L.E.K. Training in Sydney

Week 1:

• Had tons of PDs, or "Professional Development", which are courses very much like what we have in school, except that what we would learn in 15 weeks, we do it in 4 hours. Modules include:

  • Excel
  • Strategy
  • Powerpoint
  • Analytical techniques
  • Management and Financial Accounting
  • Phone interviewing
  • And other L.E.K. for beginners discussions
     
• Met loads of people in the Sydney office; I’ve always found it incredibly hard to remember everyone’s name but everyone there had such striking yet diverse personalities, it made things so much easier for me
   

• Friday was THE day in L.E.K. Sydney. First of all, they brought us out sailing in a huge 40-foot sailboat from 1pm to 5pm, cruising under the HarbourBridge and past the Opera House. After which, we went back to the office where everyone got ready for the weekly Beer Trolley. Every Friday at 5.00, an appointed associate would push around this large 3-layered trolley filled with cheese, biscuits, wine, beer and spirits, and serve each and everyone in the office. Coolness..

Week 2:

• Week 2 was the highlight where we had 24 hours to work on a case which we received at approximately 2pm on Thursday and had to present it to the senior partner by 3.30pm the next day; it was terrifying. We presented our case in front of the whole company where we could see some people nodding and some shaking their head in disbelief. It was a killer moment when the partner said, "Could you go back to slide 3 and then look at slide 7 and tell me what’s the story here?"

• Remember that I said we had 24 hours to complete our case? We didn’t. It was a tradition that the prior evening of the presentation would be dinner and drinks and it was openly indicated to us that whoever left the night early would be penalized. I stayed till 230am and you wouldn’t want to know how many hours of sleep I got before heading off to the office in the morning

• One last thing that happened in the 2nd week that was truly crazy: I found a dead pigeon in a plastic bag hung outside my door one night; it almost seemed like a death threat! I brought it to the concierge who went absolutely shocked, slighty apologetic but utterly incapable. No suspects were found and I sort of forgot about it as the days went by

After these 2 weeks, I finally experienced how it feels to be like in the management consulting industry; impeccable, smooth and friendly characters, all rojaked in the salad bowl that’s L.E.K. 

But like any job, there are gripes and complaints too. Many people would say they’d love a jetsetting lifestyle but seriously, there are downsides to that. Plans go haywire, getting terribly bored in the service apartment (you can’t party and drink EVERY night), expensive internet access, missing the girlfriend and comfort of room, among many others… but still, I’m grateful for what I’ve been blessed with and sincerely hope that I can make my stay here a permanent and fruitful one.

It’s been getting hard to get to work from my new place in Hillview. There is only one bus that brings me to my destination and it’s one of the most popular bus in the area; by popular, I meant that its route brings people to many important places at 830 am in the morning which can only mean one thing: overcrowding.

Passing by Hwa Chong, Nanyang Girls School, National Junior College, the whole stretch of Orchard Road and Marina, it is inevitable that the amount of standers would exceed the sitters by a ratio of 3:1 and that the journey would take longer due to a higher frequency of pickups. But this is not my complaint.

My complaint is about what I saw on the bus today. There were two empty seats at the back of the bus which were not easily reachable because of a pair of standers who decided to work on their calf muscles and also refused to move to the back of the bus or initiate allowing people through them. It must be infuriating for the "going-to-be-late" passenger-wannabes who wanted to board the bus but could not simply because the standers in the bus have already been packed all the way to the front steps of the bus entrance while spiders build their cobwebs at the back.

The second and more irritating thing I saw today was a plump dark-skinned woman in a tudong taking a nice morning nap on the aisle seat with an empty seat beside her. That’s fine, I thought, until someone asked her if they could move into the seat beside her; she lifted her hands, shook it and went back to sleep.

The seat was not dirty nor was it wet. I was dumbfounded and wanted to give her a piece of my mind but the two empty seats at the back were, in this situation, more relevant to me and I pushed myself through the two calf workers and got myself a seat.

Thank God it’s Friday.

One week update and thoughts:

• Ended many of the weekdays drinking: Balaclava, Pump Room, ICB, China One etc.. hence, it was nice to spend the Saturday and Sunday with the girlfriend sleeping late into the day, shopping, eating at Angus, watching a movie, among other stuff..
• In the midst of planning a golf class with Stella, Ray and Raymond as well, hope it’ll go through; been itching to swing the wood for a long time now
• Checked my expenditures: status, skyrocketing. Paid bills and promised myself to control the monetary outflow
• Going to Sydney for 2 weeks soon: not entirely excited. I guess it’s because everything’s planned out already; there’s no need for any lonelyplaneting or stuff. Will just enjoy myself there with the trainings and all and see how it goes. Also, will keep to promise about monetary outflow there as well
• Want to buy myself the Nintendo Wii.. not sure if this is a right decision. It’s gonna be a huge expense and what if I do not have time to maximise playing time?
• Popped over the SMU library to check out Jorg Dietzel’s book launch. Always wanted to write a book myself and even started development in my NS days but I guess writing a book takes a lot of commitment, time and sacrifices. Not sure if I will be able to do that before I retire

Buy this book:

Authored by Jorg Dietzel, a professor who have taught me so much about brand management; this publication is very relevant to an Asia perspective of brand management. My favourite part of it was its thickness and the large amount of textual content; I’ve never liked flipping through a book that can show me tons of pictures that tells a thousands words in order to let me finish reading it in 15 minutes.

I have not finished reading it but will tell you what I think about it once I’m done. Meanwhile, congratulations Jorg on the book and tv appearances and may there be more to come.