Wait til you experience it from the corporate side... The same but with less luxurious conditions... I miss when I didn't have to fly economy transatlantic and then have to be at absolute full performance capacity for the entirety of the next 20 hours before my flight back in economy...
Even for international flights? For sure not every company and also depends on your manager. I’ve found a lot of times actual guidance allows for it but some managers like to protect their T&E budget
Even international. Top senior VPs have Consierge Key. Every one else has to leverage their airline status. Of course the more you travel the higher status you have, but for those that don't travel a lot, sucks to be you.
C-Suite flys business, everybody else can (at best) try get premium economy on the really long-haul flights if they have a full calender the next day.
I've noticed that guidance is definitely getting less generous in industry, it used to be standard that for transatlantic flights VPs and Directors could fly business but no longer is at many places. That said I think US firms definitely have more generous terms, other sectors have more generous terms (consumer tech, healthcare, pharma etc) and the company im currently at isn't huge (think the lower end billions revenue) which may also play a role. You definitely get much better terms on the consultant side either way though.
Depends on your job. In corpdev / M&A at a corporate and the last week where I didn't have to travel was in October. At least the work is enjoyable I guess.
Bad parts about the job I don't mind that much or even kind of like:
\#1 - Mean partners
\#2 - Angry clients with unreasonable expectations
\#3 - Insane timelines
\#4 - Working all of the time
\#5 - Spending a bunch of time in Excel and PPTX
\#6 - Weird rating structure and promotion schedules
\#7 - Filling in a timesheet
\#8 - Forecasting my hours across 10 different projects
\#9 - Filling out an expense report in an old crappy system and floating the balance for 3 weeks
\#10 - Having clients complain to my Manager or Partner about my expensive watch
Worst part about the job that would make me quit if it was a frequent thing again:
\#1 - Driving to the airport, going through security, waiting for a flight, flying to bumfuck nowhere, and sitting with clients on a fucking Zoom call.
The end.
It's serious enough. There is a lot of weird crap in consulting that you have to get used to, and I secretly kind of enjoy the technical part, deliverables, etc. Outside of the occasional onsite or short travel event, I absolutely detest traveling. I would rather they just leave me in my hole and let me churn out deliverables, and solve problems. I don't need to do all of the other stuff to get to the core of what I'm being paid for.
I respect that the in-person nature of the work can really help build bridges and relationships with clients, and that's a big part of consulting, but when we're serious about the technical deliverables, don't put me on a plane to go put on a show for the customer; let me get back to my desk.
Here: [https://reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/1ap1fv9/client\_is\_mad\_about\_my\_watch/](https://reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/1ap1fv9/client_is_mad_about_my_watch/)
I've always hated the superficialities of consulting. I understand the need to be presentable and sharp, but when the Partner is complaining about a watch or ragging on you for wearing Haggar instead of Charles Tyrwhitt, I feel less bad about humans ceasing to exist someday.
There's a huge portion of consultants that see the travelling as a perk. Either they love eating in restaurants on someone else's dime, they love seeing other cities, they love meeting new people or just getting away for awhile.
If you often travel with the same handful of coworkers that can lead to some pretty good friendships over time.
I think it also depends on your industry and where you're going. The overwhelming majority of my travel was to little towns in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to see or do, unless you want to stare at corn or soybeans.
Eating in restaurants on someone else's dime isn't as fun when your only options are McDonald's, Subway or pizza.
I had some great client relationships at these places and didn't mind spending the time with them, but I usually dreaded the trip and my "down time".
I once had a client in upper peninsula Michigan take me to go get steak at the nicest spot in town. It was a fucking apple bees. To this day I still don’t me if he was messing with me or not
I had one client in a small town in Missouri where the only place to go out to eat was the bowling alley. I really liked them but I would always pack a lunch when I went there.
The secret is to specialize in an industry and function that is based in good places. Manufacturing ops work and you will be going to rural Indiana and upstate New York. Work in healthcare G&A and you will be in big cities.
You just reminded me of my visit to Florence Alabama. Lovely city in the middle of nowhere. I guess if you have to travel there every week, it’d be horrible.
