Thoughts on working from home (or while you're away)

As the holidays crash down upon us (or maybe it's just me), it seems sometimes like both the pace and volume at work is increasing along with the pace and volume of holiday and family activities that are required of us.  Deadlines, projects, travel, parties, family gatherings, and volunteer activities might leave us wondering how we're supposed to get everything done this month?  Something has to give, doesn't it?  Maybe if we were able to work from home or on one of our days of vacation...maybe that would help.  Or would it?


The first thing to know about working from home is that any work you do on a project belongs to the company and is therefore subject to examination if a legal claim were to arise on that project.  This means that if you get CAD or Illustrator installed on your computer at home and work on a project for work while your family is in town, your home computer may have to be turned over to a legal team if a lawsuit arises regarding that project.  Think of it like this: if you're working on a project on any computer in the world, your company "owns" that computer while you're working on that project.


The solution then would be to borrow a company-owned laptop with the necessary software and connections to your company's server while you're away.  Just be sure that, before you take that machine out of the office, you understand how to protect it and what your responsibilities are if someone hacks the machine while you're using a public wifi system to connect back to the office.  Another caveat: be cautious with using the laptop for non-work reasons.  It's one thing to watch a few funny videos on icanhascheezburger.com or buy your parents a fruit bouquet from 1-800-Flowers.com or something, but it's another to shop or surf racy or questionable sites.  If your company's IT staff doesn't clean these laptops after someone returns them (and even if they do), someone else can see what you've been doing on this laptop, whether or not you erase the browser history.


The final thing to remember is that your vacation/personal time off is just that: personal.  Yes, sometimes duty calls, but do your best to get a clean break from work and rest.  You'll be much more productive when January rolls around.

Conflict or concerns at work? Deal with it.

Longtime readers of Intern 101 may have noticed a trend in how I recommend dealing with problems at work.  I suggest going right to the person with whom a reader is having a problem and talking it out with them, briefly but clearly.  This might seem a little like playing hardball for some interns.  We all fully realize that interns are by and large the easiest people to replace at a firm, so they're usually the last ones to confront problems or even stick up for themselves sometimes, especially in a crappy economy.  The fact is though that dealing with problems directly--even with bosses--can do so much to help rather than hurt an intern.


First of all, interns might be easy to fire or lay off, but firing or laying off anyone is generally a pain in the ass.  Confronting bad behavior or sticking up for yourself now and again isn't enough to really make someone want to go through the paperwork hassle that is employee termination.  And frankly, if a firm wants to fire you because you dared stick up for yourself, you really don't want to work there for a long time anyway.


Second and more importantly, there are many ways to confront people without being confrontational and to deal with problems without being a jerk.  There are many books out there on assertive communication, so check some out and find one or two that speak to you.  This one is my favorite and I use the skills constantly.  (Yes, the book is aimed at women but the skills actually work just as well for men.)


Third and most importantly of all, good communication skills and good conflict resolution skills are the kind of skills you need to be a great architect, project manager, and/or firm owner.  You've heard the phrase "dress for the job you want, not the job you have," right?  Well, having and using good communication skills is like speaking for the job you want, not the job you have.  I know plenty of very talented architects and designers who are being held back in their careers because they don't stick up for themselves and get run over all the time or conversely blow up or push people around and scream and shout.  When you model that you know how to handle yourself and can deal with uncomfortable situations, it shows your managers that you're able to handle more than just Revit drafting and looking up flashing details.

What is architecture?, or, if I didn't laugh I'd cry

Someone recently sent me a page from archdaily.com, in which one of their writers defined architecture in a variety of ways, all of them a little cynical and to me quite funny.  A few of the comments on the post/article tried to take on author Jody Brown for his snark, but those comments appear to have been overwhelmed by those who truly find the article funny.  While I can see where the "You're being negative about this profession and you're not as funny as you think with your cynicism" comments are coming from, I think they're missing the point.


Architecture as a profession is a long-ass trail ride.  Projects go on for years, not weeks like they did in school, and when you experience all the steps it takes to get something built in the real world, it can be downright frustrating.  Funding, construction loans, value engineering, bond initiatives, zoning laws, code review/enforcement entities, more value engineering, neighborhood associations...these are just a few of the tings that can make taking a building from paper to bricks-and-mortar reality so painful that you'd rather pull your own arm off, freeze it, and then beat yourself to death with it rather than deal with all this nonsense.  However, the process isn't completely sucky.  I've had user group meetings where we're all laughing so hard that we can barely sit upright, I've been on teams that managed to salvage a great design through two rounds of VE, and I've watched people's faces as they walked through a building I designed and helped bring to life.  There's a lot of reward to go with that pain.


So when I'm in the middle of that pain, I think of things like Jody Brown's article.  And I laugh my ass off.  Then I go design and tweak and work some more to get to the good part of a project.

It's a holiday, so go celebrate!

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I encourage everyone to take the day and even the day after off to rest and be with loved ones.  It gets easy to think, "oh, I could get so much done Thursday morning without the phone ringing", but I beg of you to resist the temptation.  You have to defend your time off and hold your ground, whether it's not checking email during a three-day weekend or not coming in on a holiday just because no one will be in the Revit model but you.  Go enjoy the time off!

Lulu's Mailbag: My boss treats me differently now that I'm full time--what gives?

