Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Multi-tasking

Just thinking about why it's been a while since my last post. Work has been busy, and not just for me, it's the whole office running around like crazy. It's the good kind of busy though, and everybody seems to be handling the stress well.

I'm assisting on a new project which is going to be technically very interesting and should be a Revit project, but isn't. The garage project is going full steam ahead, and (sadly) the big headache project just won't go away.

I've had about two weeks now where almost every day I'm bouncing between multiple tasks on multiple projects with each task interrupting another. The weird thing is, I like it. It used to be that this would stress me out and I'd go home frustrated. Now I feel like I'm accomplishing a lot in my day and am leaving work satisfied. What a change from the fear I was feeling a few months ago.

I was just thinking that the blog was meant to help me learn how to be a leader, and that now that I'm leading more maybe I didn't need to blog as much.

I'm still not a Leader yet though. As good as I feel about myself, I know that in the eyes of my employers I'm not where they want me to be yet. This is good. It's not supposed to be easy after all. I'm glad that I'm enjoying it.

Knock on wood.

Monday, May 9, 2011

What an Architect Does

We stretch the truth in public, or just omit relevant information that might be detrimental if admitted at the time.

As I've said before, things in my office are slow enough that people get asked to work at different levels than what we might normally wish to.  In my case it means that on one particular I'm working beneath a project manager that is younger than me, got licensed after me, but admittedly is much better at the job than I am.  I admit it's a little hard for my pride right now to be in this position, particularly because I'd like to be proving myself to my bosses as a PM on my own projects (which I am, but I could use a new project of my own right about now.), but like I said, this guy is good at what he does so I am learning from working under him.

One hallmark of his style is that he pushes a very aggressive timeline and we are running through schematic design, design development, pricing and contract/construction drawings at much faster pace than I'm used to.  Meanwhile he's managing several other projects and a new baby at home - like I said he's good, but he's no superman, you can tell the pace is tough on him and he is tired.  But he still produces results.

In parallel to this aggressive design/bidding track that he's got us on, he's also working with the town to get the project approved by the Historical Commission, this is similar to my Special Permit problem that is almost worked out.  He somehow managed to get us on the docket for the Historic Commission meeting the day before he's supposed to go on vacation for 2 weeks.  His time off was planned well in advance, but our boss, the Principal in Charge of the project got the sudden opportunity to go to Romania for 10 days over that same timeframe.  This is great because we were simultaneously pushing out a pricing package, and if all went right we'd have the Commission approval and 2 weeks for the bidders to review the drawings and for me to field their questions.  No problem.

Then the Town fails to advertise the hearing correctly and therefore have to delay it by a week.

This leaves me holding the bag.

At first my boss was at a loss for what to do, and I was a little put off that he didn't just ask me to do it right away.  Regardless, I told him I could do it.  (Authors note, I've never presented at a municipal hearing before).  Fortunately for my pride he agreed and the PM gave me a very short briefing on what the issues were while our boss emailed the client to tell them that not only would I be presentation, but that I done this many times before.

This is a lie, my boss knew it at the time, but the truth he was trying to convey to the client was that I could handle the situation and they didn't need to worry.

I spent the next week thinking of that line from Ghostbusters.  They're responding to the call at the hotel and the manager is clearly had no faith in Pete Venkman and the boys and Dan Ayroyd says: "Don't worry, do this kind of thing all the time."  We, the audience, know it's a lie and hilarity will ensue.

It did for them, and a bit for me as well, though I didn't get covered in ectoplasmic residue in the process.

The day comes, I'm late leaving, then I hit traffic (naturally) and I'm nervous because on top of all this I'm meeting the client for the first time.

I'm late to the meeting, but in time for our presentation slot, and fortunately the client intercepts me in the hall.  She's not far from my age and puts me right at ease with a smile and a warning to watch out for the woman on the Commission with the oxygen tank.  She slips me a letter from their neighbor saying they had reviewed the drawings and had no objection to the project - to any of you out there reading this thinking about going through a project like this, getting your abutters on board early is a HUGE help.

The petitioner before us is still going strong at 7:20, 5 minutes before I was supposed to start, which I was glad for because it gave me time to see how things worked there.  Turns out this Commission is a bunch of concerned citizens who mean well, but really want to meddle in how things happen in their town and don't really want to see things change.  All that the petitioner wanted was to put up a picket fence so her kids didn't accidentally chase a ball into the street.  Simple, go for it.  She spent nearly an hour with the panel talking about fence height (3 feet or 4 feet?), painted or not (of course it should be painted white), where it should be places in relation to the property line, and even the width and spacing of the pickets.

If that seems like a normal function of your government then you should really think long and hard about where your tax money goes!

