A man joined Accenture at 28 with a PhD in progress and two kids, facing termination if he didn't bill enough hours. He landed a Sears project that demanded 100-plus hours every two weeks while finishing his dissertation, framing the crushing workload as the universe testing whether he truly wanted his goals.
Chapters
When I first joined Accenture, I was weird because everybody else pretty much in those days joined with a bachelor's degree. So they were basically 21, 22 years old and were starting out on their career. I, because of my advanced degrees, joined when I was 28 and I had 2 kids. Okay, so the first thing, I show up, they, they go like, okay, we're going to staff everybody. They're like, oh, staff me anywhere. I was like, staff me in town. What, an analyst? You know, new analyst demanding— and by the way, they didn't have experienced hires then, so I was just a new analyst like everybody else, right? Right. And so it's like, okay, but I want to staff in town. They're like, okay, he's special, I get that part. And then, uh, also it's like He has these degrees. We don't know how to staff them. We can't put them on anything. So from June to December, I was on the bench from when I started, which was unnerving. Unnerving. But, and so I was like, okay, here's what I know. And I know we're in an up or out organization. I know after one year You know, there's going to be a performance appraisal, and if I have zero chargeability, I will be out. So I go to staffing folks, I go like, hey, staff me on something. They're like, well, you know, you're special. I'm like, stop telling me that. Just staff me on anything. I don't care. And it took that long. And, and I'll— and, and this— listen to this from the universe too, Chuck. Is that I finally got to a place of saying, I'm trying too hard. And I actually gave up the, the nervous energy around getting staffed. I said, look, I didn't finish my PhD. So I create over the holidays, I created a plan that I would stay at Accenture as long as they'd let me be there. And write a PhD dissertation. And I did a work plan for that. I mean, literally, Chuck, I had like a work plan with times and hours and estimates and the whole thing, laid it all out. And I got so excited about this. I was like, all right, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna finish my PhD. Man, if they give me just like 4 to 6 weeks, I can get rolling again. I can— you know what happened? So then, you know, I'd go back to Purdue, I'd get the PhD. I was like, this is great. Came back on January 4th, you're staffed at Sears. I'm like, no, no, no, I actually don't want that anymore. And it was the most grueling project of my entire career. So when we did time reports every 2 weeks, my first time report I turned in was 84 hours. No, no, sorry. Oh, that's— no, that's good. It was, it was 117 hours, something, you know. So it was big. Next one was 126, I think. And it's just like, okay. And when you start to work that much time, you just forget your name, you know. And it was just Right, you know, so, so, um, part of this too is, is the universe is perfect. And I know this is a bit of a thing, but part of it is, is the, the universe responds to energy. I get that part. But also, maybe there's something in this is like, trust, trust the universe, trust that this is the right thing, trust that these passes are there on these things because they're not great fits for you. And in a sense, the universe is doing you a favor, and it wants you to keep leaning in and keep trying. It's like, I'm just testing your resolve. Let's just see how bad you want this. And you're like— and so I don't know what your background, and I don't know what your, you know, ethnic heritage is, but I'm Irish. So when the Irish does— when the universe does that to me, oh, I get pissed. I'm like, all right, all right, if, if that's what you're doing, I'm in, you know. So then I just go, right, you know. So there's also that too. So in some ways, the universe tests our resolve for the thing we really want, and it may throw up a whole bunch of, of distractors to us as well. Saw a great thing— I mentioned this in on my Sunday program with the, the young professionals. Um, when you send to the universe an intention of, oh, you know, just give me courage, does it like take a bucket of courage and pour it into you? When you ask for stamina, does it pour a bucket of stamina into you? It's like, ah, no, it throws the logs in front of you and the barriers and the walls to climb over. So in some sense, I think you're getting tested for your resolve. So hold on to that when things get tough. Does that help?
