Blog Archives

No need to be ANGRY

4/28/2014

Each week the weekend comes and I have to decide on something to write about. I don’t have a list or an agenda. I rarely write in the beginning of the week. Maybe it is procrastination and maybe not, but if something moves me enough I will immediately write about it. Having been in the profession for so long sometime I write about the opinions it has taken me years to form and sometimes I write about something that has affected me that week. So I am not trying to give step by step instructions on how to be an architect. What I write about are the things I deal with while being an architect.

I sound like a buddhist monk to myself when I think about my current opinion about anger. Anger is a harmful thing. It disrupts the soul and the flow of your life. I find that I repeat certain phrases all the time and they may sound trite, but I use them because they are true. “Don’t worry about the things you have no control over”. How does this apply to anger? When you get screwed over by a client, usually you don’t see it coming. “I can’t fix problems that I don’t know exist”. You have done the work and are expecting payment, but then it just doesn’t happen. You ask politely and when that fails you ask more sternly. Most of the time that also seems to have no affect, so you can beg and plead if you want, but sometimes you are still sitting there waiting for your money. That is when most people get angry. “How could that SOB treat me like that?”. Well bad news, those people exists and you will run into them your entire life. I hope that in the end you get your money, but I hope at least you have learned a lesson. How does it go “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

I have tried to protect myself by asking for a deposit and then asking for the balance once I had over the drawings for new clients on small to medium size projects. This has worked well for me in the past. I would say that about 90% of the people I ask have no problems. If they ask if I don’t trust them I tell them that I have been bitten too many times in the past and that I am too old to chase my money. “I have delivered drawings and not been paid, but I have never been paid and not delivered drawings”. I have worked for some real scum in the past, but my standards exceeded theirs so I delivered what I promised.

Yes, when you get screwed you have a tendency to get mad as hell, and rightly your should be, but the only person that may benefit from your anger is the guy who pissed you off. It is kind of a win / win for them. They treated you like dirt and then they get to gloat in it. Life will never be a easy street, so we know we will hit some bumps in the road. Just so happens that client was one of those bumps. Getting angry does nothing to the bad client. If they had half a conscience they would feel bad and pay you, but they don’t. So demanding or begging typically won't help. When you get angry it affects you and those around you, so the impact of being mad is like the ripple in the pond. Maybe your fellow workers notice your shortness. Maybe your wife and kids who need your hugs stay away to give you “your space”. All because this client has treated you unfairly. That is a huge impact and I decide I would not give anyone that ability to impact my life that way or the satisfaction of disrupting my life like that.

When I get shafted, I just chalk it off to the learning experience. I will go through the process of trying to get my money, but without all the emotional stress behind it. I will demand and I will plead, but only as a process, not with emotions tied into it. If push comes to shove I will take them to small claims court. I don’t want to knock them out or wish bad things on them. All I want is to get my money and get away from this client. I will take the reasonable and logical steps to try to obtain my money and once those options run out I move on. I want to get this person out of my life and move on to people and clients who do appreciate what I do for them.

I use to get angry, but then I got mad at myself because I got angry. I realized in the past that certain clients had no intentions of paying me and that it didn't bother them nor did they really care. I also thought that he probably enjoyed the frustration he was adding to my life over my constantly harassing him to pay. As a friend had told me, trying to get money from that client was like trying to teach a pig to sing “It is a waste of your time and it annoys the pig”. I have been taken in the past and I am sure it will happen in the future, but just not as often. I understand that it “Takes all types to fill the freeway” and those crappy clients are some of those out there driving. I just hope not to run into any of them. I have learned not to get angry, but to get those type of people out of my life and move on as quickly as possible. Anger eats at you from the inside out and affect everything you do. I decided a long time ago that I would not give them the satisfaction of having their rude treatment affect me like that. “Any more questions Grasshopper?”

1 Comment

What You're Worth

4/21/2014

0 Comments

As I was trying to decide on what to write about this week I ran across this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lomOGZPTZTs

Like architecture, photography is a subjective and creative process, so I was interested in what this photographer had to say. The part that hit home for me was at the end when she said “I do not ever let a client dictate my price”.

That is how is should be in architecture.

I remember years ago having a conversation with some fellow employees about what the value of a job is worth. You would typically get a question like “I am thinking about interviewing for a job with ABC architects, they need a (fill in the blank), what do you think the job is worth and how much should I ask for?”. So there would always be the long debates about how somebody else in a similar position is making a certain amount of money or maybe listed in some document somebody is looking for a similar position to be filled that offers a salary range between $xxxxxx - $YYYYYY.

