Genuinely looking for Advice
Hey all, before I start complaining gotta give an obligatory my job is not that bad and many of my friends work significantly harder for way less pay.
I’m currently a manager and truly don’t work more than 45-50 hours a week, and a lot of weeks work maybe 30. However, I will often not hear back from a partner for days on end and then get frantic calls at 7,8,9+ p.m. often late on Fridays and very frequently weekends. This means I’ll often have not much to do besides bullshit admin / proposal / BD stuff from 2pm on and then have a firedrill late at night.
Many have tried pushing back, not responding and they are always forced out / get bad bonuses, etc. Our work necessitates long hours around deal deadlines but this is so unnecessary. I also know when a deal deadline is and of course know that week is going to suck, so I can plan accordingly.
This leads me to wondering for any folks that have been in industry or have already made the leap, is this all avoidable on the other side? I do not give a flying fuck about corporate culture, climbing the ladder or any of that. I got into consulting to get ahead, save a bunch and juice the resume. I don’t mind working longer hours, just want some more predictability so I can make actual plans, instead of never really knowing when shit will hit the fan.
I know I’m in a general very lucky position, and many would kill to have the hours I do for the money, but too many of my hobbies involve no cell service and so I want to be able to put the laptop down at a predictable time.
TLDR, how is the balance in industry / on the client side truly? Even if longer hours than the standard 40, do you know in advance? For example I would love if I had 55 hours of work to do and had 5 days to do it, rather than 3 hours of work that I find out about at 9pm that has to go out before midnight.