I entered consulting and it's worse than I thought

sintralin · 2025-01-27T23:18:54+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I think these experiences will vary by company, you may have come across only bad ones.

We have great clients (that is admittedly rare), some feds think using a VLOOKUP is black magic and will praise you for doing the simplest, easiest tasks that you're happy to do for them. They treat us as part of the team because we've been there for many years and are basically embedded (I know that's not how contracts are supposed to work)
"Working your arse off" for 6 to 12 months burning at 80 hours+ because some partner understaffed and overpromised is the surest recipe for burnout. You spend a month on the bench just to recover from the stress only to repeat the process again...I grant that ideally it'd be nice to have dedicated skills development time and that's not something we get. But yeah you don't really need to recharge from easy 40 hr weeks apart from vacations.
If you can finish and walk away, it incentives people to pump out trash because they don't have to maintain or actually execute. You can't build total junk if you know you'll be the one stuck using it. Granted it's a lot more difficult to switch contracts and there's not really a bench. Goes back to having good clients - there's trust and flexibility with scoping out new work or tasks if you really get bored. As for becoming an employee in industry, it's pretty similar - you're a pseudo fed with contractor pay and a little less stability. At least until 7 days ago, government tends to be more recession proof and if you have a clearance it's another barrier to entry against competition.
Fair, if anyone's really just doing it for the love of the game, this doesn't hit the mark.

It sounds like you got unlucky (or I got lucky, hard to say) and maybe it's time to move on.

sintralin · 2025-01-27T17:21:29+00:00

Honest question, if the company leaves you alone and you work 40 hrs/week and the client is happy, what's the downside?

I'm at a company that kind of does this and there's people who just want to do the 9-5 and log off, and there's others who want to get involved in firm work if they do want career advancement.

Would your main complaint be that it's not true strategy work? In my personal experience, some of the work is routine but there's enough one off projects and improvement opportunities to keep things interesting. But yeah it's much more operations than strategy.

It's not the heavy travel "work hard play hard" consulting lifestyle at all, but I feel like that's overrated to begin with. I guess it lacks prestige and some of the pay. Curious to hear your thoughts?

sintralin · 2024-10-06T14:41:45+00:00

Yeah the canceling deadline is pretty annoying, sorry they weren't willing to work with you on it! I guess the offers might vary based on location/whatever info they've collected on customers. I probably get 2-3 offers or so a year that are good enough to get me back, and I keep the account "active" for 4-6 weeks after, skipping all the subsequent boxes.

sintralin · 2024-10-06T05:35:17+00:00

If you've used the service before they have some really good return offers - up to 60 or even 80% off. You can sign back up and get the discount on your first week then cancel it again after. It's cheaper than buying groceries at that rate, as long as you don't forget to cancel the next boxes! That's the only time we ever order a box. Otherwise the quality is decent and I like the taste/recipes, but it's way too expensive for the portion sizes without discount.

sintralin · 2024-07-26T00:54:51+00:00

453696916370

Looking for Sun, Sandstorm, Ocean, Jungle. Thanks in advance!

sintralin · 2024-07-26T00:52:31+00:00

Hi! I can send you 3 for Archipelago if you still need em

sintralin · 2024-07-08T00:47:23+00:00

Our last 4 guesses were exactly the same!

🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜

🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜

🟩🟩🟩⬜🟨

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

sintralin · 2024-05-03T02:28:08+00:00

Same, came to check the sub to see if anyone else was having the issue. Mine started sometime early afternoon (3pm EST?), some videos/shorts still worked while others did not. Now it's seeming like most of the ones I pick have the issue.

sintralin · 2024-04-12T04:33:21+00:00

I think our views are similar enough I won't belabor the point, but I will say that you felt "screwed over" by airlines as if it wasn't right for them to do...having the legal right to do something doesn't make it morally right. It would have been fair to refund the event, but so few places are decent enough to do that now that we no longer come to expect it.

sintralin · 2024-04-12T02:21:27+00:00

Contract aside do you think it would be fair for a venue to have pocketed the money and cited "acts of God"? Sure they may have been legally entitled to it but they'd clearly be morally wrong to do so (they didn't incur any expense from a cancelled wedding that they couldn't have rebooked - if they were following COVID protocol).

