Friday, June 30, 2006

Consulting life is over... and I feel nostalgic already!

So, it's finally over. Two years of counting down the days and suddenly it's over. I thought I would feel very happy, but somehow I became sad and nostalgic yesterday.

It might have something to do with the lovely farewell evening my team prepared for me. First, an archaeology PhD team mate of mine who had worked as a museum guide before gave us a private guide through the Glyptothek, one of the most famous collections of Greek and Roman statues worldwide.

After that, we went to a cool Israeli restaurant. It's quite original, on the toilets they play yiddish language courses. I had a kosher t-bone steak and a lovely mint salad. Then people heaped presents over me. One present was a book published in 2006 "Cool restaurants in London", it looks very promising and I look forward to checking out some of those places.

We stayed there for 4 hours talking, laughing and drinking Israeli wines. It turned out 3 of the 5 I was with had studied in Chicago (two at Northwester, one at Univ of Chicago) so they were telling stories of Chicago, which gave me certain ideas for the exchange term :-).Then the client project leader who was also with us (he's our age) told of his cycling tour from Bolivia down to Chile, pretty impressive.

So obviously I was very touched what a nice evening they had prepared for me and got a bit sentimental. One thing was very sweet. When we said goodbye, I told the partner i was a bit sad to leave now, he said "Forget McKinsey, just enjoy yourself", which I found very sweet.

This morning I was supposed to go to the client's offices one last time to say good bye but a funny thing happened that prevented it. Just before the museum tour was going to start I went to the toilet and it turned out the zipper of my skirt had broken, so I couldn't close it anymore! After ten minutes of useless effort I called the archeologist girl who came down with safety pins. We fixed the zipper enough for me to participate in the rest of the evening, but I didn't want to show up at the clients offices with a skirt held together only by safety pins :-). They couldn't fix it in the hotel (at least not in the given time frame) so I went back to Hamburg in the morning, with the plane full of Italians (Italy plays in Hamburg tonight).

I'm curious about how I will feel the next days. I guess a mixture of nostalgia and relief.

8 comments:

Forrest Gump said...

although you wanted to badly get out of consulting, the very fact that you were so much into it makes you sad, and i believe this is something very common. any detachment is accompanied by a range of emotions, and i am sure that very soon you will probably get immersed into so many fun things that you will forget the sad part of breaking up with McK.

Marina said...

I think it is good that you feelt his way, it means you are leaving behind something you valued and enjoyed. I felt the same way when I quit my first job with Deloitte, but on my last day of this latest job I felt absolutely nothing and it made me feel kind of empty and sad.

Enjoy the rest of your summer! I have been thinking a lot lately about doing an exchange at LBS :)

KV said...

Congrats on being done girl. You're gonna have a blast at LBS.

Marina,
You should go on exchange for sure (whether you pick LBS or not)

SgHama said...

Congratulations on finishing your last day!! Like the partner said, just enjoy yourself for the next 2 years cuz it won't come around again. Go Germany!!

RusGirl said...

Great! Enjoy the vacations! :) They are so rare in life!

Benny said...

That´s good news! Take a break, relax and enjoy LBS.

What do you plan to do after the mba?

Patxi said...

Hi Angel!

Congratulations, you are done now! I hope your San Sebastian holidays work out pretty fine.

I felt really nostalgic when I left Google, but now, after a couple of weeks of holidays, it feels completely ok and the right move :)

Have fun and see you soon in London! I can't wait for the MBA to start.

Cheers,

Patxi

angie said...

Thanks for your wise and supportive comments! As most of you predicted... a few days later and it feels great. No phone calls, I can sleep in every day and hang out sun bathing and swimming, very relaxing!