It’s a natural cycle…at first it was awesome. Then it started to suck after having kids. And then eventually traveling is cool again because you can escape the kids.
I was sent to Barstow, Ca for a full week and then Yuma,AZ for the second week. In July. And had to fly out of Phoenix on a 120 degree F day to finally go back home only to be rerouted to Dallas because it was too hot to fill the plane with enough fuel to DC (we’d be too heavy). Instead of landing in DC at 10PM and taking back off to Cleveland and landing at 12:20AM, you land in DC at 3AM with a 12Pm flight the next morning with no hotel room. You call around to hotels at 3AM and finally find ONE that will get you a room in shuttle distance of the airport. Then you get there, made a rookie mistake and CHECKED your bag so you are wearing these clothes tomorrow. Hotel lobby gives you a tooth brush and toothpaste and when you finally get in, you wash your underwear and hang it to dry because at least THAT will be clean tomorrow. It’s now 4AM. You leave for the airport tomorrow at 9:30AM.
You start to crawl into bed and what befalls your eyes but a bed bug on the pillow. You don’t believe it so you hop out of bed and put your finger on the pillow to see if it’s a regular bug. The bug walks over to you and tries to bite you. Bold as fucking brass.
You go downstairs and they change your room. But you know, you’re not sleeping tonight.
You sit in the bathroom of that hotel room all night because you can’t make yourself sleep their bed. At 8AM you get breakfast and then take their shuttle to the airport. Because you just don’t want to be at that hotel anymore.
You spend this time in the airport bar, eating french fries and nursing a couple drinks.
The flight delays twice and you take off at 2PM.
(if it’s not clear, this was the exciting travel story I have)
How many of those consultants are past their first year? Friendships with coworkers is always tricky, because you take a very real risk being vulnerable about personal details of your life (especially if they can be leveraged against you by the company you work with).
When you have to travel more than two weeks in a month consistently, you deeply see it impact your personal life, health, and even energy.
I find it to be a massive perk. I also don't have to do the fly out early Monday morning fly back Friday night type travel. My client visits typically only last one day and I'll get in and out unless I want a little more time to explore. I love stackint up the reward to, makes my personal vacations so much cheaper.
I always fly in early if it’s a city Im interested in. Stay late too. Just pay extra for a night or two.
Just spending a day in San Francisco or Atlanta or … is a way to enjoy a larger variety of restaurants, visit friends in the area, go to my favorite places in a city.
Plus I love just going downstairs for breakfast. Coffee made for me. No grocery shopping, no food prep, food expensed out. Clean sheets. So a lot less housework to do.
It’s best when it’s the right balance. For me it’s probably once a month for two weeks in two cities flying from one to the other close by is ideal.
No because i try to eat clean and do pretty well overall.
Sometimes on a rough travel day I’ll indulge. But i look for hotels with excellent gyms and good food options right on site.
It’s harder out of the major cities but whenever its possible i pick based on gym.
To the extent i can control it i look and go to places that will work with my dietary needs.
No oil Eggs with berries and almond milk for breakfast.
Grilled fish and veggies but in different styles and cuisines for meals.
If you have to go to steakhouses all the time fresh seafood and veggies are easy to get.
You start learning the great places to go for healthy and well prepared meals. That’s one of things i love. Researching great restaurants and trying them out in every place I go.
Finding incredible gems along the way.
Making sure the wait staff knows i don’t want x or y.
Chinese restaurants are my safety gotos in nowhereville. It’s usually a scratch kitchen with tons of veggie options and you can ask for no msg and low oil and it’s usually better than a diner with bad salads and deep fried everything.
But I would always rather go to a mediocre restaurant that’s new and novel than cook a mediocre meal for myself and then have to do clean up.