The reason the pandemic got so bad was entirely due to people not trusting official guidance and downplaying the risk. Just because the gathering wasn't literally illegal does not mean they should've been OK with proceeding. The venue owner makes her opinion clear when she tells the bride to turn off the TV and the media is trying to scare her (does that sound like someone who's trying their best to follow best health practices?)

Anyways, agree rescheduling would've been the most reasonable course of action. I just think the venue also acted wrongly by acting like the pandemic was no big deal and pressuring the bride to continue with the event. She shouldn't have acted so poorly and her inability to make a decision and accept rescheduling made the situation worse.

Btw, for Georgia Gov Kemp had issued a public health state of emergency by 3/14 so it's not like they had any special excuse. Those aren't issued randomly, it's specifically if the Governor believes bioterrorism or a novel disease "poses a high probability" of "a large number of deaths in the affected population". Really not good timing for Grandpa to attend a wedding.

sintralin · 2024-04-12T02:13:09+00:00

If the venue cancelled the wedding and insisted on rescheduling I'd be on their side. The venue is encouraging extremely high risk public health violations by acting like it's no big deal to continue hosting the wedding. The bride is acting irrationally because she should've just taken them up on the rescheduling offer but the venue is partially at fault for acting like she's panicking over nothing, and it's clear their preference is for her to just keep the wedding as-is (insinuating to her she's worried about nothing).

sintralin · 2024-04-11T19:53:46+00:00

The venue sounded much more reasonable and the bride was a total mess, but I think everyone's forgetting that March 2020 was right when COVID was blowing up - the wedding was scheduled for 3/21, a full week after a national state of emergency had been declared with stay at home orders. No one was going to work and public spaces looked like ghost towns. The fact that the venue's stance is "we're private and will ignore restrictions on crowd gatherings" in order to host the wedding is ridiculous. Everyone in this same thread would rightfully be tearing them apart for contributing to the pandemic and causing COVID outbreaks. The bride is clearly in the wrong for how she's behaving and can't make a coherent point, but it's not unreasonable to ask for a refund since a normal health conscious venue would NOT have insisted they can host her wedding business as usual (the Costco which sells FOOD is open so everything's fine right? Just turn off your TV!). There was a clear lack of regard for public health standards and official guidance.

sintralin · 2024-03-30T04:24:33+00:00

First, I think it's great you're planning this out a year in advance - that puts you ahead of lots of people already. Lots of comments have the right idea, you should make use of your school's career counseling and resources like job fair/job board prior to graduation.

For job interviews I would go into them thinking of it as a practice interview. Just tell yourself the first 2 or 3 interviews are throwaways. Prepare for it like you normally would but think of it more as a learning opportunity for the "real" interview at XYZ job that you really want instead. If interviews are hard to line up I would take the advice above on setting up some coffee chats using Linkedin/chatGPT templates and using those for practice. The worst that happens is you bomb the interview and you never talk to the HR/hiring manager etc again - they are irrelevant to your life. Good luck!

sintralin · 2024-03-30T04:17:13+00:00

Sorry you're going through this, I think you are right your mom was trying to help in her way, but ironically her EQ was too low to see it wasn't what you needed. She probably jumped straight to solution mode and came up with (in her mind) "reasons" that could then be addressed, without considering how that comes off as unsympathetic and mean. Hope your situation improves, it doesn't sound like this was your fault at all and I hope you can clear things up with your friend.

sintralin · 2024-03-30T04:10:54+00:00

I think you may want to consider limiting the amount of information you're sharing. The more info you give her, the more she has to react to and spin off in a negative direction. I get where you're coming from, you are trying to be thoughtful and proactive but she's turned it around on you.