After thinking about it for what felt like a long time, I came to the conclusion that you are worth what you will work for. It sounds vague and maybe a bit simplistic, but it is actually a very true statement. I have told my kids on many occasions this same statement. I always try to explain my ideas to help them understand how I came to my conclusions. I tell them everyone has a minimum price they will work for. If someone wants a job and the median pay is $35,000, what should a person ask for? There is no question that experience and character will play a big part, but determining what they are worth is more important to the person applying for the job than the person hiring. Why? Because the person applying for the job has to determine and believe in the value that they place on themselves.

Most people I have talked to have used the salary listed as a starting point and then added or deducted monies based on how bad they want the job or how bad they need the job. Using those two criteria it is very hard to assess a true value. I have asked my kids if the job says it will pay up to $35,000 would you take the job for $5,000, to which they reply, NOOOOO! I ask how little would you take under that $35,000 to accept the job? This is much more difficult to determine.

You have to decide first, what do I need to maintain the quality of life you have or want.. Then you have to determine what you think your value is based on your experience and character. Will you go into this new job , if offered, with your feet on the ground and running full speed or will it be on the job training for you? Are you dependable? Will you always be there on time and be a team member to help the office, not just yourself? You know the answers, but you potential new employer does not and will not have a decent idea until some time after you start working. So this is where is comes down to you knowing your value and what you will work for.

I have used the example with my kids, that if you accept that potential $35,000 a year job for $29,500 and then they hire another person for a second position similar to the one you are working for $37,000, don’t get mad at the new employee or company. Apparently your value is $29,500 and the new employee is $37,000. Apparently he would work for $29,500, but you will. Maybe if you set you low bar at $37,000 and you decided that you couldn’t take any less, you may also be working for $37,000 instead of the $29,500? There are certain low ball numbers that are no brainers, I would just walk away if those numbers were offered. Then there are numbers that are in that gray, “well maybe”, range that you internally debate over. The difference between $500 and $29,500 is easy to determine, but not so for $33,000 and $35,000.

It does come down to how you believe in yourself and value yourself. This mindset also comes down to how we set our fees. Just like the job scenario above, you have to determine what you think the value of your services are worth, regardless of what the client thinks. We have all been in that situation where we think the value should be one number and the client lowballs us with another number. We don’t feel comfortable with his humber and we get a bit queasy in the stomach trying to justify to ourselves how we can make the number work out. My suggestion to you is just walk away. I truly understand the NEED for work and I think all we architects do, but I just don’t see it as a winning proposition when you get tremendously underpaid and over worked. Double your efforts trying to find new jobs rather get torn up internally struggling through a “not so good” project.

Determining a fair fee is hard. Most other architects I talk to about fee usually look at three different methods and then use some kind of magic to try to meld the three. They use percentage of construction, estimated hours, and a rough cost per SF for determining the fee. After a fair amount of mental anguish we usually come up with a number that we think is fair. I submit this fee to the client and many times put in the email something to the effect of “ Here is our number and if not selected thanks for the opportunity”. What I am trying to convey is here is my fair number and don’t call me to try to beat me down, so if this number doesn’t work for you I understand if you pursue a less expensive solution, but please call again with any other opportunity you might have. I have told several clients and potential clients, “I can’t do it for that fee”. I even had several call back and ask me to reconsider. On on project the contractor / owner of the project called back three months later to say his site plan had been approved and he had two other architects that would do it for his fee, but he would rather work with me. I didn’t take this as leveraging move as I had told him months earlier that I couldn’t do it for that little a fee. He knew I didn’t need his work, so I took his second offer at face value. I didn’t do the project, but it was designed and built and I hope somewhere down the line I get to work with this contractor again. He was assertive, but a nice and fun guy to work with on projects.

So as the photographer stated, you should never let a client dictate your fee. She brings up so many good points in her talk, but I think one strong point is that a lot of photographer (just like architectects) undervalue themselves. I have been very guilty of this myself, but these kind of issues are something we, the architects, must resolve and it is not something that clients, external forces, should not be able to influence. The photographer points out that people who appreciate value are willing to pay for services they think are important Our services are important so we must either find those clients who value them or educate some potential clients so they understand. The people who think we are just a plan mill, well don’t waste your time because as I have been told trying to convince them of our value is “It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing, It’s a waste of your time and it annoys the pig”

