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architect's salary

wanna compare what you make with everyone else around the nation? here's the latest report from the AIA.

gehry on simpsons

frank gehry was on the simpsons a while back. the episode was pretty funny. it showed gehry's design process, how his buildings are constructed, and how people use his buildings. very accurate if you ask me.

anyways, my buddy emailed me a link of a clip from this episode that's up on youtube. you could also view the clip below.

client request

so we're meeting with a client today and i get a phone call from him.

phone rings.

client: "hi 'monkeyboy.'"

pota: "hi 'mr. very important client whom i must talk all proper to so that i can make a good first time impression with you and represent the firm and the man and show how we are very good at kissing client's arses because we do whatever clients tells us to do sir.'"

client: "thank you for the drawings you emailed yesterday, i just have a couple of comments."

i space out....

client: "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

pota: "what's that!? okay sir, i'll get right on it and make those changes."

client: "thank you. so i guess i'll see you this afternoon."

pota: "yeah, i'll see you later."

client: "one other thing. could you drive to the meeting and not let the man drive that way you guys we'll be ON TIME."

pota: "ha, ha, ha , ha (over exaggerated fake laughter). i'll let the man know. thanks mr. client guy. see you this afternoon."

end call.

it's always nice to do a little trash talking about the man with the client right before you meet the client for the first time. he knows who's really in charge of the project and does all the work. monkeyboy 1, the man 0.

Employee Web surfing not unreasonable

check out this article i found yesterday, "Employee Web surfing not unreasonable." it talks about a city worker being accused of disregarding warnings to stay off the internet.

the judge in the trial mentions that "It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work."

i agree. now i gotta get back to work.

what's wrong with this picture?

so what's wrong with this picture?

1. the man hands me a list of things (at 5 pm) that needs to be done for tomorrow's meeting and tells me to finish up a drawing to email to the client by the end of the day. so here i am rushing to finish that drawing to email to the client by 5 pm and it's already 5:30.

2. one of my buddies here at work is over at his desk catching up on his beauty sleep.

3. my other buddy is bitchin at his desk how he is so bored because he says "there is no more websites to search on the internet." can you even out surf the internet? is that even possible?

4. the pm is not even in the office because he is at the printers watching them print drawings to make sure they print them right. is that even neccessary? i mean they are printers, that's what they do.

5. and to top it all off, the man is gone for the day.

funk it, it's 5:30 i'm outta here.

just another cad monkey monday

so i gotta get up in a couple of hours to work for the man. i'll actually be pretty busy working on two projects for presentations that we'll have on tuesday. so i figured i'd get a head start blogging now. i ran by this dilbert comic on the net, which is different from the earlier dilbert comic i posted earlier. this is exactly how my monday is going to be. i can't wait. enjoy.

asian stereotype....is this true or false? please comment.

my buddy (who's also a fellow contributor), fruit-loop, emailed me this link that she came across on kevin and bean's website. it's pretty funny....but is it true of false? please comment so we can find the truth to this racial stereotype. have a fun friday everyone.

The Wheel O' Racial Stereotypes ask, do Asian Men really have small penises?: click here

wannabe designer

i just came back from a meeting with the client, real estate broker, and potential tenants for an office building i'm working on. it's funny how the broker loves to play architect. it's one thing to suggest a few options here and there, and another to totally try to take all credit for design changes is just too funny.

you see, the broker at the meeting was mainly doing all the talking. his clients, the potential tenants, had some programmatic requirements they wanted to see before signing a lease. we were all going through these changes and i guess the broker wanted to run the show. he was suggesting we move offices here and there, put a conference room here and there, and even recited whatever little knowledge of the building code he memorized. all to look good in front of his clients.

me and the man just sat there quietly till he was done doing his presentation and said "we will take your program, come out with a space plan layout and send it out to everyone for approval." our client, the building owner, then praised us by saying "yeah, these guys are the experts. they can handle it. they know what to do."

lesson: real estate brokers can't design for sh*t.

