Monday:
Got up at 5 am and headed out to Chatham this morning. My client is in Chatham and we work out of the client office Monday to Thursday. It's not the most exotic location but the hotels are all busy - all with Consultants! I have fun on my 3 hours train spotting Consultants, having breakfast and coffee and then going over the plan for this week. My meetings start at 9, so need to prep a bit.
After a busy morning of meetings, we got lunch from Co-op. There's literally nothing fancy around this place! We have a working lunch and then meet the data team to explain what we need from them. I like being quite hands on and therefore sit down with the AVP to understand how they've modelled some numbers. This takes up the rest of my day, till the whole office barring us consultants leave at 5!! People leave work at 5 - this is the dream! We continue working and crunching numbers for 3 more hours before heading to the hotel to check-in. I settle down, take a shower and get room-service and work some more. Will go to bed by 11- brain's not working!
Tuesday:
We grabbed breakfast together at 7:30 AM and head over to work. Annoying that the hotel is a bit far from the office. This morning I plan to do some more analysis and get some top level results and marry it up with Annual Report research from last week. I need to get some sort of a deck in order to review with my Director this evening since we're meeting the entire C-suite tomorrow for a discussion of the initial results. Very rarely do we have projects where I get to meet the C-suite but this isn't one of those huge brands and clients - so the C-suite seems to have a lot more approachable. Funnily enough, I discovered that the incoming CRO knows some of my ex-colleagues from his consulting days. So that's a good conversation starter!
Wednesday:
Got really late last night working on the deck for today's meeting. The meeting went well, mostly because my Director is fantastic! He has a buy-in conversation with every stakeholder before the meeting so that we can iron out issues before and get consensus in the meeting. Learning so much from him! Think I'll adopt him as a mentor. We're planning to call it an early night today and get some drinks. My Director is helping us cultivate a taste for good scotch!! :D
Thursday:
Almost didn't feel like turning up this morning after a fun evening yesterday. But we still met at 7:30 for breakfast, checked out of the hotel and got to work. Based on the feedback we received yesterday from the client, I need to read up on a few regulations. I also have to sit down with some of my other colleagues who have worked with competitors to get a few documents and insights. Clients are always asking for what their competition is doing, which is what I believe makes us consultants valuable for the business. I scheduled in a few meetings for tomorrow to get these details in. Looks like it might be some weekend working. Our train back to London is at 6 PM, so will get some work done on the train as well.
Friday:
Back to London and our home office. We generally come back and work from our base on Fridays. I have a few meetings today, need to claim expenses and meeting my career coach for lunch today. Fridays are also especially good since we have work drinks where we get to chat with the rest of the team and understand what other projects are going or are in pipeline. I am trying to get my next project in the Pharma industry, so it's a good opportunity to network and find out a bit more on what's going on there.
Saturday:
Collating notes today from my meetings yesterday as I have my morning coffee. Wanted to do it before I find it too hard to recollect. I am meeting friends from uni this evening, and we're going for a couple of hours of Rock Climbing. Social life is hard with a consulting job. The career coaching is helping in figure out what I want. I also am amazed by the Director am working with and how collected he is in every aspect from work to his personal life. I really need to get some advice before it gets out of hand.
