A day in THIS life: Life on the beach, Part 4

In this last segment on the topic of beach time, I'm going to talk about what to do while you're there. While you're on the beach, some firms may encourage you to be at the office, working in a 'just-in-time' cube, or assisting a partner. My experience mostly consists of pajamas and a Nespresso machine deskside, working from home. Commercial real estate is not cheap, so I can only see the working remotely trend increasing. Almost makes me want to invest in robe and fuzzy slipper companies.

In addition to reporting your time (NEVER FORGET THAT!), catching up on expenses and other administrative fun, there are a few things to actually occupy your time while you're on the beach. The first thing your firm will probably suggest is e-Learning, which is of varied utility. A slew of these finished in a few weeks and you'll likely never want to do one again. There may be some classroom training available, too; take advantage of it because it is a whole lot more engaging than the online variety. And if you've come from a project where you contributed intellectual assets, uploading your work products would be useful for your colleagues, and is a good way to spend your day.

Also to occupy your time, you could work on bid and proposal work to help the selling process. I've only had limited experience editing some resumes to present to a client as potential project team members. However, what I did not expect was that this often takes place later in the day. Managers are often at an ongoing project working on their current client during the day, and on proposal work later in the afternoon and evening. This can definitely help make the connections to get on projects.

The important thing to remember here is to be available so that your resource manager or someone from a potential project can contact you. Turn your instant messenger volume up all the way, and don't have your phone on silent. If you go out for lunch, take you phone with you. I know you know how to compulsively check e-mail, so continue. A bencher who is not responsive sends a bad signal at precisely the wrong time.

So if you head to the bench, catch up, refresh, revitalize and then restaff. Just got the email: I'm back to work! "Hello, American Express travel?"