the last two weeks...

so anyone ever heard the term, "your best two weeks of work are the last two weeks of work."

here's what i've noticed from a buddy of mine who's moving on to bigger and better things....

in the past two weeks....

1. he has "worked" on the same exact drawing or at least he has been "looking" at the same exact drawing on his screen, which to me looks like hasn't changed a damn bit in the last two weeks.

2. his lunches have been gradually getting a lot longer than "his" normal hour and a half lunch and has been stretching ever so slightly to the two, two and a half hour range.

3. he suddenly has grown some kahuna's. nuff said.

4. his days are now spent browsing through the internet, while occasionally clicking back to the drawing (see number 1) that he has be "working" on for the past two weeks as way to deceive the untrained eye (the man's eye) that he is acutally getting work done during his last days.

5. he's happier.

6. being on time for work is no longer a priority. leaving early from work is a priority.

7. for some reason, there seems to be a lot of blank cd's on his desk as of late.

8. i've noticed our supplies of printer paper, pens, pencils, post-its, etc. has all of a sudden been running out a lot quicker in the last two weeks.

9. he has managed to use up all his vacation days and sick time all within a two week period.

and one last thing i've noticed....

10. he's not even at work right now.

i wish him all the best. lucky bastard!

the power struggle

so i am dealing with a couple of people who represent the company that is our client on this particular project. however, i mainly go through one main contact to give out info and receive info.

so one of the guys in this group (not the main contact) calls me and asks for info that i've already given to my main contact. i tell him that so and so already has all the information that he is looking for. go through him to get what you need.

then this guy goes off and tells me that he's out of the loop, the main contact shouldn't be making decisions that he is making, what about this and what about that, blah blah blah.

i tell him, meet with your guy (our main contact) and find out what info we have given him.....translation.....i ain't tell'n you nuthin because you ain't the one in charge in yo end, the "main contact" is, so quit fishing for info that you have no right to know and quit trying to be one up above the "main contact" because it ain't gonna happen, and stop trying to play designer and calling me up everytime you feel like moving a wall or a fricken door. if yo company wants you in the loop, then you'd be in the loop.

so i called this guy the other day and left him a message to make sure he squared things away with the main contact. i haven't heard from him since.

make believe

so i've discovered something. it's really, really hard to pretend that you are working. no, really. you guys should try it if you haven't already. and if you have tried it, you know what i'm talking about.

i mean for 8 hours you have to "make believe" that...

1. you are not checking your email every damn second.
2. you are not constantly checking your bid on ebay.
3. you are not checking your email every damn second.
4. you are not looking at your favorite sport teams' website.
5. you are not checking the weather.
6. you are not on youtube or myspace or friendster updating your profile.
7. you are not looking for other jobs on AIA websites, craigslist, etc.
8. you are not clicking on every single link that you bookmarked on your computer.
9. you are not instant messaging other people who are also "make believing."
10. you are not sleeping.

and that's only 10 things! right now, i'm blogging and it's tiring always clicking back to Autocad whenever someone passes my desk and then clicking back to my blog to finish it. it takes forever, like 30 mins sometimes to finish up a blog, can you believe that!

i'm exhausted. maybe i'll go back to work.

timed reaction

so i was at a co-workers house party this past weekend and one of our clients happened to be there.

we've met before because i've worked on his project during the design phase. the client then was wondering who's currently working on his project.

so the man introduces my buddy, fellow cad monkey, that's currently working on his project.

the client then jokingly says "so you're the one delaying my project!"

my buddy, the cad monkey, reacts instinctively by gripping his magarita glass so hard that it cracks. it was pretty funny.

the client then responds by saying "oops, i guess i hit a nerve."

after that we all got piss drunk....but that's another story.

cad monkey on ebay

anyone looking for a cad monkey?

there's a cad monkey on sale on ebay...

read the whole thing. even the question and answer section is pretty hilarious.

thanks to an anonymous commenter for the link.

check it out and tell me what you think.

cadmonkeys unite!

