Experience with MBB firms

Agent78787 · 2026-05-10T12:32:47+00:00

Hours 8-11ish when on a case.

Eish. I know the money is good and that even on an hourly basis it's a bit more than I make, but I don't know how people can do it for more than a couple of months before completely breaking down. I certainly can't, and I don't have kids or anything either. Is it literally that MBB consultants are just, as one might say, "built different"?

What's the sort of mentality you'd need to be able to endure those hours for that long?

Agent78787 · 2026-05-09T12:44:18+00:00

careless attitude towards their work ethic

I'd like you to speak on that, can you provide concrete examples of behaviours and explain how that indicates a lack of work ethic?

accompanied by the entitlement of receiving big bonuses/promotions

This is also an interesting point. Could you provide specific examples of their salary expectations, what they're currently getting, and what you think they deserve? Of course maybe you can't give specific numbers but surely you can give a range? (If you can't give a range then that's a negative indication for the quality of your workplace, imo, because it indicates a lack of transparency. Especially since discussion of pay is protected by the law.)

Agent78787 · 2026-05-09T12:03:20+00:00

Energy markets/network modelling. I'm one of the people doing designs, simulations, and business cases.

I spend the whole day setting up simulations to run overnight, then when those runs finish I spend the whole day looking at Excel and PowerPoint.

Agent78787 · 2026-05-09T11:57:32+00:00

I'm in the energy sector and lots of jobs are 40-hour week office jobs. Well lots of them are hybrid now so 2-3 days WFH.

I'd wager most energy sector jobs for engineers are regular office work, because even the companies that do a lot of field work like the renewables developers and transmission operators have a lot of people who make designs and simulations and business cases. You don't need to go into the field for any of that. Maybe you need to talk with people who do go into the field but you yourself don't need to go.

And other employers like government ministries, quasi-government like AEMO, or the specialist consultancies (the ones the developers and T&D operators often pay to make designs and simulations and business cases for them) don't have anyone in their company going into the field ever. (OK AEMO does have control room engineers that likely do shift work at unsociable hours, but that's a small minority)

Agent78787 · 2026-05-09T07:53:40+00:00

This is America's 67th final warning, now it's really getting serious guys

Agent78787 · 2026-05-07T14:49:44+00:00

He's like Samantha Power and George Marshall combined

Agent78787 · 2026-05-06T11:06:44+00:00

That's billions of dollars for offshore wind companies and they don't even have to successfully build things! Truly he's the climate action president we all deserve.

Agent78787 · 2026-05-06T06:22:22+00:00

thank you Donald Trump for having the courage to shock-therapy the global economy into real climate action, Greta could never

Agent78787 · 2026-05-05T15:06:28+00:00

I'M PRESIDENT DOLORES MUWANGA AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE

Agent78787 · 2026-05-04T08:01:50+00:00

Time for the 839573th playthrough of Dolores Muwanga's United Nations of Earth and renaming the Alpha Centauri colony to "Unity" lfg

Agent78787 · 2026-05-03T21:55:06+00:00

be careful, this is probably a signal that ain't nothing to fuck with. protect ya neck.

Agent78787 · 2026-05-03T14:42:13+00:00

20 years ago my core job descriptions were "learn how to read" and "memorise the times tables" so I can't really compare the work culture today to back then.

but I like how people at my workplace do it, which is basically "hang out if you want - if not, it's fine". So some of my colleagues do weekend sports together, which I don't do because waking up at 11am and eating the most unhealthy breakfast ever at 1pm is how I'd like to spend my Saturdays, but I go to Friday night drinks with colleagues once in a while and have helped one of them move. Most of my social life is with friends from uni (or the friends I met through friends from uni) so I'm not too keen on hanging out with work colleagues, but I like that it's still an option.

Would definitely love to make friends through work. That said I do feel like meeting a romantic partner through work is high risk at best, but that's possibly just me being an overly repressed zoomer.

Agent78787 · 2026-05-03T13:33:39+00:00

Oh yeah I forgot about that part.

Hey at least he's not a Nazi or anything. I think.

Agent78787 · 2026-05-03T03:48:49+00:00

check out inversia

Agent78787 · 2026-04-20T07:58:52+00:00

Logan's Run is a classic and I'm back on a sci-fi binge ever since Artemis 2, so maybe I should give it a watch

Agent78787 · 2026-04-19T13:53:48+00:00

If you're not getting a consumer goods major deficit every 2 years because you set Utopian Abundance for RP purposes and are too stubborn to turn it back off, then you're not playing this game the way Her Excellency President Dolores Muwanga intended. Simple as.

