Sean Boange

The first Monday after joining Sydney Consulting in August 2010 was a memorable one.

 I rocked up in a suit to the client’s office, and to my surprise was the only one wearing a business shirt let alone a suit, and I experienced a few funny looks to the chord of ‘who is this guy?’. I soon realised this was more of a casual workplace in terms of attire, which especially hit home when someone pointed out the general manager, who was walking around casually in his black t-shirt and jeans.

Theirs was a very different ‘work hard, play hard’ culture. They had a start-up structure with a small number of employees and few layers of management (in comparison to their parent company) which allowed them to push new products out a lot quicker.

What made my time with them really memorable, was the client including us in their culture (once I was rocking the jeans and shirt of course). I built a strong bond working with the project team over a long period of time and I still keep in contact with some of them. They definitely kept to their mantra of ‘work hard, play hard’ and we were included in their Masterchef cook-offs, Mexican fiesta, Beach/BBQ day on the balcony, Melbourne Cup, Christmas party, Amazing Race and also the product launch for the project we had worked on.

Our engagement director was recently at their new office and saw some photos up on the walls – one especially of two people who looked distinctly familiar. Upon closer inspection he realised it was a photo of my colleague and I, which a team leader had taken to remember us by.

What made this more special was the photo had even made the move to the new office six months after we had left! It was a great first consulting experience for me.