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Comment by skeeter2020

4 years ago

If you've never worked for a big consulting shop it's hard to explain what it can be like. I BILLED 2,800 hours my first (and only) full year, and spent most weeks out of town. They love to take you out for dinner with your consulting coworkers while on engagement, but you quickly realize this is to (a) keep you onsight until 7 or 8pm, (b) prevent you from developing a life outside of the company, and (c) hey, maybe we should head back to the office after dinner for a little bit... It's fun for a while when you're young, single and stupid.

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skeeter2020

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hadleybelter  4 years ago

I know that some consulting shops are sweat shops like you describe, but not all are. I worked for one of the major consulting Big4s and my experience couldn't be more different (except for spending most weeks out of town).

I was there for 5 years, and with the exception of one single project that lasted 1.5 months, all of my teams would leave the office no later than 6pm, and not once did I or anyone I ever worked with ever go back to the office later in the night. Once we gathered at the hotel bar after dinner with our laptops to practice a presentation we were giving the next day, but that's it.

It also wasn't difficult at all to develop a life outside of the company, even with the weekly travel. I spent a lot of time with coworkers, yes, but on most of my teams I genuinely enjoyed that time (and even long after leaving I am still close friends with many of them). We had hobbies together (would go to the gym together sometimes, explored different neighborhoods in town, played video games together, watched sports together, etc). If you're the type of person that thinks "work is only for work and therefor I can never be 'friends' with a coworker", then consulting isn't for you, but not everyone is like that.

The work-life balance and the general fun that I had were my favorite parts of consulting. I left because I found that every project I was on was inherently a "this company is full of incompetent morons and so they're hiring a bunch of mediocre consultants to come in and hold everyone's hand", and after several years it just got exhausting to always be the adult in the room.