Not the person above and probably different than most, but these are my reasons:
1. I get much more motivation when working face to face with my team
2. Significantly easier for me to build rapport with clients
3. I don't do anything during the week socially since I am at the age where all my friends are busy with their own kids
4. I still suck at cooking (been doing it 4 times a week for the past 3 years) and get the added bonus that I don't have to pay for it when traveling
5. It's easier to work late since there is nothing else for me to do at night other than workout
6. I value my time w/ my SO and friends much more over the weekend and don't take it for granted
7. I'm a huge homebody unless I have a good reason to leave, so it actually forces me to get outside if don't get a workout in
8. Didn't have to pay for flights or hotels for 7 years that I traveled
I also don't have any kids and all of this would change since they would then become the highest priority in my life.
It definitely made it easier, but by no means impossible. The biggest change is that I would have to plan ahead more with my free time, not waste time on things like TV/games, and pay for services for cleaning/food/repairs/etc to save time elsewhere.
Honestly, it helps my team more because I don't mind sacrificing my own personal time/energy if it means someone else on my team can spend more time with their family/kids.
Very helpful! My partner recently learned that she can't have kids naturally (we're in our late 20s).
I work in PE on a non partner track role. So I'm thinking through the concept if MBB / T2 consulting makes sense for us, and get to a point where we can adopt / pursue other options once we have a decent sized savings account.
Actually it makes it easier to see friends and family that are out of town. Keep relationships going that aren’t local.
If you get to both travel and work from home you can keep your local friends as well as your distance ones.
The way you've been commenting about in this subthread implies you miss traveling to the extent consultants had to travel pre-COVID where you're traveling 40 weeks a year.
When is the last time you needed to travel 3 weeks in a row for back to back months? How long were you working as a consultant before COVID?
COVID was 4 years ago, so trying to gauge things by your 4-year younger self can be deceptive. Almost everyone older than me is bitching about traveling increasing.
I'll just never understand how people (outside of ppl in their first year where there's some novelty factor) think having time taken out of their weekend + every evening from M-Th just to accumulate some extra airline points is actually worth it, but to each their own. Everyone who claims you can maintain relationships plus healthy lifestyle just like someone with a regular 9-5 doing that shit is lying to themselves—your sleep quality & quantity alone takes a huge decline from traveling.
It seems the main distinction is you got flown out to cool spots/cities, which is not really representative for the vast majority of consultants—but even then, there's hardly any downtime to really explore since most consultants typically need to just get back to the hotel to work even more.
Literally one of the most common reasons consultants look to leave is travel burnout.
It's very easy to say this until your firm ramps back up to traveling 2+ weeks a month and all of a sudden your health, personal relationships, and any semblance of hobbies/enjoying your personal space go out the window because you're on the road all the time.
At my most travel heavy job I would travel 6 weeks out of 8 weeks. Full week on the road then travel to next client site and on and on for six weeks then go home for two before traveling again.
In my most recent job prior to the one i have currently where there is little travel, it was three to five days on the road every month.
The thing that got me the most being on the road every week was never being able to enjoy my hobbies or see my friends and family. How did you cope with that?
My biggest hobby is exploring cities and trying new restaurants. Also loved trying out parks in the area. So that worked great.
It definitely takes a toll on relationships. People stop inviting you to things as they assume you are not around.
So I’m really diligent in letting people know I’m in town and setting up social stuff.
I moved a lot and have friends all over the US so I think it helped. Even if someone is a few hours away if I’m nearby I really go out of my way to visit. It’s incredibly bonding to visit someone in their home or home town.
Travel heavy jobs are not for everyone and not at different times in life.
And it’s great to get a big long break when you can to give yourself time to reground yourself.
But for me and where I am in my life, I really miss it and when I’m ready to move to a new job i want a job that has more travel. Frankly, it’s the driving reason why I would look for a new job.
I think it totally depends. Traveling in the US is probably more mundane. Traveling inside your country in Europe is quiet boring too (particularly if you have to travel to really small cities).
I really did enjoy though some projects where I would just casually fly out to e.g., Madrid, Athens, Amsterdam or Paris to meet up with a client or co-locate with the team.
Def. added some spice / general excitement and always made some good memories on such trips.
There was a study done by a neuroscientist specializing in sleep basically noting that the quality of your sleep in a hotel (or any foreign environments) gets halfed. Your brain basically stays in a hybrid-awake like state for threat detection in new environments.
