(by David): In my work like, not much has changed since 1976, when I first started university. I read articles and books, and write reports, most of the days — work days, and weekend, although the content is sometimes different.
Working in consulting usually means a little bit of a rush towards the end, even if the project is well-managed. In the earlier days of a consulting gig, there’s always a possibility to move around deliverables a bit, but at end of the project is the end of the project, so everything has to be wrapped up.
I’ve known since August that I was planning to leave for Finland on November 11, so this hasn’t been a surprise. I’ve been managing the consulting time pretty well — there’s really only me and antoher consultant, and we’ve been working together well — but working towards a final report means that there can effectively only be one person that “owns” the document at any given time. It’s possible to work on sections, and copy-and-paste them into a master document, but there’s always the risk of making mistakes doing that.
So, the schedule was a four-hour slot for a Powerpoint presentation on the second last today — this Thursday — and then the final report due on the Friday.
On the late Wednesday night (actually early Thursday), I was up until 1 a.m.
On the Thursday night, I asked my colleague to finish up around 8 p.m., and hand the document over to me. I started working on the document around 8:30 p.m., and finished at 4 a.m. When I spoke to him on Friday morning, I told him that the document was all his to finish. The amount that he had to finish was up to him, but most of the content of a 70-page-plus document was done.
These types of deadlines definitely give me a flashback to student days …. Nothing much has changed.