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.  

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!

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.

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.

Leadership

I've been pushing myself to be more of a leader in my day-to-day career life, which has put me up against some questions that have tough answers (for me anyway). One is that it seems to me that leaders always have the answer, and the problem is that feel like I usually don't. This would be fine except that I'm in a position where I get asked a lot of questions.

Questions from clients or contractors that I don't know the answer to make me feel pretty bad and like I'm wasting peoples time and money. Its not the same with coworkers and I'm developing techniques for handling these "no answer" situations. Basically I tell them "I don't know" and then tell them why.

I'm finding that often this exchange leads to a better understanding of the question/problem/issue and sometimes we even come up with an answer.

I not yet be the leader that my bosses want me to be, but I'm becoming a better collaborator, and that's a step in the right direction.

Mediocrity

At my review last week my employers told me that they want me to be more of a leader. They feel strongly that Architects are important to the building process and are the natural entity to lead a building project through it's many stages. Therefore in any situation, be it good or bad, we should be leading the group to the next step. The group could be the client, the builder, the interior designer, or any number of other consultants or sub-contractors.

My boss who was leading this part of the conversation is more of the tough guy of the two of them and his leadership style, while dynamic and effective, feels like it would be difficult for me to pull off - it's a little aggressive. I think the other boss sensed that Boss #1's style isn't like my own, or is at least not how I picture myself behaving. So Boss #2 told me that I can be a leader on projects while still being the laid back and "likeable" person that he sees me as, and incidentally I see myself as. That was the right thing for me to hear, and one of the things that I like about my bosses is that they are sensitive to how other people do things and know how to motivate them. It's a real skill and is one of the things that makes them good Architects.

So, I have to start being a leader, and my job being what it is, I have no shortage of opportunities in front of me. One of the first is with my client who is coming in to review the pricing drawings that I'll have more or less done for him tomorrow. Last week I was thinking a bit about how to show him that I am leading his project, and one of the first things it occurred to me to tell him was something about how sarcastic I am and how that's really a strength.

My client was in the Navy for a while and used to drive ships, and knowing that the only thing I could think to say that involved me and sarcasm is, "I use sarcasm to hide my mediocrity."

It was sad to realize that that was true, but no matter how much I try to see it differently - I can't. I was a solid B+ to A- student in High School and most of college and grad school, I was on the Junior Varsity swim team until the end of my senior year, and although I've run two marathons my times were well below average (though not the absolute slowest and I did complete them both). My record overall reads pretty middle of the road. I've been mediocre in a world where being mediocre is enough to get by. In fact, mediocre people often get praised because expectations are generally low in our society. And that's how I've been getting by.

My employers are pretty clearly telling me that this isn't a sustainable path for me. They haven't explicitly told me to "shape up or ship out", but they did imply that if didn't and things got bad again then maybe I wouldn't be with the company any longer. They are telling me that based on my age and experience level I should be performing better, and that they want me to step up.

I want to do better, I know I worked harder and paid more attention to my work while I was in college, but I haven't been able to put that energy level into practicing Architecture. At the office I just feel really A.D.D. for some reason. The phone is ringing, Emails are coming in, co-workers are asking questions or making small talk, and of course, the internet is there. There are so many distractions that I was seriously considering taking time away from my wife and friends so that I could take some work home with me tonight. That's something I've never done before.

Tomorrow before my meeting with the Navy Client I have a site meeting with another client that is in the punch list phase, and there will be a million little questions to settle out on that before I get back to office and sit down to plan out how I'll be a leader to the Navy Guy. That won't be easy and it's likely that I'll end up using "being busy" as an excuse for why I'll be mediocre for another day - and that is unsatisfying.

Sarcasm

I use it to hide my mediocrity.