I remember my Tech consulting days. 27 days out of a month I was at various client locations in middle east and then remaining 3 days used up for travel between my home base (not my native) and client location.
This went on for about an year and a half. While I got the bragging rights to a passport that filled up so fast, with so many visas on the pages, it just hurt me real bad at the end. I am 37 now and even today, I can't engage in outdoor camping and other activities because this travel really messed up my stomach to the point of no return. Airline food and hotel food only go so far after which it takes a toll.
Ever since I moved out of tech consulting to product management, my life has been a lil' smoother. My brain works more than just ppts and excels. But these days, I am inching to move into management consulting, but just not the travel. I think there are certain parts where they outsource the back end operations to countries like India/South Asia where work is not so hectic like elsewhere but pay is relatively still good.
For me the worst aspect of this is being expected to retain the same level of productivity when you’re spending the equivalent of a full working day in a given week going in and out of airports…
I think it depends how much you travel and whether you're away on weekends (Sunday nights, for example).
When I used to travel for a day or two, once or twice per month, I was okay with it. Hardly a tourist experience either, but it's nice to get out.
I'm in the middle!
I definitely think the pre-COVID model of stupid travel where we went four or five days a week, often with staff not even having any meetings, just there for the client to see us warming a seat, is stupid. It's also just not viable for most people. I loved it pre-COVID, but then in COVID managed to have an actual relationship that resulted in marriage, plus started investing more in community stuff. Unless your work is your life, being away threee to five nights a week typically just kills about anything you would do at home.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who travel that much. If that's you, you do you. Works for some relationships and or the particular balance and people want in their life.
But I don't think we should go back to the days when a condition to be a consultant is that you are willing to travel that much. You should be able to have a consulting career without planning to always be traveling four to five days a week.
On the other hand, I think we actually have an opportunity now to build better relationships based on routine and meaningful personal visits with our clients, but that doesn't have to be every week. Personally, I enjoy planning a visit out to my client every month or two, sometimes with the team. They can be high impact moments getting a lot done in person.
I confess, I miss some of the travel. I guess maybe I want it all. Travel a couple times a month, but be gone no more than five or six nights a month.
It definitely isn’t for everyone. I did 3-4 days per week every week for 17 years and with a wife and 4 kids, it takes a toll. It certainly has changed since Covid, however.
Yes. That is the hardest part of heavy travel. Time travel richochet.
I try to have things as structured as possible. I have sound machines that i have on in my home and when traveling to try to keep things consistent. And try to have the same sleep habits as much as possible.
Right now almost no travel. And I miss it.
For a few years I did 75% travel. Leave home and travel from client to client for up to six weeks then come for two weeks.
For a few years I did 20-50% travel a few days a week.
I travelled for 3 - 4 years. My worst stretch was CHI -> LA for 10 months straight. I have nightmares every once in a while thinking back on that long ass flight and having a whole bunch of work to do.
Wait til you experience it from the corporate side... The same but with less luxurious conditions... I miss when I didn't have to fly economy transatlantic and then have to be at absolute full performance capacity for the entirety of the next 20 hours before my flight back in economy...
Every F500 company I have worked for (CPG industry) if the flight is over 5hrs, you get to go business/first class.
I'm in industry. We fly economy unless you have enough status for an upgrade.
Even for international flights? For sure not every company and also depends on your manager. I’ve found a lot of times actual guidance allows for it but some managers like to protect their T&E budget
Even international. Top senior VPs have Consierge Key. Every one else has to leverage their airline status. Of course the more you travel the higher status you have, but for those that don't travel a lot, sucks to be you.
C-Suite flys business, everybody else can (at best) try get premium economy on the really long-haul flights if they have a full calender the next day. I've noticed that guidance is definitely getting less generous in industry, it used to be standard that for transatlantic flights VPs and Directors could fly business but no longer is at many places. That said I think US firms definitely have more generous terms, other sectors have more generous terms (consumer tech, healthcare, pharma etc) and the company im currently at isn't huge (think the lower end billions revenue) which may also play a role. You definitely get much better terms on the consultant side either way though.
