what are some of the traits and characteristics of your best employees? Additionally, how can a company collectively build value?
Non Sequitur
Feb 23, 15 12:37 pm
...locks their view ports, drafts on the proper layer, does not over-write dimensions and can successfully (and poetically) discuss at great lengths the value of a vapour retarder. Making a fresh pot of coffee when one is finished is also important.
curtkram
Feb 23, 15 1:03 pm
or the lack of value of a vapor retarder, if you live in a region with more than one season, and condensation happens all over the damn place.
i thought the consensus was to own your own company and then you don't have to worry about it.
Peter Normand
Feb 23, 15 1:10 pm
Employee traits:
Protecting or being mindful of the boss's time,
Not engaging in office politics,
Being able to figure somethings out on their own.
Ability to listen to and follow instructions
not being a smoker (some folks can not tolerate the smell)
respecting the chain of command when it comes to design decisions
How to build Value:
Respect the client's wishes and priorities
be mindful that it is not your money or your building
keep the client in the loop as to what you are doing and why
provide your client with options and opportunities to guide the design direction
conduct yourself with a sense of urgency
take ownership of your mistakes
avoid hostility with the construction team
do all that you can to make a project as easy for the client as possible
Over and OUT
Peter N
Carrera
Feb 23, 15 2:30 pm
Today it is mice that are valued. Peter, add stop-breathing to your list, albeit a good list. My favorite is “no-smell”.
Non Sequitur
Feb 23, 15 2:36 pm
Very true Curt, but I mentioned VR as an example. Knowing what all those swooshes on the CD represent is key.
Carrera, our office just got a new M.arch kid. Today is his first day and he came in, 45min early, in faded jeans and an un-tucked, wrinkled shirt.
curtkram
Feb 23, 15 2:50 pm
is that good because he's ambitions and self-starting and all that for showing up early, or bad because he doesn't look like you would expect? i kind of figured things were more casual up north, especially when it's 40 below (though i would have expected you to say he showed up in half a dozen layers of battery powered coats and flannel pants).
will he stop breathing on command?
Miles Jaffe
Feb 23, 15 3:01 pm
Showing up 10 min early is fine. Showing up 45 min early makes me question his intelligence. As for the dress code, he was either too stupid to notice what people were wearing on his interview or too stupid to ask about it. All bad so far. I won't even ask about his skill set.
Last hire I made lasted 2 days and copped an attitude when I fired him on the spot for being an hour late. At this point I don't think I could hire anyone under 35. Unless she was really cute and single.
Carrera
Feb 23, 15 3:09 pm
Non, better smell him right away and yes he must stop breathing, blinking is also a bad sign (poor productivity)…..see red flags all over this guy, better terminate a 5.
Non Sequitur
Feb 23, 15 3:22 pm
Curt, I walk to the office everyday unless, like today, it's -30C or worse and my shirt remains pressed even under my jacket (s). Flannel pants would have gotten him a gold star however.
Miles & Carrera, I'll reserve judgment until I have to work with the new hire, chances are I won't... but if by some strange twist of events he gets tossed (to the wolves) in our large building department, then I'll report on his faith. Until then, I'll make sure proper eye-lid tape is applied to maintain our standard levels of productivity.
,,,,
Feb 23, 15 5:57 pm
1. Ability to ignore the will-full ignorance on the part of others.
2. Skill at not rolling eyes when computer illiterate firm owner suggests the problem is "it is on the wrong layer".
3. Ability to seamlessly navigate multiple monumental egos without interrupting the orderly progress of the work.
Miles Jaffe
Feb 23, 15 6:07 pm
^ In all my years in the business I've only known one person who met that criteria.
He didn't do CAD, and it wasn't me.
chigurh
Feb 23, 15 8:25 pm
all these comments about the dudes acid washed jeans...at least he didn't out dress the boss...also a no-no.
awaiting_deletion
Feb 23, 15 8:57 pm
"....locks their view ports" that says a lot about a person, a lot. I tend to want to smack people who don't lock view ports.
Donna Sink
Feb 23, 15 10:09 pm
I like Peter's list, especially being able to follow instructions AND figure some things out on your own.