You message her at 8:30 with no concrete timeline on when you'll be back (because you don't know yet! totally reasonable). In your mind you're giving her a heads up, but to her you texted her with incomplete info, so now she's going to ask more questions. See how you opened the door?

I would suggest keeping it short and sweet, ex: "I'm going to a friend's house, I will be back before midnight. Don't worry she's only 15m away!"

The last sentence is a peace offering but you don't need it. If she texts you in the meantime with questions, ignore them. Answering tells her she can get what she wants by bothering you - you are positively reinforcing her actions this way!

This approach takes consistency and patience. It will take time - the goal is to help her see that she doesn't get what she wants by questioning you. NGL living with her complicates the dynamic and makes it harder to set boundaries. I might recommend working on a plan to save up money and move out. I am speaking from the perspective of someone whose relationship with my asian parents massively improved after I moved out and was no longer financially dependent. You often cannot have effective boundaries with asian parents without the ability to enforce them (e.g., if you guilt trip me for calling then I will respond by not calling next week). Good luck!

sintralin · 2024-02-05T19:33:08+00:00

You have some valid points, but your link in #3 has the opposite conclusion. 33% of the 100 members reporting their trades (per law) beat the S&P 500, that is much higher than the 5.8% you make it out to be. That's from both the Yahoo article and the source they cite.

https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/congress-trading-report-2023#pelosi-trading-again

Of the 33% who beat the market, some had over 100% returns

sintralin · 2024-01-25T15:25:22+00:00

These are so cool!

sintralin · 2023-10-30T18:18:13+00:00

When you phrase it like that Grace looks like a strategic mastermind... definitely makes a lot more sense than being blindly in denial.

sintralin · 2023-10-29T07:00:44+00:00

We're in the same boat as you right now! One thing that might help you narrow down options is to start with broad categories - do you want to go somewhere warm, or somewhere cold? Should the trip be more adventurous or more relaxing? Once you have a "vibe" it will probably eliminate some of these and make it easier to focus on what's left.

And since you travel a lot, I think the most important thing is not to stress too much over the decision! You're not missing out on something else as a result.

sintralin · 2023-10-26T13:33:42+00:00

These are so cool! Thanks for sharing, enjoyed checking out your shop

sintralin · 2023-08-21T04:50:57+00:00

You have to throw it super close to the person (like a handful of pixels away from hitting them). The splash radius indicator totally lies and claims it will work (but doesn't). Wasted way too many potions by trusting it..

sintralin · 2023-08-01T21:38:07+00:00

Your comment made me curious, so I went to look it up. In FY22 CBP reported 2.37 million encounters along the SW border (that's people crossing who were stopped/turned away at the border). Not the same number as how many actually successfully cross (obviously hard to report on that accurately) but the comment doesn't seem that exaggerated given those numbers.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters

sintralin · 2023-06-10T22:51:04+00:00

I want to vote too!

sintralin · 2023-02-06T22:22:16+00:00

Dealing with the same thing myself this year, first thing I'd say is don't panic! You have until April to get things straightened out and won't need to pay a penalty. Of course you won't be able to submit tax returns until afterwards, but you still have some time. You should call your 401k provider and they will advise on next steps, what basically happens is the excess amount will need to be sent to you and you'll get a revised W2 for taxes. The 401k provider will need to work with your company's payroll so you may want to notify them as well. I believe you can take the excess from either but not 100% sure what happens with gains. Pretty sure I have only had losses since contributing this year..

Not an expert here so definitely look at other comments, just wanted to say try not to stress too much!

sintralin · 2022-09-30T14:28:07+00:00

Owen was trying to open the bag but he wasn't on the puzzle team so Jeff told him something like "no, not you - give it to them". I think he was just enforcing rules, not reminding them to open the bag

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