Work Husbands

One mile!!! I'm going so slow.  I hate it.  I really don't know anyone who is alright with setbacks, and I know I need to just figure out a way to deal with it ... But right now this makes me super crabby.  Getting back to 100% myself is taking forever.  I'm in the middle of internship searching now, and I am waiting to hear from a really big hospital in Boston that is my first choice. It makes me so nervous to wait and wait and wait ... I've been working on this for so long ...

The more I talk to people in consulting, the more I realize that all the money, hotel status, airline miles, crazy travel plans, free amex points ... I was going to say aren't worth it, but then I realized that I really miss those things.  I have a good friend here, who was also interviewing for a consulting position and said to me, "We should both go! It would be so fun! We can hang out all summer!"  I freaked out a little bit.  We use to have a name for this when I was in consulting, "Work Husband."  You eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together, you share a car, you go to the gym together, you work next to each other, you're in the same hotel ... I've made some good friends this way, but then we always go home on the weekends and after a year we live in different states.  I always had a love hate relationship with it.  I was overpaid, learning a lot, and traveling all over the world.  But "date night" ment facetiming my boyfriend while I had room service alone in my hotel.  Everytime I wanted to walk away from it, I would get a raise or a promotion or a new project somewhere awesome and stay. Being gone so much put so much space between me and my boyfriend at the time that I remember getting a huge raise (~$10,000) and not even telling him.  I'm not sure why exactly I didn't tell him, but he just didn't seem to understand.  My work husband knew though ...

Recovery from running injuries is a frustrating process ... But I will do it.  I just get up and decide it's time to run again.  Sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes my knee hurts or I am so exhausted I can't breathe when I run, but I always get through it.  Rearranging my life is the same.  I go back and forth on missing someone who I know is not good for me, and I go back and forth about a career that I also know is not good for me. I guess I need to just learn from running.  Make the decision.  Just do it, and be done.  I don't want another work husband, I think I'd be happier with a real one.

298 Miles Down 18 Miles to Go

Back on the Table

I had a social jog today, and it's refreshing to run with someone.  I can finally hold a conversation while I run.  I don't think I've ever been able to do this.  When I was running in Europe with my professional runner friend, she mentioned people ask her how she always stays in shape.  She said, "Not going to the gym just isn't an option.  No matter what you think your excuse is, you can handle a workout."  She does nine days on and one day off.  It's freezing out, literally, and my friend and I have decided to go for a run next to the Charles River.

Around mile three ... I got a phone call.  Consulting company.  "Hey! You missed the application deadline for our summer internship.  Are you interested, and do you want to talk about it?  I can put your resume in still."  It's following me.  No matter what I do, I am constantly finding myself back in the face of consulting.  So here I was on the side of the river, in freezing temperatures, mid run, having an interview.  The whole point of graduate school was to get out of consulting, what was I thinking.  For some reason, I'm lured into the idea of a great salary, signing bonus, flexibility to live and move wherever I want to go, and the ability to move from health care client to health care client.  I'm also starting to realize, I have over $100,000 in debt.  I hate hate hate debt.  I can knock out a rather large chunk of that if I take my savings, my signing bonus, and start with a high salary.  This is what I'm thinking about as I'm talking with the consulting alumni about work life balance and the different types of health care projects he's been on in the past.  I'm actually starting to think it may not be so coconuts for me.  It's a great career, and I can do it.  I haven't been sought after like this in a while, and I want to be at a company that wants me there.  Also ... It would give me the experience I need in health care.

Consulting:  back on the table.

272 Miles Down 43 Miles to Go

Consulting is Coconuts

I have a problem.  I am competitive.  Not outwardly, but I want other people to see me and go “wow … she’s so smart.”  Before I decided I wanted to go back to school I was constantly back and forth because I graduated with a business degree, and started my career in consulting at the #1 place to launch your career.  So why would I spend 100,000+ give up two years of my life and get another degree?  I finally skiied into a tree and was thrown into one of the messiest industries in the United States: health care.  After spending those two weeks in the hospital and dealing with two and a half years of physical therapy and five surgeries, I found a place where my hard work would literally be improving peoples lives.  So here I am in school to learn health care, and this week I found myself at a consulting club meeting.  There’s something about the fact that so many people want to do it, and I already have that makes me want to say “Hey!! I did that!!!” or “Hey!! That company will hire me!!”  I have no idea why … I don’t want to do that job!  I get swept up in everyone else getting excited about it and think that what they want could be what I want, even though I know it’s not.  It’s funny that when a company with a big name in the consulting industry comes on campus, suits come out and business cards, and everyone hovers around them in the hallways “networking.”  Don’t be a sheep if you’re not a sheep!!

It’s sort of like when your friend opens an almond joy and starts eating it.  I’m not hungry … but I want it.  Then I take a bite and realize I don’t like coconut.  I’m glad I at least can recognize now that Consulting is coconuts.  So I’m joining some health care clubs, and I’m making a plan to find some people in the industry to job shadow and informational interview.  (I’d like to stop saying things like networking and informational interview as soon as possible … But I think until I have an internship set up, I have to keep talking like the punch line of a show like “The Office.”)

191 Miles Down 124 Miles To Go