In the end they kind of punted and gave her permission to move forward only after building a mock-up of the fence on site and submitting photos of it for further approval.  Gods help her.

Thankfully, my presentation didn't take as long as hers, and it seems that the panel was already 60% on board based on the preliminary drawings we had submitted to them.  The first question was about whether we'd let the copper roof patina (naturally darken and turn green over time), the answer to that is yes.  They wanted to know if the client knew the neighbors, which she does, and then she went on to claim that she had spoken to both neighbors and they were fine with the project.  After a few more questions answered satisfactorily they moved to approve our project and we were out the door in less than 20 minutes!

Outside my client admitted to me that she hadn't spoken to one of the neighbor's that she had claimed to, and she thought it was hilarious that we pulled this off even though I had never been to her house before! Ah, more little lies.  For a second I wanted to let her in on the secret that I had not done this before, but we were looking good in her eyes, no need to ruin that!

You see, even though I went to a lot of school to become an Architect, very little of what I learned was actually relevant to my day-to-day job.  In fact, the most important thing that happened to me at school was during my second semester of grad school when our professor assigned us a project and a presentation for each time the class met for 2 weeks.  That meant I had 2 days to pick a design solution, refine it, build a model, draw it and then present it.  Following that I had 4 days to do the same, then 2 then 4.  I learned pretty quickly how to make a little work seem like a lot of ideas in those 2 weeks, and by the end of the semester I knew I could present almost anything with little preparation.

That's a skill Architects share, and one that I had kind of forgotten about.  It's good to remember that I still have it.  

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Change

Can people ever really change?

We all want to think that we can; that ending the bad habits we have is just one decision away. Yet we all know that seeing someone really change is rare. You might notice a change in someone when they've met a new person or started a new job, but like so many New Year's resolutions to make it to the gym, those changes tend to be fleeting and it's not long before that friend of yours is back to being like who they were before they tried to make the change. I know it sounds cynical but more often than not the honeymoon period ends.

Yet on another level, the events in our lives are constantly changing us. Sometimes its the mundane aspects of life, like rudeness on the street and other times it's major ones like becoming an aunt that change us. One of these experiences can renew your faith in a positive meaning of life, and the other can reinforce the futility of existence. The way life has changed you leading up to those experiences will shape which of those turns out to be the positive experience.

Time and time again it seems that experiences in life tend to only harden people, to make them keep things internalized and to not let others see them being vulnerable. Cynicism again, but it I don't think too many of you would disagree with that.

I had an experience in grad school where through a series of decisions that I and those around me had made led to me being alone for about a month straight. Classes were just over and many close friends moved away, there were two friends that I had actually pushed away on purpose (one for the better, the other less so), I was dating someone who was traveling for several weeks (we broke up right after she got back), I moved into a studio apartment, was looking for a job, had no TV, no internet (this was about 12 years ago), and my family was in another city. I had the self awareness to know that this experience would change me, and I was determined that it would make me stronger.

I spent a lot of that time reading pulpy science fiction and playing video games on my ancient computer. I knew pretty quickly that this experience wasn't good for me. i didn't exercise, I didn't volunteer, I didn't pick up any hobbies - in fact I did nothing to better myself at all. This was an opportunity that was terrible for me to miss, and miss it I did.

The purpose of this blog is for me to push myself to be better at my job. It's helping, but I don't need to simply be better at my job, I need to be better at my life. I had a bad experience a few years ago and I've internalized pretty much all of my response to it. This has lead me to some pretty dark places inside and once again I've managed to change myself for the worse without trying to or even realizing it until now. The negative effect that this has had on me effects all aspects of my life, and I'm sure those around me note that change in my everyday behavior. To be sure, I'm not spending all day moping, I do enjoy much of my day to day life, but this internalized grief weighs on me and has changed my humor. I'm less funny, more abrupt, withdrawn and irritable.

People can change, and I believe that we are dynamic beings constantly responding to an existence that can be very hard and very, very beautiful. But it's easier to be changed by life rather than actually being the one making the change. At this point for me it's like the sum of the parts of my are all balled up into the coma of a comet and the one small part of my psyche that has remained unchanged is leaning hard against that giant mass to try to change its course. I want a different orbit than the one I'm on, but do I have the energy to alter the direction of that mass?

As always, the Deep Beam has to try. His survival depends on it, but can anyone do that from within?

The truth is probably not, change comes from without, and so I need to find the place that will help me make the change to my orbit.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Life is always good at the starting line.

