A career in consulting means a lot of
things. Great minds come together, strategize and derive absolutely creative
answers to some of the toughest questions of the corporate world. There’s a lot
to learn and understand and you also get a chance to see how varied,
unpredictable, interesting and absolutely intriguing human psychology is.
It’s a lot of glamour too – what with fancy
travelling, staying in great hotels on out-station trips, monthly get-togethers
with teams at awesome restaurants, lots of money (well, debatable ;)) and the
likes. It also means being stupidly competitive, working long hours, sometimes
forgetting a week has two weekend days, missing a few special family events,
etc.
I have had the good fortune of meeting and
knowing many many amazing consulting professionals. Let me share with you, the
story of one such awesome individual.
This someone is a young, intelligent, recently
married (to a joint family!) girl and has had her life go from carefree to
terribly careful. Her dressing has undergone a total change from aaj ki naari
to bahurani. Her lunch box has moved from salads and pastas to dal, roti and
rice. From pub hopping over weekends she has started hopping from one relative’s
place to another. On the whole – the transformation has been quite drastic.
Whether it’s good or bad, is really our personal view and perception.
So earlier, she used to be this big-shot
consultant, who was passionate about her job, always staffed on all the star
projects, did quite well for herself, and was always available to take on work
– she was someone who worked hard and partied harder! But now, it was
different. She had restrictions on how long she could stay in office, her
travel schedule had to be planned keeping in mind all her family and social
commitments, she would not be able to answer calls over the weekends and she
was totally not available for the team get-togethers!
She became more and more tired managing
both ends of her life.
Her colleagues began to distance themselves
from her. They would object on having her staffed on their projects because
they would think she won’t do her job well, given her constraints and they’d
get more work and so she started losing out on meaty projects, that plum
promotion and the rightful yearly bonus.
And the last nail in the coffin was that the
general view about her, went from “Wow, what an amazing consultant” to “If she
has so many restrictions, why is she still in consulting. Obviously she can’t
handle it”.
How she felt about this, I am not sure. We
weren’t that close. But really?! Just because a young girl has some
constraints, her hard earned credibility as a consultant itself is suddenly in
doubt?
Yes, she has constraints. Yes, she’s struggling
at times to manage everything. Yes, she wants to leave early. And yes, she
can’t work weekends. But so what? When she’s doing her bit in the project, she
does it with 100% sincerity. She’s bringing to the table a fresh perspective on
the problem at hand. She’s giving you her professional opinion, which till some
time back, was highly sought.
Organizations are trying their best to
address these issues. I have personally benefited from a few such options –
like a part-time association, or flexi-hours, etc. But how far do these really
go?
And this is just the start. The next set of
troubles for my friend will begin, when she and her husband decide to have a
family. That’ll be it then. She’ll be totally written off.
Isn’t that sad? I know of lot of wonderful
organizations who are consistently introducing measures and ideas and options
to support the woman. To help her have a career despite issues and constraints
she has. I know of families, who have gone out of their way to ensure that the
daughter-in-law can continue to have a career. I know of amazing husbands who
stand tall in support of their wives’ pursuit of a career.
However, the number of girls like my friend
here are far more than the luckier ones. And then in such cases, I just want to
know one thing: If everyone is such a great consultant, how come no one has a
sure shot answer to this one? How come no team says “Bring her on board, her opinion
is far more important to me than the number of hours she can put in making
those slides”. How come no one says “I’ll cover for you when you have to work
at home”.
My husband argued with me endlessly on
this. He gave me many arguments and also told me that he knows of many women
who take advantage of such constraints and end up earning the same salary as
their male counter-parts for half the work done. I am sure most men will agree
with this argument. And I agree too that there will always be a set of people
who tilt the scale to the other side.
But here’s the deal. You don’t have to
manage the constraints forever. She needs time initially to adjust and find an
equilibrium in her new life. She’s genetically a multi-tasker and she will
easily come to it. And if she doesn’t; then there’s nothing any one can do
about it. But mostly, she just needs time.