a day without immigrants

so there's all this talk about May 1st being "The Great American Boycott." the cnn article can be found here 'nothing gringo on May 1.' all immigrants, not just mexicans, are being asked not go to work and not buy anything "American" to show them politician types what they're up against.

me personally, i'm all up for it. i'm not an immigrant, but i'm sure i'm pretty good buddies with a bunch of them who are illegal, some of them who won't admit it, but it's all good. so i guess that makes me pro-immigrant and qualifies me to boycott as well. i'm not sure if one day can make a difference or not, but whatever. it's one day without working for the man. and working for the man is bad.

a day without immigrants. what would that be like? check out the trailer, a day without a mexican. a day without an architect. now that would definitely cripple America.

sleeping on the job

i flew in from vegas early this morning and went straight to work. my head hurts. luckily, the man emailed that he has some wood flooring being installed at his house, so he won't be coming into the office today. translation. my ass is sleeping in because i can because i am the man.

either way, i'll be catching up on some sleep at work.

friday haiku

i stare all day long.
on the screen in front of me.
must be friday. yah.

what? no lunch?

yesterday we had a girl from subzero come by and give a lunch presentation.

it was actually pretty cool. she brought us these lunch packs that weren't that bad. i had a turkey sandwich on focaccia bread with cheese and mozzarella sauce. mmmmm. i also had a pasta salad that was lightly sauced with a dash of olive oil mixed with tomatoes and olives that was quite delicious. also on the side, i had honey dijon kettle chips, lightly salted, that served as a good complement to the pasta and sandwich. for dessert.....oh shoot the pm (project manager) just got back...hold on.....

...
...

okay he just stepped away. anyways, for dessert was this oatmeal cookie and boy was it filling. that was probably one of the best "lunch presentation" lunches i ever had.

you see, the thing about these lunch presentations, where people come by to plug their product, in this case it was fridges and stoves, i personally am just interested in the free lunch. i mean i'm sure what they are presenting is worth listening to, and i do learn things from these presentations.

but if you ain't bringing the lunch, i ain't giving you the time. admit it. you know it's true.

sexy architect

my last blog made me kinda depressed, so i decided to cheer myself up and read an article i got emailed back in the day, "Architects 'are sexiest'".

the article talks about how some agency did a survey of women's ideal partners and voted architects as the "sexiest male professionals." one "significant plus" was "their ability to cope with pressure of work in a relaxed manner."

that is so true. i mean, right now, i got all this pressure with all these deadlines. am i worried? heck no! i'm busy blogging, in a relaxed manner. so who cares about the money! always remember. we're sexy. and that's what pays the bills! yeah.

show me the money

so i do what i usually do at work in the morning and surf the net and come across this interesting site on cnn about an architect's salary. note that this oberservation is based on an Architect V, which is a project manager/ architect level with at least 4 years experience. the average pay, $48,932, looks pretty sad for someone with that much experience, who also had to go through 5 years of school (some 4 years, if you got the bootleg education). i'm just wondering how accurate this salary observation is?

another interesting note was the 50 best jobs in America. landscape architect came in 34th and urban planner came in 36th on the list. no signs of other design professions on the list, other than engineer (number 1!), oh wait hold on. a "software" engineer, not the engineers we're used to dealing with.

this all reminds me of an article my buddy emailed me once, big jobs that pay badly. the article says it best when it mentions about these jobs that "offer working conditions that only passion can excuse." and guess which job was on that list.

just remember. it's not about the money. it's about the passion. we do what we do because we love it. i mean, c'mon, would you rather stare at the computer all day and write codes and scripts and stuff and get paid a crap load of money, or would you rather stare at the computer all day and design and create (cad monkey) and get paid not by money, but by the pure satisfaction that you are really making a difference in this world by providing shelter? think about where these engineers are writing those codes. in an office building, at home, at a hotel, or wherever. and who designed those buildings. damn right. developers, i mean architects.

