Still on the bench

This is my third week in my new job and so far I haven't been placed in my first role. Its getting a bit frustrating to be honest as I have been doing on-line training until I can't bear it anymore! There were a couple roles as possibilities, but they never eventuated. For the first one, it turned out that they didn't really have a budget to go ahead with the project (possibly one of the biggest bug-bears for consultants?), and for the second, they decided they needed a more junior person for the role. Oh well. Ah, so guess what I ended up doing today? Spreadsheeting work to manage the resourcing of other people on one of the big accounts! I haven't done much spreadsheeting work since I was a graduate. I cheered myself up by thinking of how much they were acutally paying me to do spreadsheeting now though!

Speaking of money, I am getting more money that I expected in this pay. When I checked the details I realise I have received a tax refund because I had almost 5 months off work. I really don't know how the employer refunds it here (in Oz you would have to wait until you have competed a tax return). But somehow, they can do it - yipee! This means that with the increase in my base salary, and the tax refund I haven't actually lost any money by having a break from work (compared to just staying at my old employer for the equivalent amount of time). So it seems resigning from my old job was a risky maneouvre but it's worked out fine afterall.

I have been thinking about risk-taking traits lately. I met a woman at work whose decision to work as a management consultant was so measured and planned: years ago she had an aptitude test done to determine the best career for her, then worked in it for awhile before doing an MBA, then tried out contracting to see if she liked and only THEN did she apply for the consultant's role! I seem to be the opposite as I have kind of just taken up opportunities as they arise. If anyone had told me only a few years ago that I would be living in London and working as a consultant, I would have been shocked! So my new friend is quite risk-adverse and I'm abit of risk-taker. It was funny when I commented on her blouse they other day, do you know what she said? She said, 'thanks I had my colours done by a colour consultant recently so I know this is the right one for me'!! I love it :)

Tomorrow we are have a big team event held at Lord's Cricket Ground which should be interesting. I've always wanted to check out the venue, but never thought I would as I couldn't see myself buying a ticket for the cricket! It will be good because I will get to meet everyone in the global team (well maybe not everyone as there are hundreds!) and hear about the strategy going forward. Then, P and I are also going to see the movie 300 at the Imax theatre tomorrow night - will give you an up date on this later.