Like a ‘Tale of Two Cities’, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. On Monday morning my week looked pretty quiet, with a few internal meetings and some business development activity – but mostly it was the calm before the storm. The start date for my new project had been moved out until the beginning of December, leaving me with a couple of weeks without too much hectic activity.

Mid-afternoon on Monday, I got a phone call asking that fateful question: “Are you busy?” Foolishly I answered truthfully, and the next thing I knew I was writing a £4m bid to help develop the business case and approach for a large multinational company to implement shared services across their organisation. It was a combined bid with our US practice, meaning that the normal chaos of a bid was compounded by working across geographies. And the client (very cleverly, I must add) wanted a response by Friday – saying that if we had genuine capability in this area and a good understanding of their business based on our history of working with them, a week would be more than ample to respond. (NB – for those not familiar with the consulting bid cycle, something of this magnitude would typically have a turn-around time of 4-6 weeks).

So it was all hands on deck, scouring the organisation for our best experience and people. I saw a week of midnight finishes ahead of me, and thanked my lucky stars that Aude was out of town – weeks like these don’t make me the friendliest guy in the world. Though I faced a lot of hard work, it’s exciting to be involved in a big bid like this – even more so when it’s your name in lights, and the chances of us winning were good.

Until we looked at resourcing it – though we had the skills to do the job, the right people were all engaged with other big clients and couldn’t be pulled. There was no chance we could deliver the work at the quality we wanted to, in the timescales allotted. So at mid-day Wednesday, we ‘no-bid’ the project – and as quickly as it started, it stopped. My quiet week was back.

For my sins, I’ve been made our “quality champion” – acting as a corporate good-egg and championing our new risk management process. I was tasked with “making risk management sexy” but let’s face it – you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Or as we prefer to say around our office – there’s only so much polishing you can do to a turd. Good or bad, risk management will never be sexy.

We had a big launch event for the new risk processes (I know – woo hoo!) yesterday, and we were all drinking champagne by 4pm. One glass of champagne turned into “Who fancies a quick pint” which, in turn, became “uh oh – my last train leaves in 15 minutes.” Not exactly what you need when you’re leaving for a weekend away and haven’t packed anything. I packed this morning, but God only knows what’s in my suitcase. At 5:30am, I can barely brush my teeth. If I’ve packed two sweaters, a can of soup, and the cat, I’ll have exceeded my own expectations.

But after this week of ups and downs, the most important thing is that I’m whisking off to Paris for the weekend to catch up with Aude, who’s been in France all week on business. I’m writing this on the excellent Eurostar service from London, travelling at 300km per hour through the French countryside, drinking a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and eating pheasant terrine. There are worse ways to travel.

Finally, a brief update for Aude’s mother, who claims that the only news she gets about her son is from my website. I was in Canary Wharf on Thursday for a meeting and had time to have a quick lunch with Jerome. I can confirm that he is alive and well, eating healthy food and still working too hard. He looks like a ghost because he hasn’t seen the sun in weeks, but I suspect that has more to do with living in London than it does with him working in a bank – we’re all a bit pale at this time of year. He sends his love and said that he would love to have a blog of his own, if only he could figure out how to post to it from his Blackberry during meetings.*

* (I may have made the last part of that sentence up)

Right – Paris is rapidly approaching, so I’ll call it a night here. Check back for photos in a few days (unless you’re reading this via an e-mail subscription, in which case the photos will magically show up in your inbox after they’ve been posted!)

A brief update from the world of work…

As nice as it was to have a short break over the weekend, Monday morning came early and it was time to head back to work. A few important updates:

1. Still no sign of Ms Squeaky or her nemesis. I can’t say that I’m shedding too many tears as I enjoy my quiet commute into the office.
2. The bid team that I was asked to join on Friday finally finished pulling together the bid at 3am Saturday morning. We’re supposed to hear whether we were successful later this week, and the client is targeting an immediate start around the world. We’re sending consultants to Amsterdam, California, Tokyo, Singapore and Dubai. It’s a great travel for those who like frequent flyer miles.
3. I’m going to meet with my client to go through the final sales presentation on Friday morning. If I’m successful, there’s every chance that I’ll be living out of the Sheraton at Heathrow Airport for the next nine months, driving the same commute I left my last job to get away from!

As Alanis Morissette would say, “Isn’t it ironic?”

I’m not sure whether we’ve got a case of détente or mutually-assured destruction, but neither Ms Squeaky nor the man who confronted her have shown their face on my train again. Which suits me fine – I get to ride into work in peace and quiet each morning, safe in the knowledge that the most stressful part of my journey is working out the Sudoku puzzle in the Times.

So another week’s over at last. Got one bid out the door and was enjoying the brief lull in activity when I got dragged into another one this afternoon. Words that are never music to a consultant’s ears on a Friday afternoon: “Do you have some time free to help us get an urgent proposal for a priority client out the door?”

To a novice consultant, this means “would you like to get involved in an interesting piece of work with one of our most important clients, which we’ll surely win and for which you’ll receive praise and glory?”

To a jaded cynic like myself, however, this means “would you like to give up your weekend to do a rush-job for partners who will criticize you for not doing a perfect job (despite no direction, limited input, and impossible deadlines) for a deal that we’re probably not going to win anyhow, and piss off a ton of other partners as you try to do a credential-gathering exercise when most of them are relaxing at their weekend houses?” Uh, no thanks. (Jerome, I suspect quite a lot of this scenario looks familiar to you!)