it's a good thing that writers are ranked 25th, 'cause i'm on my way.

tivo for designers

finally, a movie about an architect and his struggles. i could definitely use that remote control.

a day in the city

it's been a pretty crazy last couple of days at work. i've been busy actually working during work, so i haven't been able to post a new blog. i was working on a project in which the client insisted we get the permit this week, NO MATTER WHAT!

so we (the contractor and consultants) all went to the city this morning. there was a one hour wait just to see the fire engineer to approve our drawings. to top it off, we were still waiting for the electrical guy to come by and bring his drawings because the building plan checker wanted all our sets complete before he even looked at our drawings. his exact words were "well, you do your job, then i'll come by and do my job," then he walked away with a smirk on his face. punk ass.

anyways, the electrical guy comes through and we wait. we wait. and we wait. keep in mind that it is already 11 am and the fire engineer still has to look at our drawings, and he's only there till 12. and at 12, the building plan checker goes to lunch for an hour.

nevertheless, we meet with fire and of course he has to show us that he knows the code more than us and has more comments for us. luckily, he just noted those comments on the drawings and signed them off. one down, one more to go. building.

we wanted building to look at the drawings over the counter, but being the nice building guy he is, he says he will take a look at it later in the afternoon.

you see, building plan checkers know that you have to go through them to get a permit. so they basically have you by the kahunas. you have to laugh with them, joke with them, tell funny stories, basically kiss their ass because they are the ones standing between you and the permit.

my last boss hated plan checkers. he said that is the worst job. he called them designer drop outs, who can't design for sh*t, so their last resort is to be a plan checker, which gives them that chance to make them feel good about themselves and to play god, acting like their designers trying to change your design.

the building plan checker holds the drawings. we go to lunch, get a call from the client, and the client says "i don't care if you have to wait at the city till 5 pm, put pressure on the guy and get the ****in permit!" so we go back after lunch, tell the building guy we need this permit now, so he needs to look at the drawings. he tells us to "go home." he was basically telling us, you won't tell me when to do my job. i'll do my job, when i want to. fricken kahunas.

so we head back to the office and not even an hour later, the building guy calls the contractor and tells him to go back to meet with him because he has some questions about the architecture drawings. the contractor calls me up to meet him there, but i said no, we just got back to the office, have him call me to see if i can answer any of his questions. so i get a call. from the contractor. the building plan checker finally gave us the permit.

all of this work, for a building that they already started building and passed two building inspections already....all without the permit. gotta love this job.

fire

i went to the city yesterday to submit drawings. the fire engineer had some comments on the drawings, really nit picky stuff like the symbols on the electrical drawings are too small and hard to read, you need to have symbols that you note on the drawings referred to the legend, you should note panic hardware on the exit doors....you know crap like that.

he was just trying to show how knowledgeable he was with codes and stuff. whatever. anyways, we took his comments and emailed them out to the consultants later that day to make the neccessary changes. we told the consultants we want to re-submit right away, so they rush with the changes, re-printed (3) sets, signed, stamped and got the revised drawings back to us this morning.

so we have the revised drawings, per fire's comments, and head back to the city.

the fire engineer is not in today.

phone call

so i get a phone call this morning from the contractor for a job i'm working on. he asked if i spoke to the client. i said no, why? he replies because we are submitting drawings to the city tomorrow.

i told him we still have to finalize the latest plans so i can send them out to the consultants so they can update their drawings. he replies, i have all the consultants' drawings here at the job site, 3 sets each ready to be picked up.

how about the latest base plans? how about them he replies? i said that their plans won't match our plans because they have the old base plans. he responds, don't worry, the city won't catch it. the client wants to submit tomorrow!

the lesson i learned from this is, don't answer your phone.

first one in

this morning i was the first one in at work. you know what that means right. i was in since 7, which i means i'm leaving by 4. gotta love the passion.

so true

another case of the mundays

so today was monday....yup.....monday...that means 4 more days until saturday....4 more days! at least i'm not the only one that a great day...