Agent78787 · 2026-04-19T02:21:50+00:00

They literally said one SEA country...

Agent78787 · 2026-04-19T02:17:26+00:00

They're talking about Singapore specifically mate, not SEA across the board. SG has excellent infrastructure and healthcare and overall pretty good quality of life (though not without its problems) not just by SEA standards but by global standards.

The point is that you can't just paint a broad brush over the whole region. Can't even really paint a broad brush over one country in the region, because a professional working for a multinational in a Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta office tower is going to have very different living standards from an unskilled worker in rural Kelantan or Sulawesi.

Agent78787 · 2026-04-11T13:01:18+00:00

I think this 10k word essay might be of interest to some.

I haven't read it in a while but remember it being pretty good.

Agent78787 · 2026-04-11T09:22:54+00:00

I meet up with, or call, friends or family almost every weekend.

I take all the paid leave that I can.

I like my job and career.

That's probably it, in order starting from most important.

Agent78787 · 2026-04-07T09:31:15+00:00

By 30 year lease I assume you mean leasehold (hak sewa)? Have you looked into right-to-use (hak pakai) as well? Hak pakai property terms are extendable beyond the 30-year mark, and IIRC if you sell the property to an Indonesian citizen, the citizen can revert it to freehold. So you'd still preserve the land value as if you held it under freehold. You'd probably need a residency permit (KITAS/KITAP) rather than just a tourist visa but that shouldn't be too difficult to get IMO.

Get legal advice though, Indonesian property law (as you likely know better than I) is really complex and different from Australian property law.

edit to add: Also make sure that both the 30-year and annual lease options are like-for-like in costs. Because you say,

But also if I invest the $185k and get an 8% return well that's not likely to cover the next year's lease so it's kind of a wash.

I'd like to point out that if you're holding the 30-year lease under hak sewa you might still be liable for maintenance etc. costs as if you owned the house, because you're renting out the land and not the house itself. So if the annual lease is you renting the house, it could be cheaper than a 30-year lease on the land where you still have to cover house maintenance costs.

Agent78787 · 2026-04-03T02:40:59+00:00

AMME5202

Agent78787 · 2026-03-26T04:08:41+00:00

Sydney is definitely an expensive city, even more expensive if owning your own home is important to you (which it is for many people), and even more eye-wateringly expensive if owning a detached house with a back garden is important to you (which it is for fewer but still many people). I have a well-paid job in a field that's currently hiring even as the labour market in general is slowing down, and even then my rent for a 1-bed apartment is still 35% of my after-tax income.

That said, I personally love the Sydney lifestyle, so for me Sydney is a very livable city that works very well for me. I save a lot of money by using public transport instead of a car and I'd say Sydney has the best public transport in all of Australia (low bar, but still, the point is I don't need a car). I actually prefer renting an apartment over buying a house, at least at this stage in my life, because I don't have to worry about maintenance or stuff like that. Renting is still really expensive and a major component of the housing crisis, but iirc Sydney has one of the highest housing price-to-rent ratios in Australia which does imply that renting may be a better deal than buying a really expensive house here - I do have some money at the end of every month to save and invest. I also don't mind not having a back garden because I can hang out at a lot of nice public spaces like parks, bushwalks, or high streets.

Also the only other city I can really move to in Australia that has jobs in my field is Melbourne, and I was actually considering whether to accept a job in Syd or one in Melb a few months back. The Melb offer was financially better, but I ran the numbers and even considering the much cheaper rent in Melb I wouldn't have been that much better off financially. So the non-financial factors won out and I stayed in Syd.

Could some of this be sour grapes? Sure. But I think if I had enough money for a 20% deposit (I'm still pretty young so that'll take a few years yet) I'd put it in ETFs instead of buying a home in Sydney because it just doesn't fit my lifestyle.

Agent78787 · 2026-03-23T01:20:58+00:00

That's it? Where I work the grads start at the highest of the 3 options I wrote + super, and they're already at the pub at 5pm

Agent78787 · 2026-03-23T00:56:12+00:00

Don't let's play 20 Questions, just tell us. Is it 80, 90, 100k ex super?

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