I received a chilling email from C. regarding how her firm's attitude towards her changed after she went from being part time to full time:

I started an internship in June and got glowing reviews.  Now that I have been hired full time still as an intern, I have been making small mistakes and my nice boss has turned a cold shoulder to me.  I realize this is part of the learning process.  But here are some of the examples:  I was doing a quote before it was sent to the client and I had missed a line.  It wasn’t a small quote…but I sent it to the lead designer to look it over to let me know if it was alright and they told me they went and fixed it instead of me fixing it.

 

This got back to my boss and I have never made a mistake that I did not want to fix…everyone makes them.  I took over some of the duties of a person that was released for lying.  But before that he came in late, talked all the time…but she never talked to him about it or looked down on him.  But for me as the intern I feel slighted and I need some advice on what to do.  This is not a conventional design firm.  Not how I was taught in school.  There are some “personalities” there also who have also marked their territory and the boss have sided with them also.  When others make mistakes even huge ones, it’s okay…..but for me not so much.  I know I need to improve to survive, but what do I do if I am thrown under a bus and made to feel less?

(in a second email to Lulu)  There is some other stuff to say as well. I think I mentioned my boss won't speak to me and they hired 2 girls to replace me. (younger thinner) I was an unpaid intern and things were perfect; then I got hired and people were much meaner including people telling me f*** you and this is MY area and if i didn't like how things were run, get out.  When I found solutions to some problems, they said you have to do it MY way...which until now "this is the way" wasn't presented to me until Monday which I am sure they cleaned it up for the person taking my place.




Oh, C.  Oh oh oh.  There's so much to say here.  Mistakes are part of the learning process.  Being shut down and shut out by your boss and other architects in the office for any error whatsoever isn't part of the learning process. That's being obnoxious at best and bullying at worst.  But I almost don't need more details beyond the ones you provided in our second email exchange: you were treated great when you weren't being paid, but now that you cost them money, they're giving you grief for small mistakes and even hiring younger people with the apparent intent of replacing you.  This. Speaks. Volumes.


It tells me that this firm is bad, bad news.  Not only is it unethical not to pay people who work on billable work, it's also illegal.  Your firm (hopefully soon to be former firm) has no problem breaking the law and disrespecting skilled architectural labor, so why should they also have a problem being generally uncivil?  To me, the problem is clearly the not being paid--as an unpaid intern, your mistakes were only kinda costly, but now they have to pay you and fix the mistakes.  Please leave this firm as soon as you can, and if you're feeling froggy, get in contact with Pimping Architects about your firm.


Let's say for the sake of others out there that both the part time internship and the now-full time internship were paid, and an intern was receiving this sort of suddenly-poor treatment from formerly-warm colleagues. A good way to solve this--as well as almost any other problem in an office--is to approach it politely but directly.  For example, C's example above might warrant someone going to the lead designer who fixed the mistake and saying, "Hi, Vicki, I heard you fixed an error I made in that quote I sent you yesterday, and I wanted to thank you for for doing that.  But y'know, I really do want to do a good job and learn from my mistakes, so please don't hesitate to send something back to me to fix."  (This can also be good as an email in which you can copy your big boss, so you have a paper trail of trying to fix your mistakes.)  You may also decide, especially if you feel like you have nothing else to lose, to confront your boss on the cold-shoulder stuff directly: "Everett, I really appreciate you hiring me on full time; it makes me feel like you like my work and can trust me.  But it feels like something's changed since I came on full time--every small mistake I make gets a major stink-eye from Vicki.  Has something happened that I should be aware of?"  Again, this could be sent as an email just to Everett so you have a trail of an important conversation.


Got a question or topic you'd like to see discussed here?  Let me know in the comments or via email in the sidebar!  Thanks, and remember that this blog works best with your feedback and questions!

Center for Emerging Professionals Webinar: Talent and Culture

Mad props once again to the AIA's Center for Emerging Professionals for putting on this series of webinars open to all levels of folks in the architectural profession.  The fourth in the four-part series, is on Talent and Culture, which will be broadcast in December 1st.  It's $15, and I've heard from others on this blog that the seminars are really good and worth it.

Dress code interpretations, or "wtf is dressy casual?"

Holiday party season is fast approaching, my peeps, and it seems to be a field of landmines sometimes, what with all the various dress codes for parties and open houses and so forth.  Often, the dress codes for these events has some version of casual in them: dressy casual, business casual, festive casual, etc.  Casual may be one of the most abused words in the English language these days.  I want to rescue the word casual and throw a cashmere blanket around its little shoulders and tell the work world to go put on a tie and leave casual alone.  Why must everything be casual?  What's wrong with occasionally putting on a shirt that needs ironing (or at least looks like it would be ironed, if it wasn't made of some wrinkle-free material) and some nice slacks?  What's wrong with looking sharp for our colleagues, thereby showing them a little respect?  I'm not talking about a three-piece suit for even the most mundane office meetings, I just mean not looking like you work as a lifeguard.  But I digress....


I found a great resource online for translations of what various types of "casual" attire means.  This might come in handy if you're asked to be "dressy casual" at an office party or professional organization mixer.  Remember, you work in a field that puts a great deal of thought into aesthetics and assemblies of materials and colors, so put some thought into your own facade when you hit the door at these events.