I had a meeting on Friday with my client and the General Contractor that we're in the process of hiring to do the project.  We did a walk-though of the house with a salvage expert and identified which items in the house might have some value in salvage and which could be thrown away.  We're basically discussing door panels, door hardware, windows, cabinets and plumbing fixtures.  It was really interesting because there's the potential for the 3 people already on the project (Homeowner, GC, Architect) to have 3 different ideas of what should stay and what should go.  For his part, the GC thought that everything should go, which is good because it meant that he read our drawings and specifications correctly.  I had some ideas of what might be able to be reused or have other salvage value, but some of it didn't make it into the drawings just yet because we hadn't met with the salvage person yet.  The Homeowner was disappointed that we weren't reusing more of the doors on the project, which is something that can still be up for debate.  He's got his eyes on some light fixtures that might be original to the house that he wants to clean up and reuse, but what surprised me though was that he also really wants to find a use for some wood panelling up on the third floor.

One of the bedrooms up there has some really beautiful tongue and groove wood boards that make up the entirety of the walls and ceilings (it's an attic space so much of the ceiling is sloping).  The feeling of the room is very much like an old cottage on a lake somewhere, and I would love to leave it as is, but its not the right thing for a house in suburban New England.  Any family that moved in there would tear it down or paint it over to make it a kids bedroom.  It would make a great home office, but it's very dark and masculine so it would be hard to work with.  More importantly, there's no insulation behind it so we have to take it down to insulate properly.

Between the 4 of us we came up with a plan for the Homeowner to meet up with one of the GCs workers and they would work together to try to un-install (not demolish) the wood panelling.  The client very much wants to learn and actually perform some work here, so this will be fun for him - in fact I'd like to help too, but I don't know if that'll fit my schedule.  The intention is for them to take the panelling down without destroying it and then he will spend some time figuring out how to clean it up while my boss and I try to come with a way to use.  I'm already thinking of cabinetry or some wall panelling in the mudroom, it's a neat design challenge that is pretty exciting really.

I know from past experience with this salvage operation there can be trouble with some GCs.  Sometimes they get a low price on demo because they're basically just going to take a sledge hammer to everything and throw it in the dumpster.  It's hard to reuse a smashed sink or bathtub, so that won't work for our salvager.  So, it will cost the GC more to un-install items and then they have to ask the client for more money on top of what the salvage company is charging to place all the salvaged material.  This can lead to bad feelings early on in a project because the client can feel that they're getting nickeled and dimes and can mean that the salvage isn't actually done due in order to cut costs.  This leads to a wasteful abandonment of useful material, and can cripple attempts to get points on the LEED for Homes rating system (a major goal on this project).

Fortunately, its looking like our GC has allowed for careful de-installation of much of the material we have in mind to salvage and so it looks like this particular problem won't actually be a problem.

I left that meeting with a good feeling because, for now at least, Client, Architect and GC are all on the same page.  I try to savor that feeling because it will surely not last.  There are 4 versions of what the project is, one in each of our minds, and another is embodied in the drawing and specifications that we base the contract on.  I can assure you that those 4 versions of the this project are not the same and at some point there's going to be a conflict between what's expected and what's been budgeted.  I can only hope that this conflict will be a while from now and will be minor.  My other project was a near total disaster of missed expectations and underdeveloped budgets and has lead to my company and the GC losing money.  I hope that I've learned some lessons from that and won't be repeating that experience here.

But for now, we all seem to be on the same page and are happy, and I'm going to try to hold on to that feeling for a while.  

Monday, March 21, 2011

I've got a bad feeling about this

It's a very distressing feeling when you're telling your boss that you understand what he wants you to do and that you have no problem getting it done in the required timeframe while looking him in the eye and getting the feeling that hes disappointed in you.

I had that feeling today and the only thing I can think that he's thinking is that I should've thought to do what he was telling me to do already.

The Deep Beam candid answer is that I had thought of much of what he was saying, but since it involved the Special Permit that we've been working on for months I was hesitant because I wasn't sure what the City wanted to see.

I hate this feeling because while I, and you True Believers, know that I'll do better next time, the next time I get into this kind of situation with this boss is likely to be a long time from now. What do I do in the meantime to let him know that I'm learning from my mistakes and from his experience?

One way is to simply lead, which is the theme of 2011, but that's not easy for me. I need some backbone building exercises.

I am trying to lead and in some situations I've done so effectively, but me taking the lead on a problem often means that my bosses don't find out there was a problem in the first place. Nice catch 22 huh? In don't really want to be That Guy who goes around telling stories about how awesome he is for handling things.

I guess I keep thanklessly going on trying my best.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Live via satellite.

Normally my postings are written hours or days after the event I'm describing, but today, on a very special installment of Deep Beam, I give you a posting mere minutes after the event.

I just had a phone conversation with a GC that I thought was simply to arrange a time to have a different phone conversation tomorrow with my boss. Instead it led to her almost walking away from the job. I'm stunned not only at the direction the call took, but also at how cool I remained through it.

