I will work maybe 5 weekends a year to support BD.
Any plans I have that fall between 9-5 I put in a out of office on outlook to my manager, with the assumption they can deny it although they never do. If they want me to work outside those hours, I’ll do it but it will come with notice. It rarely happens, and if I have plans and it’s short notice I don’t cancel my plans.
I definitely make less than some of you on the commercial side. But I like the stability of government contracts (I’ve never been on a team with a layoff), and the steady hours. Pay is good enough for me.