Luckily I’m off to France tomorrow morning. I might have bent the truth just a little bit and implied that I was leaving this evening – so I promised that I would be happy to roll up my sleeves and help, but only until 5pm. Result: I seem like a good corporate citizen, I don’t have to put up with an irrational partner, and I don’t have to give up my weekend. Survival of the fittest, baby…

We’re off to visit Aude’s grandfather in Calvados this weekend, although no trip to France would be complete without a stop at the Wine Society to stock up – so we’re going to do the entire tour with a boot full of wine (they’re closed on Sunday, so we’ve got to buy everything on the way out rather than on the way back). I’ll take the camera along, so check back on Monday for the piccies.

Just after I got off the train with Ms Squeaky this morning I watched a bicycle courier get hit by a taxi outside my office. I double-checked my calendar to see if perhaps I was actually out of synch and today was Friday the 13th.

Got into work today to find that someone had stolen “my” desk (okay, we all work on hotdesks and they’re technically first-come-first-serve, but there’s a sort of unspoken rule that you don’t nick someone else’s desk if they generally sit there day-in, day-out). So not a good start.

Needed to have a client presentation ready for this afternoon, but my new secretary is still learning the ropes. Handed over the presentation for printing and binding — but didn’t realise that I needed to give her more explicit instructions than that. Fast-forward to an hour before the presentation: total pile of crap comes back from our graphics department (honestly, how hard can it be to print and bind ten copies of a presentation?). Sent a junior consultant off in a frenzy to put right what a secretary couldn’t. Kaizen, my ass. This was just-in-time production at it’s finest.

It was all alright on the night, though. The client came in, rolled over and let us scratch his belly. We gave him exactly what he wanted to hear and it looks highly likely that we’ll get the piece of work that we were bidding for. We saw his back leg jiggling — you know, the way it does when you scratch…just…the..right…spot!

So, for me, it was a pretty good day. Despite the fact that it was clearly a shit day for everyone around me.

And it ended where it started. Jumping on the 18:34 train to Dover Priory, I took my seat and started checking my e-mail. Mr. Self-Important-Banker (*not his real name, I suspect) got onto the train boasting a Bluetooth headset and an attitude. About three minutes into his “Buy! Buy! Sell! Sell!” call, he got the same mobile phone treatment as Ms Squeaky this morning.

Morale of this story: hell hath no wrath like a commuter annoyed.

It’s been a very exciting week.

Being back in London means that there are chances to see all sorts of famous people. Well, moderately famous people. Okay, to be honest, there’s a good chance to see D-list celebrities, which is about as unfamous as you can be while still remaining recognisable.

Two D-list sightings this week to note: one of EastEnders’ Big Mo, eating sushi at a restaurant in Borough Market near London Bridge, and one of Richard from this year’s Big Brother, getting off a train at London Bridge station. How about that – rubbing shoulders with the crème-de-la-crème sour cream of the showbiz world. How glamorous is my life?

Also exciting because I’ve had the first proposal I’ve written as part of my new job accepted by a client. It’s a very small piece of work that will hopefully grow into something larger, but it’s important symbolically. It feels like I’m beginning to gain some traction and momentum, which can only be a good thing.

I’m beginning to recognise my regular “seat opponents” on the morning train. Particularly annoying is the woman who tends to sit opposite me each morning. She does her entire make-up routine on the way into the office, after which she telephones all of her friends on her mobile phone to catch up on the gossip. She’s got a squeaky, whiny little voice and high-pitched laugh which grate and annoy in an indescribable way (especially before coffee).

She’s one of those people who mistake the words “specific” and “pacific”. I was very concerned to overhear the other day that her father suffered from “emphysem-i-a” (sic). That sounds much worse than emphysema, which is the more common affliction.

Update: this morning my seat opponent (Ms. Squeaky, described above) decided to break up with her boyfriend over her mobile for the whole train to hear. It really was remarkable.

Apparently, she was upset about him putting provis-i-os (sic) on everything.

Winter is finally upon us. The days are growing shorter and shorter – for the past few weeks it’s been dark when I wake up; now it’s still dark when I leave the house. We’re still enjoying the tail end of an Indian summer, though, so at least the cold, wet, miserable weather that normally accompanies this time of year hasn’t arrived yet. And it means that I get to enjoy some spectacular sunrises over misty fields from the train (which I’d photograph, but the camera on my phone just wouldn’t do them justice).

In other news, things continue to be busy at work – but it feels a little bit like I’m spinning my wheels. At every one of my previous companies, people were crying out for more training. As I embark on my third residential induction course in as many weeks, I can confirm that you can have too much of a good thing. Aude’s away in Amsterdam for a few days on business, so at least I don’t feel too bad about being away for the night. The cats, I’m sure, will manage without me.

It gives me an excuse to go out for a couple of beers with Aude’s brother, Jerome, provided they let him out of the office before they call last orders at the bar. And it gives me a chance to try out the brand new Hilton hotel right next door to our office – not exciting to your average man, but exciting to me. It’s amazing I ever find a date.

I’ve brought my camera up to London, and am hoping to go take a few pictures tonight if the weather remains good. Check back here for the results in a day or two…