First off, yes I said that the GC was a she, which many of you may know is rare, and I'll continue to call her that even though she is not actually licensed in this state. It's just convenient; she owns the company that has a licensed GC but so far I speak with her more than him.

The gist of things are that she's the higher of two bids by about $300K, and she knows it. Our internal agenda for tomorrows call was to make sure that the low guy hadn't missed something that she had caught, but we told her it was to better understand her costs (also true). When I picked up the phone I hoped I'd get her to say that we're on for tomorrow and that's that. Instead she went right into talking about her number for the Electrical scope of work and how they priced the drawings and specs and her number was fair. Then she went on to say that it was professionally disrespectful to her that we were having phonecalls and not meetings. That was the first time I was stunned by her call. I tried to explain that we hadn't even gotten to the call yet since we kept having calls to set up the call!

The conversation went on and at a certain point I just decided to let her go and I'd say as little as possible since she was off on a tear and going a mile a minute. Pretty soon it came out that each number in the price had a 15% fee added to it for potential mistakes or other cost overruns. She's also charging about 13% straight overhead and profit on everything, therefore the client is paying 28% of the cost of the job that potentially does not go to any physical thing that will be part of his house when it's done. Amazing. When I told her that the other GC wasn't charging the additional 15% overrun fee because if he made a mistake it would come out of his profit she was floored. Basically she wasn't willing to put her profit at risk in the way that is pretty standard in the industry. That 15% delta is going to lose her this job.

At this point I still hoped to get a time to talk tomorrow, but then she went on. She straight out told me that there was no way she could do the job for the lower GCs price. Effectively she was taking herself out of the running in this competition! I thanked her for being candid and told her that if that's the case it was the clients call. A few minutes later the call was over and there was no need to have the one tomorrow.

I'm proud of myself for keeping cool and not punting the call to my boss, but also because I realize that I couldn't have had that conversation a year ago. Not only am I more confident now, but I also have more experience and know better what to say to people who are older and more/differently experienced than I am. It's amazing to have experiences that allow for such clear self-examination.

Feels good.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Change Orders

As promised last week, here's the post about Change Orders.

So what's a change order?

A change order is the instrument by which the construction cost as stipulated in the contract is either increased or decreased.

When do you need a change order?

When the scope of works is changed, which can happen for any of a number of reasons.  The homeowner can add scope by deciding they want something more than what was in the original scope, like say a jacuzzi, or another bedroom, which would be a straight add.  A client can change from a more expensive to a less expensive building material (value-engineering), for example from a slate roof to an asphalt one.  These are elective change orders that the client initiates and usually aren't that much of a problem.  In the case of an add, the GC is happy because they get a mark-up on the additional work, so their profit increases.  Similarly if the Architect has a design fee that is tied to construction cost, they get an increased fee to cover the additional design work that the change requires.

There are also change orders for "unforeseen circumstances", which are conditions that no one could justifiably have predicted.  There could be rock ledge under the area where the basement is intended to be, termite damage in a wall that was meant to remain untouched, or even the discovery of hazardous materials like lead, mould or asbestos where none was anticipated.  In these cases the team of the GC, Client and Architect come to a conclusion as a group to decide if the situation was truly "unforeseen" and a change in scope, or if the GC should've had a reasonable expectation that the problem was there and provided funds in the contract amount for it.  These change orders can be hard for a Client to swallow, but usually they can be made to understand their necessity.

The worst kind of change order is for omissions in scope.  This could be because the GC failed to understand the project as bid, or that the Architect either described the scope inadequately or omitted something that they Client had requested.  Omissions in scope caused by the Architect are in my mind the worst (I'm biased) because it means that we've (I've) failed or misunderstood the Client in some way.

By the letter of the contract (depending on the form used), if the Architect and Client can show that a disputed area of scope was in fact in the original drawings or specifications then GC is bound to provide the scope without an increase in cost.  It seems cut and dry, but it's actually pretty tough to deal with because it calls into question what else the GC has made mistake on.  Inevitably there are arguments over who's responsible for the cost and it creates a contentious atmosphere at the job site, which leads to aggravation and discord that get in the way of making progress on the project.

The finger pointing can lead to any of the three parties to the contract being responsible for the cost.  We've seen how the Client and the GC can be responsible, but at times (rather perversely) the Architect can be on the hook for the cost (Something that has happened to me quite a bit lately and is really hard).

With this as background I'll be writing future posts about my experiences in being on the butt-end of change orders, and all of the negativity that can go with them.  It'll be good times. 

Friday, February 25, 2011

Crossover

Yesterday was the final scheduled launch of OV-103 Discovery.  You'll find that many sources will say final "scheduled" launch, but let's not kid ourselves, she's made her last ascent, and no amount of wishing or letter writing is going to get the STS program restarted after this summer.