I once had an outside consultant tell my employer I was a "perfect employee". My best traits at that job were:
- generally cheerful demeanor, and got along easily with everyone - very little ego about myself, very strong ego about our firm (when we were up against other firms for jobs, for example) - knew when to work things out on my own and when to call in the principals to help me solve things - happily switched tasks mid-stream when something came up that needed additional help - one of the first in, rarely the first to leave. Ate lunch in the office chatting with everyone at the employee lunch table - shared the same political opinions as my bosses - enjoyed and often initiated the 4pm Friday beer-while-drafting tradition
I definitely was NOT the smartest, or best designer, or most efficient CADder, but I was highly reliable and never whined.
Miles Jaffe
Feb 23, 15 10:34 pm
I'd hire you in a heartbeat.
But only if you lock your view ports.
Whatever the hell that means. Sounds myopic.
Donna Sink
Feb 23, 15 11:00 pm
I have no idea what locking view ports means. But I can guarantee I've never exploded a hatch!
Carrera
Feb 23, 15 11:16 pm
Don't think I ever fired anybody on the spot. I always tried to cool down and take my time with it. Once I decided I'd time it, it's a really ugly thing.... affects lives & families, can be dangerous. Had a guy throw a chair across the conference room table at me, been called every name in the book... fired a black receptionists, you should have heard that... didn't know I was a "raciest", "white cracker" and "hater".... guess "fuck you" was a universal response. Always got them out of the office within an hour and often hired someone to do the escort.... but always paid them 2 weeks salary regardless of infraction. Realize that doing it on the spot spreads the message but I always made clear to the office why I did it, after. Following Donna, the one thing all these people had in common was that they weren't nice.... must be added to the list.
Larchinect
Feb 24, 15 1:15 am
Too skilled to be unemployed, too disinterested to go into business?
Larchinect
Feb 24, 15 1:40 am
"How can a company collectively build value?"
id love to read more answers to this one. If I'm understanding the question correctly, you're talking about building equity. From what I understand of the question, I might venture to say everyone in 'the company' is almost always going to have different, sometimes conflicting, needs. Building 'collective' equity might mean ensuring everyone's needs are being met professionally, while fostering an environment for productivity. In other words, the junior level might want to learn a specific program and they are likely in need of some sense of ownership over a project or specific set of tasks. In meeting their professional needs you build a loyal employee and team member. If you ignore their needs, or seek to hire drones, as many of the previous replies suggest, you run the risk of expending more energy trying to manage a disjointed team. Of course, all of this matters little if the person has no skill or ambition to begin with.
I read an article several years ago about a large, very successful firm and their hiring tendencies. They rarely hired the 'nicest' or most agreeable person, because they found that the characteristics of the agreeable person was often inversely proportional to their skill level. After all, who was it that said, "creativity is liquified trouble?"
however, it sounds like creativity and skill are very low on the list based on the previous replies.
awaiting_deletion
Feb 24, 15 7:29 am
I am somewhere in what I think is a between stage from working for others to being full fledged on your own with an office and employees and operating very much like one of my engineers. We both count on a network of moonlighters, free lancers, and people like myself who consult hourly or have lucrative hourly full time jobs. What I mean by lucrative - able to take 4 hours off for one of your own jobs or work a good part of the day on your own stuff while always being readily available to run one of your full time jobs. It helps to bring in work for your safety net benefactor (full time job) and also good to avoid conflict of interest. It's a scenario that I only think works when you are capable of making 5 minute decisions that save everyone days worth of work or capable of putting together or managing a project with ridiculous efficiency because you have done it many times. You are also paid hourly and never have downtime (I archinect mornings and evenings during week).....the problem with moonlighters is they are often burnt out by the end of the day and since they have a day job often don't care if they miss a deadline, which is why I always lie to them. But a moonlighter has a day job because they are skilled and do actual work and therefore are more valuable than a free lancer, not to mention they are willing to moonlight which says they dont mind working a lot or really need the money. The freelancer often charges more hourly because it's their main means of income vs the moonlighter. The free lancer may also bail anytime when they get a better job or client. I am finding the limits to this method of managing labor, mainly reliability and amount of production. In this case the good employee traits are the ability to essentially work 12-16 hour days and capable of independent thinking. Unlike the world of salary, people who perform well in this type of environment I have found tend to start companies earlier than others and in my case have employers who realize anyone whose goal is to run their own show is well worth the money to keep around to run their shows.......reliability and independence and workaholic are good traits for a moonlighting network.
postal
Feb 24, 15 1:43 pm
oh that brings me back, Donna. to when I was young and stupid.