0 Comments

Frank Gehry architecture

4/16/2014

0 Comments

I have watched the movie "Sketches Of Frank Gehry". I really enjoyed the movie and it took me back to my design lab days. I liked it so much, that I have watched it a couple of times. I am more of a conservative / nuts and bolts type architect, so the buildings designed by Frank Gehry tend to register on the far end of my spectrum! The Walt Disney Concert Hall I like, I don't understand the outside, but I like it. The Lou Ruvo Center, I may never understand that one. After watching the movie, I think I would really like Frank if I were to socialize with him. He seems to be a nice guy, but we don't always know how people are behind the scenes. I am more of a form follows function type of guy, so I design from the inside out. Franks seems to design from the inside out, then just an outside and then puts them together. So his architectural skins don't necessarily jive with his inside (well it seems that way to me?). I don't quite get Zaha Hadid either, but I enjoy looking at her free flowing buildings. As I was told a long time ago, "It takes all types to fill the freeways." I guess Frank and Zaha are just driving in a different lane?

"Frank, you're gonna have to explain this one to me too! Was this before or after the hurricane?"

0 Comments

All by myself

4/13/2014

1 Comment

Note this is not the most glamorous part of my job, but I deal with existing buildings on a regular basis. Most of the time there are no existing plans available so I have to go field measure to construct a base plan I have been doing this for over 25 years and I have established a certain method that I would like to share.

The first thing you need is the correct mindset. It can either be considered a boring nightmare you HAVE to do, or it is just a puzzle that you have to put the pieces together. You have to understand before you even leave the office that it has to be done and there is no turning back. Accept your challenge and move on. Accept that it is going to take time and that you are task oriented and not time oriented, so get over trying to estimate how long it will take, as you never get it right.

The second thing you need to have is good background music. It has to be music you enjoy, but not something you have to listen to with a lot of focus, so even things like audio books are out. . The noise has to fade away into the background once you start concentrating on the task at hand. If you start to get into the music, soon after you pull the measurement and before you write it down you will start questioning yourself. “Was that 38 ¼” or 14 ⅜” inches?”. I recently measured for four hours listening to the same 10 songs (thank you Florida Georgia Line), but I only heard about every fifth song so I never got tired of the music. It beats the heck out of four hours of listening to creaking and cracking sounds made by the building. I use a $10 Polaroid mp3 player I got from Office Depot and some mini speakers I got from Dick's Sporting Goods. I think they cost about $12. The speakers have a hard plastic clip, but it is to hard to get on my belt loop so I use a carabiner to act as the middle man. I start my tunes and slap it on to my left side, because I hook my tape measure to my right. I sometimes use ear buds, but I wanted to be able to hear in this large building while I measured. No one is going to be sneaking up behind me! :-)

The building I am measuring by myself is a 56,000 warehouse. Without the invention of the laser measurer there is no way I could measure this building by myself. It is real nice not to have to have someone hold the dummy end of the tape.

The first unit I got was a Flat Max by Stanley, it will measure up to 100’ with an ⅛” accuracy. It originally cost about $100. I then bought an additional measure made by Bosch. I thought Bosch made spark plugs, or dish washers? The Bosch is a model GLR225 and it will measure 225’ with a 1/16” accuracy. Did I mention this warehouse is 250’ in one direction? Fortunately I can stand about midway and measure from an existing masonry wall in both directions. Both Stanley and Bosch make laser measure devices that will go over 300' for around $200. I have even seen a bosch that will measure up to 825'. I also have my trusty 25’ long by 1” wide tape measure I got from Walmart. I don’t remember the cost, but it does have magnets on the end which has come in very handy when measuring where there are steel studs, beams, and columns.

I can’t seem to get all the light to come on in this building. It is dark in some places and maybe I just haven’t found the right breaker box yet? So flashlights are another very important item. I was given, as a present, an energizer head flashlight. It has the band that goes around your head, but instead of being elastic mind has a velcro strap in the back. Also in the back it the battery compartment for one AA battery. It is nice to use as it keeps your hands free. I also wanted a fairly potent flashlight for those dark back corners and recently purchased a - Coast PX45. It supposedly produces 212 lumens, where I think the output on any of my other flashlights is less than 100 lumens.

Over the years I have a specific routine for taking measurements that I think is the most effective. The first thing I do is sketch up the space. Secondly I draw only the dimension lines I want to measure and then the last thing is to measure. This method works best with two people because when you get to step three one person is calling out dimensions and the other is writing them down. Even with one person it goes extremely fast, trust me. To take the time to draw the plan, then measure and then mark up only that one dimension and repeat is an extremely slow and painful process. I know I have done it enough times.