I make it a point to watch every shuttle launch if it's at all feasible, and that has often meant streaming NASA TV while at work, and my coworkers pretty much know that if I have headphones on, we must be close to a launch.  This was true yesterday and I started watching about an hour before launch, which was perversely actually T-15:00 (NASA time is WAY worse than football time).  I had the coverage on the screen and did my best to stay billable at the same time.  At about 30 minutes to go a consultant called and I worked on getting him to lower his contract price (which I eventually did, a new skill that I'm learning).  While that was happening my client called twice, and when I got off the phone I left the client a message and learned there was a potential problem with Range Safety that could postpone the launch.

The client called back at about T-7:00 and he ended up venting to me until well after ET staging (it's hard to say when, the streaming hung up at about T+5:00).   I'll be honest, I was tempted to put off the call, partially because of the launch, but also because I suspected that the client was upset about some change orders I had forwarded him earlier in the day.  I sucked it up though and took the call, which was the right thing to do, and the end I'm happy I did.

He was upset, but to my surprise, not with me.  For only the second or third time in 5 years he was upset with the Interior Designers and not us, and he unwound about them for the first half of the conversation, then he moved on to the GC moving slowly, and finally he came to the change orders.  He is not interesting in paying them at all, he thinks they're high, and he thinks that the lighting design was inadequate.  Full disclosure, I did all the lighting drawings and I've never felt that they were properly reviewed by the rest of the design team, mostly due to rushed schedules, so if he's questioning the lighting design he's questioning me.  This is not the first time that he has questioned my designs, but this time was a bit different.  It was less direct, a bit more passive, and had a delaying tone as if his criticism was something that could wait for another conversation.  I wasn't afraid to speak up and defend the design, but didn't feel the need to draw him into a larger conversation about it.

Anyway, we made it through the conversation without any shouting, and I kept my cool even when I saw the foam strike near Discovery's wing root at about T+3:56.  It did freak me the hell out, but I saw no obvious damage and knew that the risks were low in the high thin atmosphere the shuttle is traveling through after staging.  I went to discuss the conversation with my boss, who was a little on edge about it.  My other boss isn't as involved in the project and joined the conversation with a little more detachment, something that hasn't gone well for me in past conversations like this.  This time it went pretty well, boss #2 was in a jovial mood and made jokes that seemed to suggest that he was on my side.

We went back and forth through all the issues that the client had brought up and even branched out to a few that he hadn't.  In the end it was pretty clear that the client was venting, and that's when boss #2 said something very interesting and insightful.  He said that people tend not to vent to the people that they're mad at, they tend to vent to someone that is close to the problem, but not actually the cause of it.  That might seem obvious, but it's hard to stay objective when dealing with emotional people who have millions of dollars on the line.  I was glad he said that and it made me realize that during the call I had been letting many of his comments fly past without getting me riled up.  I had subconsciously recognized that he was venting and detached myself a little bit from what was happening which enabled me to not loose my cool about the fact that he was disparaging my work.  I'm learning, and realizing that made it almost worth missing most of the launch of STS-133.

In any event, I went home reviewing the launch coverage on my DVR while on the phone with my father.  The event I saw was not 1 but 2 foam strikes, but NASA isn't worried about them just now. Here's the video:



Maybe tomorrow I'll write about Change Orders and project burn out.  Gripping stuff, stay tuned.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Sagan Series

I could spend all day writing about Space or finding and posting about cool images and videos that I find online, but I don't think that the world needs that right now, and I also don't think that's what's going to help me be a better Architect.  However, as with the recent anniversaries that we've endured, I feel that on occasion there are things that are too important to not interrupt our irregularly scheduled programming.

Today that interruption comes to us in the form of two videos from what's being called The Sagan Series, which feature modern, seemingly hi-definition video of our world and the Space Shuttle set to the calm, thoughtful, nigh-immortal words of Carl Sagan.

I encourage you to take 7 minutes and watch these videos and listen to his words.  The message is really very simple, it costs so little to explore, and learning about the unknown is truly what human beings do best.




Sunday, February 13, 2011

Daily Planning

Amongst the things my boss mentioned to me at my review back in December was that some people in the office set goals for what they want to get accomplished in any given day so that when they get there they can get right to work.  This is was not a new idea to me and is something that I had been doing and still do, but apparently he didn't think that I did.  Last Friday I showed up to work with two tasks that I definitely wanted to get done and felt that the small amount of work on my other project wouldn't keep me from completing the other two.