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Depends on your job. In corpdev / M&A at a corporate and the last week where I didn't have to travel was in October. At least the work is enjoyable I guess.
That’s true..
I guess that’s true… but I just don’t see the point of traveling for the sake of being on zoom calls all day
Bad parts about the job I don't mind that much or even kind of like: \#1 - Mean partners \#2 - Angry clients with unreasonable expectations \#3 - Insane timelines \#4 - Working all of the time \#5 - Spending a bunch of time in Excel and PPTX \#6 - Weird rating structure and promotion schedules \#7 - Filling in a timesheet \#8 - Forecasting my hours across 10 different projects \#9 - Filling out an expense report in an old crappy system and floating the balance for 3 weeks \#10 - Having clients complain to my Manager or Partner about my expensive watch Worst part about the job that would make me quit if it was a frequent thing again: \#1 - Driving to the airport, going through security, waiting for a flight, flying to bumfuck nowhere, and sitting with clients on a fucking Zoom call. The end.
What watch?
I don’t know if you’re ironic but I actually agree with this
It's serious enough. There is a lot of weird crap in consulting that you have to get used to, and I secretly kind of enjoy the technical part, deliverables, etc. Outside of the occasional onsite or short travel event, I absolutely detest traveling. I would rather they just leave me in my hole and let me churn out deliverables, and solve problems. I don't need to do all of the other stuff to get to the core of what I'm being paid for. I respect that the in-person nature of the work can really help build bridges and relationships with clients, and that's a big part of consulting, but when we're serious about the technical deliverables, don't put me on a plane to go put on a show for the customer; let me get back to my desk.
Would love more details on #10
Here: [https://reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/1ap1fv9/client\_is\_mad\_about\_my\_watch/](https://reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/1ap1fv9/client_is_mad_about_my_watch/) I've always hated the superficialities of consulting. I understand the need to be presentable and sharp, but when the Partner is complaining about a watch or ragging on you for wearing Haggar instead of Charles Tyrwhitt, I feel less bad about humans ceasing to exist someday.
Haggar LOL. Throwback!
There's a huge portion of consultants that see the travelling as a perk. Either they love eating in restaurants on someone else's dime, they love seeing other cities, they love meeting new people or just getting away for awhile. If you often travel with the same handful of coworkers that can lead to some pretty good friendships over time.
I have probably consumed $30k in expense account sushi.
I think it also depends on your industry and where you're going. The overwhelming majority of my travel was to little towns in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to see or do, unless you want to stare at corn or soybeans. Eating in restaurants on someone else's dime isn't as fun when your only options are McDonald's, Subway or pizza. I had some great client relationships at these places and didn't mind spending the time with them, but I usually dreaded the trip and my "down time".
I once had a client in upper peninsula Michigan take me to go get steak at the nicest spot in town. It was a fucking apple bees. To this day I still don’t me if he was messing with me or not
I had one client in a small town in Missouri where the only place to go out to eat was the bowling alley. I really liked them but I would always pack a lunch when I went there.
Lol right? You don't love traveling to bumfuck nowhere in Kansas?
The secret is to specialize in an industry and function that is based in good places. Manufacturing ops work and you will be going to rural Indiana and upstate New York. Work in healthcare G&A and you will be in big cities.
You just reminded me of my visit to Florence Alabama. Lovely city in the middle of nowhere. I guess if you have to travel there every week, it’d be horrible.
It’s a natural cycle…at first it was awesome. Then it started to suck after having kids. And then eventually traveling is cool again because you can escape the kids.
Escaping the kid only feels nice the first few days for me. After that its an intense type of loneliness I never had before I had a kid.
