Making it

Earlier in my career, I used to envy the higher ups who seemingly didn’t have to do any of the dirty work. My first job at PwC consisted of me working 80+ hour weeks at a time grinding through spreadsheets and doing a lot of brute work. I’d get in the office at 9:30am and often work through the evenings and sometimes nights going through my checklist of to-dos.

I’d put my headphones in and grind through for hours at a time. I’d take short breaks to eat dinner at my desk or catch-up with coworkers. We’d have meetings and calls, but those were often limited to maybe 1-2 hours a day. I would often welcome those periods as time to get away from my computer screens.

Watching the partners and directors sitting in their office talking on the phone or in meetings all day seemed like easy work. They would be in and out of the office often. I had the thought that once you make it there, life is great! You can craft your schedule around your meetings and your work doesn’t force you to sit in a spreadsheet for 12+ hours.

Almost all jobs are like this. When you’re at the low levels, you do all the “dirty work” and the grinding. Then you move up and get to do a lot more of the business development and managing eventually when you’ve made it!

Now that I’ve “made it”, I realize that this is far from the truth. And there are times I do miss the grind of just doing the day to day work. My hours working nowadays are miniscule in comparison to 10 years ago, but I definitely feel more exhausted and drained. A day of 6 hours of calls and meetings often feels like I’ve just worked 12+ hours.

There’s just a lot more brain power that goes into this kind of work and it’s much more mentally draining that being able to work on a spreadsheet at your own pace.

Despite having more flexibility in my schedule, my workday is also dictated by others that I’m meeting with. I can’t just decide to take a break in the middle of a meeting and waste others’ time.

Of course, this is life and what we sign up for in this line of work. I feel lucky to be in this position and I don’t take it for granted. The grass is always greener on the other side, and being a decision maker has its perks.

I do need to remind myself to block my schedule off to allow time to myself to take a break and get some brainstorming in.