I had to make one phone call to my client to clarify something that was going on with another member of the design team and it got out of control and became a shit show that consumed the rest of day entirely.  My boss and I talked about me calling the client to talk about the situation and instead of just picking up the phone and calling him like I probably should have, I decided to email him and ask when he'd be free.  He runs a company so it made sense to me find out rather than to just surprise him with a call.  He responded fairly quickly to say that he'd call me in a half hour.  That was fine with me, it gave me time to work on my two main tasks of the day (incidentally not a part of this clients projects).  Giving him that half hour sealed the fate of my productive day.  In my email I mentioned to him what I wanted to discuss, and I find out later that hadn't been paying much attention to this particular issue and in that half-hour he was able to look into it and to get himself pretty worked up about it.

He called me from the road and started right off on the offensive and shouting into the phone about the problem and how it shouldn't be his responsibility, nor should he be on the hook for the cost, and even further that he was the one coordinating the project when it should be my company. This isn't remotely true, we've coordinated more than he realizes, and it's only when he's struck with an additional cost that he accuses others of not doing their jobs.  Regardless, he was upset and came at me with such a fervor that I couldn't respond, I was caught so off guard that I didn't know what to say to him, which is exactly what he wanted I'm sure.  Clearly I don't react well to being yelled at, never have in my life, and unfortunately this project has seen me being shouted at on multiple occasions by the client, the GC, the designer, and less directly, by my other boss at my review.

But I digress.

Aside from the fact that I had a lot of damage control to do, this conversation so flummoxed me that I couldn't recover for the rest of the day and made no progress on my other tasks.  And its not as though I sat around moping all day, there was a lot of management-type work to do on this project to keep the client happy.  I feel as if I've been talking for the last two weeks and not actually getting any work done. This project has had a series of deadlines set first by the GC, and then by the client, and now the GC has set another for this Friday, so I once again feel that I need to get through this week and everything will be fine - again.  I hope this time is really it and that 95% of the remaining project close out work gets done this work so theres less to be yelled at about.

Even once this project gets done I'll still have to deal with the fact that I'm going to get yelled at by people who want to have control and the upper hand in a situation.  That's a real fault of mine and one that is not conducive to leadership.

I need to work on this. 

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Columbia

On this date 8 years ago I was awoken by a phone call from my father, who told me that the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry and that all hands were lost over Texas.  It took me a few minutes to understand what he was saying and why there was absolutely no hope of seeing seven parachutes carrying the crew to a safe landing.  I held some hope anyway and it wasn't until after I saw the footage of those faint contrails in the blue sky that I truly accepted that the crew was gone. 

As the years have passed I've thought of that day often, and I realize that I mourn the loss of the vehicle as much as I do the crew, which is not the case with Challenger.  This probably has something to do with my age at the time of the accidents, but also because Columbia was the first Space Shuttle, I watched her first lift-off, saw the "Hail Columbia" IMAX film in 1982, and even featured her in my thesis.  Columbia was the first, and in my opinion, best of the fleet and I was sad for her when I found out that she was too heavy to reach the International Space Station's orbit, thus reducing her usefulness in the post-ISS world. 

Unfortunately its hard not to view the tragic end of the STS-107 mission as the beginning of the end of the Shuttle program, and for the short term the winding down of our country's human spaceflight program.  Longtime opponents of Shuttle saw the damage to the heat shield as an inherent weakness that threatened to call into question the Shuttle program right down to its fundamentals. 

The Deep Beam disagrees, and in fact sees the Space Shuttle as one of the pinnacles of human achievement, that provides a unique and important capability that has no peer, and sadly no replacement.  OV-102 Columbia will be sorely missed, as will her crew.


Commander Rick Husband

Pilot William McCool

Payload Commander Michael Anderson

Mission Specialist 1 David Brown

Mission Specialist 2 Kalpana Chawla

Mission Specialist 4 Laurel Clark

Payload Specialist 1 Ilan Ramon


Hail Columbia!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Challenger STS-51L

Twenty-five years ago today Orbital Vehicle 099 Challenger exploded just after lift-off with all hands lost.  Seven souls gone, seven lights extinguished and never to light this world again.  It was a stunning day, and one that is hard to put into context of life in 2011 when politicians are shot at supermarkets, and we here almost daily of suicide bombers and police officers shot in the line of duty. 

What strikes a cord with me is that the crew of Challenger didn't put themselves in danger to save lives as police, fire and military servicepeople do.  Astronauts put themselves in danger for the pursuit of science and exploration, ideals that are very different than protecting life or democracy.  Science and the pursuit of knowledge are not ideals that everyday people tend to think of as things that are worth laying down ones life for, but every Astronaut, Cosmonaut and Taikonaut does.  Putting your life at risk so that others may benefit is as close to a definition of "hero" as I can think of, and so I honor the crew of Challenger as heroes. 

