My Fourth Job....

In consulting we have a saying. When you work for the firm (I’m not going to divulge my employer to many people get fired for this) you have 3 jobs. The first and most important job is client services. The work you are doing that the company bills for. This takes the first priority. It also takes the majority of your time and effort. Generally we put in 40 to 45 hours a week for this job, not including travel time to and from the city the client is located in. But while this job is the biggest priority no matter how good you are at it you will not get promoted beyond a certain level or on schedule only completing these activities. In fact it is only what is expected as a minimum. It is the next two parts of the job that get you promoted.

The next job you have when working for the firm is logistics or bureaucratic processes imposed by the company. Most people have to spend 10 min to ½ hour a week filling out their time and expense at a normal company. When you work for a consulting firm there is easily 10 times more to do. We have to fill out surveys, take a certain amount of required ethics trainings, fill out long performance evaluations, do goal setting, provide either counseling or mentoring to a junior employee, respond to knowledge requests, and continuously support other resources who need your expertise to complete their client work. And all of this is reported on. When mid-year or year-end comes along they have a whole set of reports to make sure your time and expense were in order and on time, that you filled out all the other firms on time, that you took the appropriate trainings, and that you contributed when directly asked. This work doesn’t take up as much time client services but you can figure on at least 2-5 hours a week on top of your 40-45 client hours and 2-8 hours of traveling. Though many times you can do some of this work on the plane so then traveling is at least productive time.

Finally when working for a consulting company there is the third job. This is managing your own career. Most consulting firms have org. charts that look like pyramids; a ton of people at the lower levels with very few at the top. This means that it is up or out. No one really stays at the same level more than additional year than the expected amount of time. You don’t really get fired you are just informed that you working for the firm may no longer be the correct match. So this is an important job, though of course you have to keep up with the first two before you can worry about the third. This is where networking activities come in, meeting people going to events, basically getting your name out there. It is also where volunteering to help with sales, marketing, and practice building activities come in. This work can sometimes be done in place of client services to some extent but it is the work you put in above and beyond that gets you noticed. Some of the activities include working on proposals, working on methodology documentation, contributing to our knowledge exchange, writing white papers, and giving presentations to teach a process, tool, or methodology. It is basically working to becoming a go to person that people will call when they have questions or needs.

But now I am a little lucky because I get board easily. So having all these different activities to take care of seems to keep in from getting myself in trouble. However if I didn’t have enough work I have my fourth job. My wife, plain and simple, requires as much work as any of my three jobs above. Lucky for me it is a total labor in love though. But basically she requires constant attention. It doesn’t always need to be a lot at one time, just a constant supply. If she posts a blog I need to comment, if she writes on my Facebook wall I need to write on hers, I should call at least once a day – though when she was in the states she would call me a couple times herself (I guess for good measure), emails need as close to as immediate responses as possible, the next weekend we get together needs to be planned, if I don’t post blogs on a regular basis I start to get pinged until I do it, and so on, and so on. To be honest I find this most endearing. It means she wants to interact with me and spend time with. She wants to know my thoughts on things, and she is spending her attention on me. I do love it. But to be honest it is still a lot of work. But I would suppose anyone who is married must have this extra job. I just wonder if they have a task master as tenacious mine. They should be so lucky!

I wonder if each kid will be an additional job... Sheesh... I may be in for it.
Of course I wouldn't have it any other way.