So I am a consultant by title…

I don’t really want to talk about the conceptions of how that means, people’s perceptions, or cracks about what they do.  I just wan to describe what it feels like to do my job.

I’m almost never told what to do.  I was just commenting about this with a coworker the other day – and it’s amazing how we all manage to get along in this fashion and things still work out.  We left it at: well, I guess if the group isn’t that large, and everyone has a sense of responsibility – than it sort of works out.

It is amazing though.  On a day in day out basis – I have little idea what will come up save for scheduled meetings and client trips – and even those sometimes get little notice.  I am going to Kuala Lumpur for three days – it’s not set yet – and this wasn’t even on my radar two days ago.  Each day come into the office and have to think: ok – what is it that I have to get done today, what should get done today, and so forth…it was a bit intimidating at first – but I am a creature of habit – and now that I have my routine down a bit – it involves getting up really early – I’ve been able to manage ok.

The range of activies and people that I talk to can be a bit staggering if I step back for a second and think about it…conference call with a Hong Kong client, technical consulting with IT in Europe, run over to our new office to let the electricity guys set things up, follow up on a trading and risk question from a potential client in India, phone call to a partner in London, writing a business plan for a revenue generating idea that our office will propose, writing a project plan for a new client, giving a presentation via web conference, and all the while going back and forth with coworkers in the US, Europe, and locally here in Singapore.  It’s pretty amazing how different this job is from my work as a developer years ago…to say nothing of what I was doing last year.  Completely different – no value judgments here – just different.

One thing that hasn’t changed though – and it seems to be consistent across all the things I’ve done in my short time – I think about work – a lot…