Commander Francis R. Scobee

 Pilot Michael J. Smith

Mission Specialist 1 Judith A. Resnik

MS2/Flight Engineer Ellison Onizuka

Mission Specialist 3 Ronald E. McNair

Payload Specialist 1 Gregory B. Jarvis

Payload Specialist 2 Sharon Christa McAuliffe

Godspeed

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Remember


This is the Spaceflight Memorial Patch that NASA has created as a way to memorialize the lost crews of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia.  Brave heroes all, all lives lost in pursuit of Space Exploration.  We enter an odd time on the calendar, the Apollo 1 crew was lost on the launchpad on January 27, Challenger on January 28, and Columbia was lost February 1. Three grim anniversaries spread out over decades, yet all fall in the space of one week.

NASA has designated the 27th as an agency-wide Day of Remembrance, and will also include the crews of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 in their memorials.

The Deep Beam remembers.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Communication (1 of ?)

Despite what you may believe, designing buildings is not what Architects spend most of their time doing.  It's hard to put really accurate figures to it, but I'd say that only about 30% of our time is spent designing, and the remaining 70% is spent communicating that design to others.  Initially we have to communicate one persons early design to others within our office so that it can be refined and expanded on, then to the Client and/or Interior Designer for their collaboration and approval, then to consultants (structural engineers, HVAC engineers, etc.) for further refinement, to builders for pricing, and then to municipalities for the final legal go-ahead.  This communication is done through drawing, and then a lot of talking.  (Sometimes we get into physical model building to communicate a design, but I find thats less common these days.) It seems like the all we should have to do is draw, but really, we spend far more time talking about a building than we do drawing it.

The types of projects that I work on tend to be complex, with a lot of detail, and a lot of people on the Design Team.  It's myself, one or more other people from my office, the client (sometimes that's two people if it's husband and wife, but there's interesting variations that I'll get to in another posting), Interior Designer(s) and then depending on the topic a consultant. Once construction has started we have to add the GC (project manager and/or site supervisor) and then whatever subcontractor may be relevant.  This leads to a long list of people who may need to be in on any given conversation.  It's tough to get that many people in the same place at the same time for a meeting, and nearly impossible to get them all on the phone at once.  This is why we've embraced email so fully; you can send one message to that entire group and everybody is suddenly on the same page.  If there's an issue, everybody is made aware, if theres a question, everybody can get the answer all at once.

That is, until someone forgets to hit "reply all" when responding.  Nothing can kill a rapid fire exchange of ideas faster than that.  I know we've all been copied on emails that seem like a waste of time, and agree that we need to use or best judgement on when we copy a whole bunch of people, but if someone asks you a question, and you only respond to the one person on the list that you think needs to know then you can have a lot of frustrated people who feel like you've dropped the ball on something.

The example that's on my mind is the with the Interior Designer (ID) on a project that is nearly complete and has a huge deadline this weekend.  There's a ton of questions for the ID, that the GC has highest priority to know so that he can build/paint/buy the right thing, but the Client and the Architect need to hear the answers too so that at the very least we know to stop pestering the ID about them, but also to make sure that the answer the ID gives makes sense and is feasible.  This particular ID does not to "reply all", possibly on purpose, and so today when the client had a question about a paint color, and I dug back through last weeks emails to find the one with the answer in it that the GC forwarded me as courtesy, the ID flipped out when I re-sent that email to entire team (including the client).  It was something that they had all seen already, so I don't fully understand what he was upset about, but this ID is also very sensitive, and has been difficult to manage, but there will be more on personalities another time.

By "flipped out" I mean an angry voicemail to me and an angry phonecall to my boss before I had had a chance to return the first call.  My boss was on my side with this, but as always we see the larger picture and try to keep people calm and the process moving forward.  I ended up explaining myself to the ID in an email, not apologizing but still sounding apologetic, trying to be the bigger person.  There's been no response from him on this yet, but I don't expect there to be, he's rarely responded when there's been similar blow-ups in the past.  We'll see.

Turns out the client doesn't like the paint color the ID picked out, so that's sort of a selfish bookend for me on this one.  

Monday, January 24, 2011

Stress

For some reason while I was driving to Consultants office the other day I had an imaginary conversation with someone about my job.  I have no idea why, it was one of those mental exercises that happen when your mind is particularly idle.  I don't really know who the person was, but it seems like she was waitress, and she asked me what I did for a living.

I told her that I was an Architect.

She asked if I liked it, and I responded yes wholeheartedly, but when she asked what it was like my response was:  "Stressful."

And then it occurred to me, I would like my job more (on a day to day basis) if I liked stress.  I know there are people (probably some in my office) who really thrive on stress and like to be in the middle of it solving problems and making other peoples stresses disappear, but I've never been like that.  I've always shied away from stress, as I have responsibility and other sort of "adult" aspects of life.