Once you get the right mindset and the right tunes, it is time to “rock and roll”. I find measuring between two and four hours at a time works well for me. After about four hours all I want is OUT! The fun part starts when you return to the office and try to figure out why none of the dimensions work? I have alway told people I meet while measuring, “I’ll be back tomorrow, because nobody gets it all the first time.” Next measurement playlist - Zac Brown Band!

1 Comment

Tidbits

4/7/2014

0 Comments

Normally I get an idea and write about it. As an architect, just like in a design process, you start going down one path and hit multiple forks in the road and have a tendency to go off on a tangent. At the end of your journey you’re not in the place you intended when you began.

Today will be a short post with some random thoughts. I am a one man office and locally I really don’t have other local architects that are in a similar situation that I can share thoughts with and bounce off ideas, so I started looking on the web.

I am not a big Facebook fan, although I do have a personal presence there for family purposes.

I do like twitter, but I got on twitter about a year after it started. I had the concept that I should not have just one twitter account, but individual twitter accounts based on my interest. I love technology and that is who I mainly followed in the beginning, but I am also a big Hokie fan (Virginia Tech for those of you not familiar with the Hokie Nation). I follow techie people on twitter as “arcadtect”, but just didn’t think it made sense to post “Yea, Hokies over Hoos, another good football game!” on twitter for those people who may have started following me because of my tech comments. For sports I have set up “79hokie” and that is where I follow sports people and my fellow Hokies. Then I set up “barch” for architecture and that is where I follow people in the design professions. Being Barber Architects, barch made sense, but being architects we all know what a “B of Arch” is, so it has a double meaning. I also got www.barch.com as a domain name for my firm, but really wonder how many people are searching for information about a bachelor of architecture when I see how many hits my site gets?

Then there is Google Plus which is my favorite social site. I just like the way they have it set up where I can follow who I want and don’t have to deal with accepting people who want to follow me. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I never just blindly follow someone because they have started following me. I alway look at their profile and see if there is any common interest. If we have something in common I will follow them back. I have never understood the mindset of “he who has the most followers wins”. I consider it more of a quality over quantity issue. I would rather follow a limited few who have something I want to read and learn from than just start mass following people and constantly click past their post because I am not interested. In turn, I would hope that people follow me because they are interested in what I may have to say. I know I have no control over that, so I have no issues who ever decides to add me whether it be for content or body count.

I am also on Linkedin, but I consider that a Facebook for business. Again I look at every request I get to see if I know the person or we have a common interest or friend before I accept. I only invite people who I have had contact with in the past. I get, as I am sure most of you do, invites from people halfway around the world, who are in a profession that has nothing to do with architecture. I just don’t understand?

It seems the architects I follow the closest on Google Plus are typically residential architects. Their practices and mindsets seem to be a lot different than mine, but I do appreciate what they share and it has made me take a new look at the way I do business and think about architecture. I don’t always agree with their concepts or practices, but as a one man shop, I understand we all have to march to the beat of our own drum. I find the interactions refreshing. I want to give a shout out to Marica Mckeel, Mark R Lepage, Jes Stafford, and the boys at Archispeak Podcast. They make Google Plus a better place to visit. The master of the architectural blog is of course Bob Borson of “Life of an Architect”. Always entertaining and informative. I realized that to mature my posts I need to incorporate some visual items. Bob and Marica do this very well. I like out Bob disperses them at several points in his blog and somewhere down the road I will try to incorporate them too.

My last random thought of the day is about photography. I love photography and don’t devote enough time to it, but I think it can be a tremendous benefit to architects. You don’t have to commit a lot of time to it to get some great results. My oldest son Michael is a part time professional photographer. His site is www.Arphotecture.com and he started doing HDRs (High Dynamic Range) images. These are very easy to do and I think are extremely impressive compared to normal photographs. Yes, you still need to have some kind of photographic eye to get good composition, but by increasing the dynamic range just makes the pictures pop. Your eyes have a much large exposure range than your camera, so by taking multiple pictures in different exposure ranges and merging them, you get the nice photos. A lot of cameras have a function called AEB (Automatic Exposure Bracketing) built in. This will allow your camera to take multiple pictures at different exposure setting with a single press of the shutter release. Here is a website that will let you check if your camera has that capability. http://www.hdr-photography.com/aeb.html I believe that photoshop can merge photos for HDRs and I use a program called Photomatix, which I think cost me about $100.

Attached are some HDRs of a building that I will soon be working on in Washington, NC

0 Comments

No need to be ANGRY

What You're Worth

Frank Gehry architecture

All by myself

Tidbits

Author

Archives

Categories