Curfew and cease-fire

The government has put the French cities under curfew. The reactions are, as the journalists say, mixed. Certainly, the youth is a little legitimate to miss some evenings of eternity in the bars. Similarly, the night jobs will have to be practiced in a more solitary way.

But for our own consulting profession, as well as for other similar professions such as mergers & acquisitions, investment funds etc., I see a real opportunity to shout a "Cease-fire! "About the way we work.

In concrete terms, you will have to be back home before 9 pm. So (unless you want to work from home after 9pm), you'll have to finish working before 8pm and so... no more "night sessions" as we say in these jobs. And that's good!

I know very well that these "night sessions" are sometimes unavoidable; this is very true for studies based on a huge collection of information with data cross-referencing and macro-Excel. And some consultants at Akeance know this more than others... But, quite frankly, most of the time, it's a lack of anticipation and organization from managers that are the cause of these damn "night sessions". Not to mention all those young employees who leave at 2 a.m. after having already spent half the night looking for "comparable" for next day at 8 a.m...

In short, it's an opportunity for all team leaders in our businesses and for all our mission managers at Akeance to rethink the anticipation and forecasting of schedules & workloads to ensure that we're all home by 9pm.

And it's an opportunity for all of us, teams and team leaders alike, to ask ourselves what book(s) we're going to start during this curfew. Personally, "A brief eternity" by Pascal Bruckner kept me busy last night until 1am! err... sorry...