What a week its been!
Monday, I started my professional career as a salaried “Job Captain” of the architecture office I work for. I am working with a team of two project architects and a guy closer to my age with more experience. We had a big client meeting Friday, so it was really crunch time this week. What I did was pretty standard drawings: plans and sections, but I also did a bunch of work tabulating areas and comparing them to previous meetings to make sure we were working within a certain square footage. A client would not want to to find out that he was paying for more space. It was pretty tricky and aggravating sometimes.
We reconfigured the parking garage to make it more affordable and efficiant, but the numbers were just not working in plan, so I had to make a 3d model and calculate each floor including ramps, and then the numbers started working. One thing I realized midweek is that the thing that really bogs my work down is the little incorrect details. I see one thing wrong in the plan, correct that, and see other little things wrong, and spend awhile trying to figure out why its wrong or why a certain wall won’t match another. Way too much time. I need to find a method of getting my work done on time, without sacraficing the quality of the end result. Maybe it doesn’t have to be 100% the way there for the stage we’re at. Maybe we can hold at 80 or 90%. Its probably a learning curve thing too. I’m decent at Autocad, but I’m not really good, fast, or intimate with it, so that’s another thing.
The first day I started, I was surprised to see that there were three OTHER new people starting work with me. One of them was an intern from ASU, like I was between my third and fourth years, one of them was like me, a recent graduate form out of state, and the other was a guy from one of my studios last year, who graduated with me. So that was a bit of a surprise. For the size of the firm, there’s been a lot of new hires since I’ve been associated with them. There’s a lot of work to be done.
Tuesday, the HR guy came by and gave me a performance review questionaire. My second day on the job, and I was being lined up for a performance review. As illogical as it seems, I realized that I’d technically been with the firm for about a year now, including my summer internship, my time in Buenos Aires and working a few hours a week last semester.
But nothing struck home that I was now a regular employee until I received a black wire in basket, a black swingline stapler, a black tape dispenser, black scissors, and a black wire mesh pencil holder.
I worked a lot this week for this client meeting. In total, I put in over 50 hours of work. Staying late, coming in early, coming back to work after dinner, that kind of thing. Good thing I live close. Actually, almost every day I’ve walked to work, and sometimes back home for lunch too. It’s less than a ten minute walk from where I live. We got it all done, nicely, correct, and printed out, with only some minor crises. Actually the whole thing went pretty smoothly due to the experience of the people in my team, and I left at 10:30 AM Friday after the architects left for the meeting. I used the rest of the day to relax, do laundry, and studiocleaning. Since quarters are so hard to come by, I’ve started drying my laundry outside on a line. Works pretty well.
Saturday morning, I drove to a co-worker’s house and we and some of his friends drove up to do some salt river tubing. Salt river tubing is essentially floating down the salt river, more like a creek, on tubes for a few hours while drinking beer. There are hundreds of people out there. As this was my second time, I thought I was pretty well prepared. I brought a lot of extra water, hat, sunglasses, I wore a shirt, and used a lot of sunscreen, but for some reason, I neglected my legs. At any rate, after floating down the river for a few hours, the front and inside of my legs were badly badly burned from my ankles to midthigh. Not blistering, but close to a second degree burn. It hurts like hell. My skin is bright red, it hurts to walk, and its so sensitive that it stings a bit when the wind breezes over it.
After I got back home, Saori took me out and we drove to a friend of hers for dinner who happens to be an ER nurse. She’s Japanese too, and has been like a big sister or aunt for Saori while she’s been here. Anyway, it was a very nice evening, she made us dinner, and her neighbor gave us a tour of the milky way with his big telescope. I was wiped out by the end of the day. Saori’s friend gave me some aloe gel and moisturizing lotion to help with the burn, and this morning I went out and picked up some of my own. It’s going to be a few nights of sleeping on my back.
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