You're off to India tomorrow type of jobs?

[Frimley111R]

My sister just had an interview with a consultancy and they said they it is the type of job that will require her to fly off somewhere at a moment's notice for 1-2 weeks at a time, often internationally. What I don't understand is why a company would be so disorganised as to require someone to do this. Does someone in the company say 'We'll be there tomorrow' and then stitch up a consultant?

[Tallow]

To be fair, it's probable that its the customer (or the nature of the type of customer activity) that causes the short notice, rather than the employer itself.

A lot of companies have businesses that revolve around rapid response to hard to anticipate customer needs.

[mike9009]

My job used to be like that and it was all customer driven. I was Quality Manager for an Engineering firm with divisions around the world. It did not often happen, but a few times I got caught unexpectedly.

I quite enjoyed it really.

Best one was I was due my annual appraisal one Friday morning. Went into to see my MD who asked what I was doing that afternoon. He then went onto explain I was needed in Mexico and to fly out Saturday morning. On the following Wednesday I was due in Huddersfield, so flew into Heathrow Wednesday morning and had a taxi to Huddersfield - nightmare, knackering but good fun....

India should not be such short notice but depends upon what Visa you can get.... When I have been (3 times on business) I needed a new visa for each visit, which can take a day or two to organise in itself....

[shirt]

Sounds like my job!

Last couple of weeks I have been in Dakar. Got home Friday just gone. Monday afternoon I was told I'm flying to Panama the following day and here I am! Back home on in October for 2 weeks leave then it'll be a roll of the dice to see where I end up next. Done projects in 5 countries so far this year and reckon I can squeeze a 6th in before xmas

[PurpleTurtle]

My experience of working in companies that use a lot of consultants is that the consulting co likes to have people on the ground locally to demonstrate their presence, regardless of whether they're actually doing anything relevant or productive.

Usual drill in IT is that the person arrives on a 1 month visa, it then takes a fortnight for them to get system access sorted, they flounce about a bit, make a bit of noise, borrow your watch to tell you the time, then Foxtrot Oscar without achieving much, but are charged out at a whacking day rate.

[PorkInsider]

PurpleTurtle said:

My experience of working in companies that use a lot of consultants is that the consulting co likes to have people on the ground locally to demonstrate their presence, regardless of whether they're actually doing anything relevant or productive.

Usual drill in IT is that the person arrives on a 1 month visa, it then takes a fortnight for them to get system access sorted, they flounce about a bit, make a bit of noise, borrow your watch to tell you the time, then Foxtrot Oscar without achieving much, but are charged out at a whacking day rate.

And then on the other hand, we get dragged all over the world because clients demand that someone be in Outer Mongolia first thing on Sunday morning, because they've decided they aren't happy with something that they themselves insisted upon, against our advice.

With some clients we just know from the beginning that this sort of thing will happen.

(I'm a consultant in business processes myself, not IT)

[PorkInsider]

Just to add, as an example of where we get very little notice of the start of a project, I'm currently working on something for a client (large PLC) who's gone through some acquisition activity and made huge changes to their supply chain without really thinking it through.

They've got to the stage where they've made such a huge cock-up of it, in trying to sort it out themselves without the resources to do so, that they've now been panicked into bringing outside help in at very short notice (and obviously great expense due to us having to side-line other work) to try to save some of their major contracts with other PLCs.

Luckily for me it's all UK based and not a huge distance away but it would be all the same if it was in Aus.

[TwistingMyMelon]

Easy to see

I used to work for a transport company, had 10 or so offices in USA, 2 in Europe. Every office was "the same" in regards to software/processes and setup and was centred round selling the product the company offered . I did the IT sys admin. If there was a big IT issue in a office I'd get flown over, there was a USA team for USA, but if they were busy...

You can only do so much remotely, plus things break and there was lots of commission and profit involved in the product been sold , if they couldn't sell it then the st hit the fan

[Ynox]

Had this in a previous role I had. Was actually quite good fun really if you're able to be flexible - I learnt a lot and was compensated pretty well.

Usual one for me used to be last minute trips to the US, that used to be of indeterminate length - i.e. you're coming home once it's fixed or you need to for visa reasons.