The misadventures of exploding hatch girl and her faithful sidekick renaming xref boy.
In this episode, unlocked viewport man does battle with dynamic annotations.
since I decided to type; diligence. Or the ability to stay diligent in both the face of monotony and in the face of excitement. ranges from checking drawings, schedules, submittals to vetting that cool new idea that everyone loves. (ok, probably not odd that the guy who railed against proper cad etiquette also appreciates diligence.)
also, one of my recent frustrations, why do i have to teach people to have to research?
creativity, for most, seems to be this elusive and dormant skill that a lot of people have, but needs to be teased out. getting people to work at it, put it out there, and learn from it is sometimes half the battle. (This is probably based on my recent experiences with staff) Of course, there are those with undeniable inherited talent, which must be nice to have.
citizen
Feb 24, 15 2:39 pm
I like Donna's approach.*
It reminds me of a concept in Orwell's 1984 that's stuck with me since high school. I don't recall the exact language, but the gist is: keep all the small rules and observe all the minor manners, and the resulting good will can forgive the occasional massive blunder.
I've observed this in operation many times over the years.
* except the need for political alignments. It's nice when it happens, but not required.
null pointer
Feb 25, 15 11:20 am
I'm pretty much living Olaf's life, and probably like 5 blocks away from him.
This just gets creepier by the minute.
toasteroven
Feb 25, 15 11:37 am
good employee traits: people who don't get all worked up over stupid myopic shit in CAD.
Donna Sink
Feb 25, 15 11:56 am
Point made, toast, but: exploding hatches is a disaster for all involved! It's even harder to clean up than if a cowoker got drunk at the holiday party and peed on your desk, seriously.
Carrera
Feb 25, 15 12:35 pm
Had a very close friend that founded a tiny but super successful firm in a small town. About 60 at the time he brought in his son (in his early 30’s) to work at the firm. Guess you could call him “slow”, had trouble getting a regular job, but was a sweetheart, a heart of gold and was a savant at hand ink rendering. Not needing a rendering every day he had other office jobs (shoveling snow and the rest) but one day my friend thought he would push him further and gave him tasks involving cleaning up drawings, line weight kind of things, and he was good at it. One day the rest of the staff decided to have a secret “union meeting” over lunch at a restaurant. They came back and that afternoon wanted a meeting with the three principals. They explained that Kevin was mucking up the drawings with this shit you describe, was a distraction around the office and stated in no uncertain terms that he had to go or they would all quit collectively. The principals met and do you know what they decided? They decided to let him go….the founder’s son!
When I heard of this I called Kevin immediately and told him he was coming to work for me. It was a long drive to my town so I bought him a car and paid for his gas. I had my own union meeting and called in my staff and told them the story and stated in no uncertain terms that if there were any problems we would work together to solve them and if they ever decided to have a secret union meeting about him that they better bring a box with them to work that day because they were going to need it.
curtkram
Feb 25, 15 12:56 pm
exploding a hatch is a clear sign that someone does not want to work in a team environment. it's not that hard to communicate your intent within a drawing. put a note on a non-print layer or something, so that someone else someday can work with the same toolset you worked with. all you have to do is be aware that other people work there.
i understand the perspective that cad is just a tool, and thus the view that something like an exploded hatch is an insignificant act when your focus should be on the building you're designing. it's true that your focus should be on the building you're designing. however, i can't help but think an exploded hatch, or equally horrible lack of cad etiquette, suggest the person might think they're some kind of artistic savant that is too good to play well with others, thus sabotaging the rest of the firm's ability to do their jobs, or they're just kind of too dumb to learn how to work with cad. either way i can't see that as a good quality in a coworker or employee.