ARCHITECTURE TERMS(and what they really mean)

1. Sense of Entry: The front door is big and far away.
2. Human Scale: less than 400 feet tall.
3. Skewed Grid: The design looked too boring with a regular grid.
4. Pedestrian-Oriented: Doesn’t have enough parking.
5. Contextual: Is surrounded by a lot of other buildings the architect couldn’t tear down.
6. Theoretical: Nobody in their right mind would ever consider building the crazy thing.
7. Signature Building: You can’t afford it.
8. Less Is More: The designer ran out of ideas.
9. Classically Proportioned: Traced out of a book of Greek architecture.
10. Postmodern: Traced out of a book of Roman architecture.
11. International Style: No country will take responsibility for it.
12. Deconstructivist: The backhoe ran into it during construction ­- and they liked it.
13. Seismically Designed High Rise: In an earthquake, the structure will not collapse, but will drop all of its glass and stone panels into the street turning pedestrians into a stew-like mush of pureed flesh.
14. Jury: Firing squad.
15. Design Review Board: Failed architecture majors.
16. Architecture Student: Egotistical masochist with no money

architect, landscape architect, city planner, or what?

i found this from this site....pretty funny stuff....

Architect, Landscape Architect, City Planner, or what?:
Choose the answer that best completes the sentence.

Trees
a. are good for hiding a poorly designed part (or whole) of a building.
b. are an essential part of the environment.
c. keep the air fresh and clean.
d. make a decent building material.
e. are an annoyance.
f. look good.

Light is
a. vital to the spirit.
b. vital to life.
c. to be shared.
d. a type of electromagnetic radiation.
e. required to do work.
f. a luxury.

An ugly building is one that is
a. poorly proportioned.
b. lacking in vegetation.
c. not in harmony with its neighbors.
d. lacking in maintenance.
e. in need of a renovation.
f. out of style.

An empty lot
a. ought to have something built on it.
b. could make a good park.
c. is a potential crime magnet.
d. makes an impromptu parking lot.
e. is easy to work with.
f. a waste of space.

A hundred-story building on a small Pacific island would be
a. impressive.
b. disasterous to the environment.
c. out of scale.
d. hard to have a proper foundation.
e. a logistical nightmare.
f. stupid.

The most important room in a house is
a. the living room.
b. the garden.
c. the kitchen.
d. the basement.
e. the bathroom.
f. the bedroom, or more importantly, the number of bedrooms.

If your choices were mostly
a. You're an architect. While your designs may be visually stunning, chances are that is all they are.
b. You're a landscape architect. With designs both ecologically friendly and attractive to the community, landscape architects are well recieved by all people except Architects. Too bad there's this thing called rain.
c. You're a city planner. You actually understand that a site does not exist in a vacuum and ought to fit into its context. Unfortunately, there's very little you can do about it.
d. You're a civil engineer. Your designs are solid and work, as they follow the best way of solving the problem. Fortunately there are architects to mess things up so not everyone's living in a box.
e. You're a contractor. You don't really care what's being built, only how it's built. Or maybe you don't care much about that either.
f. You're a developer. You actually get stuff built that 99% of the population finds agreeable. Too bad the other 1% just happen to be the people in the neighborhood where you're building.

fricken fire engineer

So I get a call from the contractor…

Contractor:
“hey, the fire engineer is freaking out! you emailed the wrong drawings to him. It’s not the latest drawings.”

Monkeyboy:
“I emailed him the drawings we got permitted for.”

Contractor:
“can you call him and settle this?”

So I call the fire engineer…

Monkeyboy:
“I emailed the drawings we got permitted for.”

Fire engineer’s assistant:
“he said he emailed the right draw…huh…what’s that…oh okay.”

What I can hear from the Fire engineer in the background:
“Oh here it is. I just opened the drawings. Tell him I got it.”

Lesson:
Open your email first and open the fricken drawings before you start freaking out over not receiving the latest fricken plans. Nice.

lunchbox incident

So my buddy at work went out to lunch yesterday. The thing is, he never lets no one know when he’s leaving for lunch, that way no one knows what time he actually leaves so he can come back whatever time he wants.

so he leaves and we think he just left for the bathroom or something. He comes back about 15 mins later with a lunchbox (asian lunch plate).

Keep in mind, we are a small office, we’ve been working together for over a year, and he never even bothered to offer anyone else in the office if we wanted a lunchbox.

So the whole time while he was eating his lunchbox we was giving him sh*t like “oh, good friends always offer other friends to get lunch for them.”

Or like “hey, if I went to get lunch, I would at least offer you guys and wouldn’t be a dick and eat my lunch in front of you guys when I know I didn’t even offer you guys to get lunch.”

Or like “wow, something smells really good, you guys wanna get lunch, oh nevermind, I see that somebody already got his lunch and never bothered to offer anyone else….dick!”

You know, stuff like that. I think he got the point.