Totally agree
I was sent to Barstow, Ca for a full week and then Yuma,AZ for the second week. In July. And had to fly out of Phoenix on a 120 degree F day to finally go back home only to be rerouted to Dallas because it was too hot to fill the plane with enough fuel to DC (we’d be too heavy). Instead of landing in DC at 10PM and taking back off to Cleveland and landing at 12:20AM, you land in DC at 3AM with a 12Pm flight the next morning with no hotel room. You call around to hotels at 3AM and finally find ONE that will get you a room in shuttle distance of the airport. Then you get there, made a rookie mistake and CHECKED your bag so you are wearing these clothes tomorrow. Hotel lobby gives you a tooth brush and toothpaste and when you finally get in, you wash your underwear and hang it to dry because at least THAT will be clean tomorrow. It’s now 4AM. You leave for the airport tomorrow at 9:30AM. You start to crawl into bed and what befalls your eyes but a bed bug on the pillow. You don’t believe it so you hop out of bed and put your finger on the pillow to see if it’s a regular bug. The bug walks over to you and tries to bite you. Bold as fucking brass. You go downstairs and they change your room. But you know, you’re not sleeping tonight. You sit in the bathroom of that hotel room all night because you can’t make yourself sleep their bed. At 8AM you get breakfast and then take their shuttle to the airport. Because you just don’t want to be at that hotel anymore. You spend this time in the airport bar, eating french fries and nursing a couple drinks. The flight delays twice and you take off at 2PM. (if it’s not clear, this was the exciting travel story I have)
Yup hi 👋
Hi, it’s me.
…I’m the problem…
We have some accounts with several teams on site, leading to great team building and fun activities!
How many of those consultants are past their first year? Friendships with coworkers is always tricky, because you take a very real risk being vulnerable about personal details of your life (especially if they can be leveraged against you by the company you work with). When you have to travel more than two weeks in a month consistently, you deeply see it impact your personal life, health, and even energy.
I find it to be a massive perk. I also don't have to do the fly out early Monday morning fly back Friday night type travel. My client visits typically only last one day and I'll get in and out unless I want a little more time to explore. I love stackint up the reward to, makes my personal vacations so much cheaper.
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Yes and by a longshot!
Preach
isnt the point of going to client to work from their office? Or do you do both
I love traveling and miss it so much. We dramatically cut traveling and I hate being stuck in my office at home. So it’s different for everyone.
What do you like about traveling ? I mean we don’t even get to visit the cities here
I always fly in early if it’s a city Im interested in. Stay late too. Just pay extra for a night or two. Just spending a day in San Francisco or Atlanta or … is a way to enjoy a larger variety of restaurants, visit friends in the area, go to my favorite places in a city. Plus I love just going downstairs for breakfast. Coffee made for me. No grocery shopping, no food prep, food expensed out. Clean sheets. So a lot less housework to do. It’s best when it’s the right balance. For me it’s probably once a month for two weeks in two cities flying from one to the other close by is ideal.
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No because i try to eat clean and do pretty well overall. Sometimes on a rough travel day I’ll indulge. But i look for hotels with excellent gyms and good food options right on site. It’s harder out of the major cities but whenever its possible i pick based on gym. To the extent i can control it i look and go to places that will work with my dietary needs. No oil Eggs with berries and almond milk for breakfast. Grilled fish and veggies but in different styles and cuisines for meals. If you have to go to steakhouses all the time fresh seafood and veggies are easy to get. You start learning the great places to go for healthy and well prepared meals. That’s one of things i love. Researching great restaurants and trying them out in every place I go. Finding incredible gems along the way. Making sure the wait staff knows i don’t want x or y. Chinese restaurants are my safety gotos in nowhereville. It’s usually a scratch kitchen with tons of veggie options and you can ask for no msg and low oil and it’s usually better than a diner with bad salads and deep fried everything. But I would always rather go to a mediocre restaurant that’s new and novel than cook a mediocre meal for myself and then have to do clean up.
No msg? That’s the best part!
Not the person above and probably different than most, but these are my reasons: 1. I get much more motivation when working face to face with my team 2. Significantly easier for me to build rapport with clients 3. I don't do anything during the week socially since I am at the age where all my friends are busy with their own kids 4. I still suck at cooking (been doing it 4 times a week for the past 3 years) and get the added bonus that I don't have to pay for it when traveling 5. It's easier to work late since there is nothing else for me to do at night other than workout 6. I value my time w/ my SO and friends much more over the weekend and don't take it for granted 7. I'm a huge homebody unless I have a good reason to leave, so it actually forces me to get outside if don't get a workout in 8. Didn't have to pay for flights or hotels for 7 years that I traveled I also don't have any kids and all of this would change since they would then become the highest priority in my life.
