The people who work at McKinsey are, in the context of the American class system, members of the elite. They are not the oppressed proletariat. They're soft-handed, Ivy League educated elites fighting to climb the top rungs of the status ladder. That's always been difficult throughout human history, and if the biggest hardship of our elite is 2 AM Zoom calls, we should find a more deserving elite.<p>Don't get me wrong. I certainly don't want to be on any 2 AM Zoom calls. But I also don't aspire to be a member of the elite. And if I did, I would probably be willing to endure hardship in order to achieve that goal.<p>But there's another level to this. At one point, the left advocated for the working class, and a leftist rag like Mother Jones wouldn't be caught dead publishing entitled whining from members of the soft-handed elite class complaining about how difficult their lives are. But now, for some reason, the McKinsey class has managed to co-opt the left and cast themselves as the victims.
I empathize with her situation as I've been in similar situation at a Big 4 organization - An onshore manager (not my direct manager) from my team called me up at 2.30am (his afternoon time) during the first week of our engagement. I did not receive the call but fretted over whether he had an emergency at the Client site.<p>Turns out, that the next day, he mentioned he had simply called up at the unearthly hour to ask about details that I had already mailed him the previous evening. His lame excuse - 'Sorry dude, I don't read mails'<p>I'm not sure if I should feel proud or ashamed (or maybe both) that I was able to pull off 60-80 hour weeks and weekend work far too long for my corporate overlords without resorting to exotic stuff that the interviewee in this article used for staying up late/battling stress.<p>As long as people are enamored by such workplaces (including 24 year old past 'me'), not much will change - at least not soon.<p>Edit: Forgot to mention that the manager showed no remorse for a situation that was never an emergency. Guess I should simply be grateful that he didn't reprimand me for failing to be his 24 hour little helper/Verbal Email reader. :)<p>Regards,<p>~Burned out Corporate Slave
She should not worry. After 1.5-2 years of 60-hour workweeks at McKinsey she will be qualified to get a comfy 40-hour work-week management position at a software company and will make us devs work 60-hour work-weeks until she retires us at 35 because who needs that much experience to program a computer. And unless this is in FAANG, we will get paid as seniors the same she did as a junior.
Sounds terrible, but all the US medical resident physicians are playing the world’s tiniest violins for this article, because they keep worse hours, get paid less (like half to 60%), and if they mess up, someone dies or is maimed.<p>edit: downvoted for truth — witness the medical resident physician reply below confirming exactly what I observed. To clarify, I support raising the standards for all junior people and do not advocate abusive employment and training practices.
McKinsey just sounds like another tournament -- 64 people start, puke blood, and and try to be the final survivor who becomes a partner and becomes hugely wealthy. The rest rinse away to other places over time. No different than working at Goldman Sachs, etc.<p>If you decide to enter a tournament, fine, but adjust your expectations accordingly. This author sounds naive and self-pitying.
After being on pager duty at all hours plus working I sadly do not find her experience that different from the usual. That’s just the way it works these days .
Recently I learned of a quote attributed to Arthur C. Clarke (among other things, the science fiction writer and futurist): "...the goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system..." [0] So, if Mr. Clarke is to be believed, does that mean that organizations like McKinsey - and for that matter capitalism in general - represent old fashioned ways of thinking? Then, why do orgs like McKinsey get paid so much??? /s<p>[0] = <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#cite_ref-127" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#cite_ref-127</a>
Welcome to consulting and working across time zones. Let’s not forget that in management consulting, dedication definitely pays off if you operate efficiently and consistently deliver results. It’s not a work/life balance job, but it’s one with interesting challenges that does give a lot of flexibility even though demands can be high sometimes.