Rear View Mirror

I am nearing a very important day: my one year anniversary of working and living in Munich. I have started to look back at the past months to reflect on exactly what has progressed, changed, regressed and so on. I assume an anniversary is an appropriate time to reflect. There are particular things that dominate this look in the rear-view mirror, namely my battle struggle conquest adventure with learning the language and this little consulting gig I have gotten myself involved in. The former has been fodder for past blogs and social media rants, so I will leave that alone until the next major milestone or disaster. Job it is….so here is what I found….

We fade in on a girl that moved to Munich last April to join an internal consultancy for a major German engineering company. All that is intentionally vague to keep myself out of as many google search results as possible. I left behind the finance world, stopped over in Barcelona for some R&R and read a few books and then landed back in the corporate world here in Munich….for the weekends at least. It is a change, one that I enjoy immensely, but it is significantly different from what my time in New York City.

Many of my friends, nice colleagues and project clients ask me about my thoughts on consulting versus finance. Given the frequency of this question, I am locked and loaded with answers, but really there is not much to compare. Different worlds and for me VERY different experiences. The biggest difference is summed up in one little phrase: ‘Work life balance’. This is something that consulting firms use like toilet paper really. It is a covetable, never ending hunt for a true and healthy balance. Oh wait, the rest of the world has probably heard of this phrase….the finance circus in NYC never stood still long enough to get past the work part. Life was work and balance was more a skill you needed to sleep in places consultants wouldn’t dream of sleeping. I have not slept on, under or next to my desk so I suppose that is a step in the right direction. And when a colleague wears the same outfit two days in a row, it’s because he is European, not because he hasn’t been home from the office this week.

Now, now….that sounds a bit arrogant! Oh it so is and that is also a softened view on the matter – I have been out of the game for more than two years. And there is nothing about it that I miss, except the pulse, the rush, the vibrancy of New York City – still a tough topic to stop and think about.

So what I have found in my reflection is a new and profoundly useful skill set that has equipped me for tackling the challenges of daily life, but has also allowed me to broaden my small talk audience range. A transient life gives you these types of opportunities and I am soaking it up as much and as quickly as I can.

Currently, my consulting adventures have me traveling weekly to Berlin with occasional journeys to less ‘exotic’ German cities and even an occasional trip to the UK. Thanks to George Clooney and a little movie called ‘Up in the Air’, most can assume that I spend my days in the office, my nights in hotels and the time between traveling from one to the other. Largely accurate. Thanks to the movie, most might assume that I float effortlessly through airport security, throw back cocktails in the lounges during layovers and allow travel reward programs to dominate my travel planning. Not so much me, but I sure know some people who embody every word of this in excess. I have a lot room for improvement to become truly a lean traveler in airports. I don’t get to the airport early enough to need a lounge and I loathe the effort it takes to maximize reward programs.  What I have developed, is a new definition of community, a new set of portable hobbies and a skill set fitting of the lifestyle.

I am a guppy in the world of consulting….so here are a few behavioral patterns I have noted in my first year:

·         Coffee is omnipresent, but I carry makeup to cover-up that which three cups of coffee cannot fix.

·         I pass time on the treadmill making up stories about the luxurious, rest-filled lives of those I watch lounging in the spa while I run off the hotel room service.

·         If I had to plan a party, my guest list would include colleagues, flight attendants, hotel concierges and the breakfast lady at the Intercontinental.

·         I have very distinct requirements for hotels - I judge by the quality of hair dryers, access to ironing boards and supply/quality of hair conditioner.

·         The first thing I do when I walk into a room or office is to identify where the electric plugs are – anything less than 50% battery life gives a consultant anxiety.

·         I have checked into a hotel and subsequently checked out without every touching the bed and lack any scandalous story to show for it, but a rather nice slide deck instead.

·         I blow through my per diem not with extravagant dinners, but with grossly inflated prices for last minute, express dry cleaning of suits.

·         Multitasking means sending an email on my computer during a conference call on my mobile taken while checking in for my flight at the airport….seamlessly.

·         I can pack 4 pairs of shoes into a carry-on bag for a week long trip and justify each pairs use.

I have a hard time looking forward and thinking about where I will be in another year. If I start playing card games with rental car bonus cards, I am in trouble. I just hope I can do it all while speaking German!