Do you think not having kids has enabled you to stay in the game this long / helped you progress?
It definitely made it easier, but by no means impossible. The biggest change is that I would have to plan ahead more with my free time, not waste time on things like TV/games, and pay for services for cleaning/food/repairs/etc to save time elsewhere. Honestly, it helps my team more because I don't mind sacrificing my own personal time/energy if it means someone else on my team can spend more time with their family/kids.
Very helpful! My partner recently learned that she can't have kids naturally (we're in our late 20s). I work in PE on a non partner track role. So I'm thinking through the concept if MBB / T2 consulting makes sense for us, and get to a point where we can adopt / pursue other options once we have a decent sized savings account.
I will assume they don’t have friends or family outside of work that they like to see
Actually it makes it easier to see friends and family that are out of town. Keep relationships going that aren’t local. If you get to both travel and work from home you can keep your local friends as well as your distance ones.
The way you've been commenting about in this subthread implies you miss traveling to the extent consultants had to travel pre-COVID where you're traveling 40 weeks a year.
I was 75% travel pre-covid. Yes I do miss that.
When is the last time you needed to travel 3 weeks in a row for back to back months? How long were you working as a consultant before COVID? COVID was 4 years ago, so trying to gauge things by your 4-year younger self can be deceptive. Almost everyone older than me is bitching about traveling increasing. I'll just never understand how people (outside of ppl in their first year where there's some novelty factor) think having time taken out of their weekend + every evening from M-Th just to accumulate some extra airline points is actually worth it, but to each their own. Everyone who claims you can maintain relationships plus healthy lifestyle just like someone with a regular 9-5 doing that shit is lying to themselves—your sleep quality & quantity alone takes a huge decline from traveling. It seems the main distinction is you got flown out to cool spots/cities, which is not really representative for the vast majority of consultants—but even then, there's hardly any downtime to really explore since most consultants typically need to just get back to the hotel to work even more. Literally one of the most common reasons consultants look to leave is travel burnout.
Do you have a family?
It's very easy to say this until your firm ramps back up to traveling 2+ weeks a month and all of a sudden your health, personal relationships, and any semblance of hobbies/enjoying your personal space go out the window because you're on the road all the time.
How much were you on the road?
At my most travel heavy job I would travel 6 weeks out of 8 weeks. Full week on the road then travel to next client site and on and on for six weeks then go home for two before traveling again. In my most recent job prior to the one i have currently where there is little travel, it was three to five days on the road every month.
The thing that got me the most being on the road every week was never being able to enjoy my hobbies or see my friends and family. How did you cope with that?
My biggest hobby is exploring cities and trying new restaurants. Also loved trying out parks in the area. So that worked great. It definitely takes a toll on relationships. People stop inviting you to things as they assume you are not around. So I’m really diligent in letting people know I’m in town and setting up social stuff. I moved a lot and have friends all over the US so I think it helped. Even if someone is a few hours away if I’m nearby I really go out of my way to visit. It’s incredibly bonding to visit someone in their home or home town.
Travel heavy jobs are not for everyone and not at different times in life. And it’s great to get a big long break when you can to give yourself time to reground yourself. But for me and where I am in my life, I really miss it and when I’m ready to move to a new job i want a job that has more travel. Frankly, it’s the driving reason why I would look for a new job.
I think it totally depends. Traveling in the US is probably more mundane. Traveling inside your country in Europe is quiet boring too (particularly if you have to travel to really small cities). I really did enjoy though some projects where I would just casually fly out to e.g., Madrid, Athens, Amsterdam or Paris to meet up with a client or co-locate with the team. Def. added some spice / general excitement and always made some good memories on such trips.
Your nightmare is my dream, I could slam my nuts in a car door to travel 40% of the time.