But now that I think about it, my job has been pretty stressful for about the last 2 years.  It started around the time that one of my coworkers left the firm and I took over the lead on the project we had been working on.  We went into pricing and construction documents, then more pricing and finally into construction, when things are supposed to get easier - which they didn't  My stress level has had all kind of ups and downs, at times getting close to unbearable, yet never really getting down to zero.

Last week I actually filed for a building permit (something that Contractors do all the time, but Architects rarely do), and getting that ready was really stressful.  But then, not long after this conversation with the "waitress" I walked into the building department and turned in the drawings and application paperwork.  Turns out I didn't have everything I needed, which was clear about 30 seconds into the conversation with the woman on the other side of the counter.  Shortly though, I realized that even though the city has questions, I also have the answers.  And that's a good feeling - I mean dear god, I'm an Architect - I do know a little about buildings.  Especially the one that I spent the last 6 months drawing and describing in a technical narrative.

Today there were more questions, and some clarifications on that project, and the other one has a punch list (to-do list really) that's getting shorter.  Either the stress is getting reduced, or I'm getting better at dealing with it.

Not sure if I like it yet, but I'm sure time will give me a chance to find out!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Frontiers

I'm not supposed to be doing space stuff here anymore (or at least I should be doing architecture a lot more...) but this video is really something. It is the perfect type of thing for NASA to be doing, it is simple, short, to the point and above all, inspiring. Most of the videos NASA puts out make me feel like I chose the wrong career and that opportunities are passing us by due to lack of vision. This video makes me want to be better at what I do.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Phonecalls




The bane of my existence.

I know that like a lot of people I put off things that I don't like/can't handle/am uncomfortable with, and the biggest thing that I put off are phone calls. Especially when someone tells me I have to do it.

Last Thursday I made a phone call that I was supposed to make back in December - and by "supposed to" I mean that my boss had told me to back around the 7th. He had asked me twice more before I did it, and today we had a meeting with the person I had to call - which went well as meetings go. The problem is, we should've had this meeting a month ago. And that 1 month means a 2 month delay in my project.

That math not make sense to you? Well maybe it would help to know that the person I was meant to be calling was a city zoning official in charge of the Special Permit that we need for the project to move forward as we've designed it. City bureaucracy math is the best math.

And by best I mean the most ridiculous - and honestly, they know it.

But I digress.

The meeting went fine and my boss and I came out with a clear understanding of how we should proceed - but we also knew that we were now susceptible to a new version of the ordinance that we wouldn't have been if I had made the call when I was told to (and when I said I would).

The gist is, we need to get a by-right Building Permit before we can apply for the Special Permit. The by-right permit is a given (obviously, it's "by-right"), but the Special Permit is subject to the whim of a board of elected officials and is not a sure thing. At the minimum it can take 6 months (which admittedly we're 3 months into). By the math of the bureaucracy we can file in March at the earliest since our current communication with the city has us on the board docket in March (if I get a lot done before Valentine's Day). It would be better to be on the docket in January - which if I had made the call in early December (and then rushed a lot) is where we'd be.

If I had made the call in December we should be on the docket now and be getting permission to build on or about March 1st. The reason is long and involved and has to do with filing deadlines - and newspaper print times (stop the presses). As it stands now we'll get permission by about May 1st (if all goes well).

It may be that our client will be fine with that. Or it maybe he'll be pissed. Either way, my boss feels that we're in an embarrassing situation because of my holding off on making a phone call. If there's one thing that my boss hates it's being embarrassed, and he spent 15 minutes making that clear to me while he reamed me out on the steps of city hall.

Honestly, I had been feeling good about my work performance these last few days. Then he lit into me and I felt like all the work I had done on the drawings and specifications, and the work that my team had done (because I don't work alone) had gotten me nowhere. There wasn't much I could say to him other than to apologize and tell him that I'd do better, which didn't seem like much to him at the moment.

There's really not much else I can do really. I just have to try to do better as the project moves forward and try not to make mistakes - of course I have the risk that a mistake made in the past will come back to haunt me later. The "timebomb" effect - which is becoming more of a minefield on my other project, but that's another story.

I keep thinking of my first boss, and one of the most clear lessons she tried to teach me was to make all your phone calls in the morning. That way you had the rest of the day to work on whatever you had to do, and the person you called was on the hook for getting back to you. I don't know why I haven't learned that lesson yet, even though I haven't forgotten it in all this time.

The main point my boss was trying to make was that I wasn't leading the process. I wasn't leading the client, or the city zoning officials, and I wasn't leading my boss. I've been following, and "following" is not a skill an Architect should have.