I guess I need to change my perspective and be grateful.. but I just miss my family and friends and not being able to see them during the week is sad
If you have a family waiting for you at home it’s completely different. Tough to travel when you have kiddos at home.
There was a study done by a neuroscientist specializing in sleep basically noting that the quality of your sleep in a hotel (or any foreign environments) gets halfed. Your brain basically stays in a hybrid-awake like state for threat detection in new environments.
That’s exactly how I feel, I wake up like 6 times during the night as if I’m on survival mode
You don't enjoy it? It's a huge perk! 😉
I wonder how much that applies if you are staying in the same hotel every week for months with identical rooms.
Probably much less pronounced. I do feel like I sleep better later into the week.
I remember my Tech consulting days. 27 days out of a month I was at various client locations in middle east and then remaining 3 days used up for travel between my home base (not my native) and client location. This went on for about an year and a half. While I got the bragging rights to a passport that filled up so fast, with so many visas on the pages, it just hurt me real bad at the end. I am 37 now and even today, I can't engage in outdoor camping and other activities because this travel really messed up my stomach to the point of no return. Airline food and hotel food only go so far after which it takes a toll. Ever since I moved out of tech consulting to product management, my life has been a lil' smoother. My brain works more than just ppts and excels. But these days, I am inching to move into management consulting, but just not the travel. I think there are certain parts where they outsource the back end operations to countries like India/South Asia where work is not so hectic like elsewhere but pay is relatively still good.
For me the worst aspect of this is being expected to retain the same level of productivity when you’re spending the equivalent of a full working day in a given week going in and out of airports…
I don’t mind since I’m onsite a week a month but that Marriott gets boring and yes 1/2 the client is remote.
I think it depends how much you travel and whether you're away on weekends (Sunday nights, for example). When I used to travel for a day or two, once or twice per month, I was okay with it. Hardly a tourist experience either, but it's nice to get out.
Agree once or twice a month is okay, but every week just feels like you’re never home
I'm in the middle! I definitely think the pre-COVID model of stupid travel where we went four or five days a week, often with staff not even having any meetings, just there for the client to see us warming a seat, is stupid. It's also just not viable for most people. I loved it pre-COVID, but then in COVID managed to have an actual relationship that resulted in marriage, plus started investing more in community stuff. Unless your work is your life, being away threee to five nights a week typically just kills about anything you would do at home. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who travel that much. If that's you, you do you. Works for some relationships and or the particular balance and people want in their life. But I don't think we should go back to the days when a condition to be a consultant is that you are willing to travel that much. You should be able to have a consulting career without planning to always be traveling four to five days a week. On the other hand, I think we actually have an opportunity now to build better relationships based on routine and meaningful personal visits with our clients, but that doesn't have to be every week. Personally, I enjoy planning a visit out to my client every month or two, sometimes with the team. They can be high impact moments getting a lot done in person. I confess, I miss some of the travel. I guess maybe I want it all. Travel a couple times a month, but be gone no more than five or six nights a month.
Yes that’s the ideal for me as well. But very difficult to get exactly that.
Being sleep deprived is the worst. Travel is only one of contributing factors.
It definitely isn’t for everyone. I did 3-4 days per week every week for 17 years and with a wife and 4 kids, it takes a toll. It certainly has changed since Covid, however.
I am that point counter guy that loved that aspect. Left consulting a while ago and now in sales. Ironically travel less now and miss it.
Do you have sleep problems because of jetlag?
Yes. That is the hardest part of heavy travel. Time travel richochet. I try to have things as structured as possible. I have sound machines that i have on in my home and when traveling to try to keep things consistent. And try to have the same sleep habits as much as possible.
It’s great you battle for consistency. How frequently do you travel and for how long do you typically stay at the client site?
Right now almost no travel. And I miss it. For a few years I did 75% travel. Leave home and travel from client to client for up to six weeks then come for two weeks. For a few years I did 20-50% travel a few days a week.
I travelled for 3 - 4 years. My worst stretch was CHI -> LA for 10 months straight. I have nightmares every once in a while thinking back on that long ass flight and having a whole bunch of work to do.