so why did you bring them in carerra? did you have that person work on cad, knowing they would piss off everyone else? or did you limit their work to drawing in ink and shovelling snow (tasks where their actions have limited effect on other people)? was it just because you were upset you that the other employees were able to overcome the problems created by nepotism? if you really told your employees that they should bring a box if they're going to complain, that sort of suggests you thought there was a power struggle? how did it work out in the end? great employee, great designer after a few years, or you were able to teach them cad better than the previous firm?
from your story, i can't see much good in them as employee, except for the father having a lot of money, so it just seems there is a conclusion to your post that you didn't write yet?
Saint in the City
Feb 25, 15 1:38 pm
exploding a hatch is a clear sign that someone does not want to work in a team environment.
And the profession is declining. Now, how could that be...?
Carrera
Feb 25, 15 2:16 pm
First of all the founder was selling the firm to the other two and was outvoted. What I was trying to illustrate is that you work things out. The attitude today is “terminate” sometimes at the drop of a hat….look at all the TV reality shows today it’s all “terminate”, “your fired”, “eliminate”, it’s becoming a mindset. The only way I can get ahead is by eliminating you.
My brother was a sever alcoholic and went to work drunk (factory job) and it was a hell of a problem for the employer, but they didn’t fire him they got him help…it took a long time, relapsing, added up to months of paid time off for treatment, but they stuck with him, he got well and is enjoying retirement with a good pension….they didn’t give up on him, they worked it out.
Kevin didn’t stay with me but a few years because I moved the firm 100 miles away. but I got him another job at a rendering company and he kept the car. Fortunately I had enough volume to keep him rendering, took care of office things and I trained him on Photoshop to help me with marketing. I worked it out.
God forbid that you may become aggravated in your work; my whole life was aggravation including dealing with these little pricks. Who’s running things? Who has their house on the line to cover the line of credit to meet payroll? Who’s bringing in the work? Who didn’t get paid for months at a time because things got slow? Who’s going to hire me if things go south? Felt sometimes that my whole life was on the line. So it is them who decide? I used to tell people when they came in with a bitch about somebody that I was doing the best I could and would try to work things out, but if they had a problem with that I told them they had something I didn’t have and that was the luxury to leave.
Today if you don’t smell right, don’t look right, make a mistake in a keystroke, smoke or drink you’re unemployable. Give me somebody who is nice, somebody with a good heart and I’ll work out the rest. Let’s make a different list, of prick attributes and reverse engineer the list. Sorry to be long.
JLC-1
Feb 25, 15 2:41 pm
^bravo!
,,,,
Feb 25, 15 3:01 pm
What? A heretic in in the Temple of Avarice? Guard! Eject this philistine!
Non Sequitur
Feb 25, 15 3:14 pm
Good story
curtkram
Feb 25, 15 3:21 pm
in context, you just said in a forum about 'good employee traits' that you hired someone who upset everyone they worked with, to the point where the whole office felt they had to come together in a single voice to force a resolution to the problem. on it's own, that sounds like a bad trait, doesn't it? anyway, i'm glad you were able to find a good place for your friend. from your more recent post it sounds like it worked out well, despite the trouble at his previous employer.
sorry you surrounded yourself with so many 'little pricks.' you said in another thread you've made over a million dollars. i find it hard to have too much sympathy for you over all the people who would have relied on your judgement to keep ahead of student loan payments, rent, car payments, etc.
to your thought of prick attributes, why did you hire those people, and the people you said you dreamt of firing? maybe 'prick' is a desirable trait in an employee?
Today if you don’t smell right, don’t look right, make a mistake in a keystroke, smoke or drink you’re unemployable
i hope that's not entirely true.....
Miles Jaffe
Feb 25, 15 6:51 pm
Great observation, Carrera.
The attitude today is “terminate”
And not just TV reality shows. Slash and burn politics, economics, media, etc.
awaiting_deletion
Feb 25, 15 8:41 pm
null, don't worry I live New Jersey....or do you live in NJ as well and commute?? and non that is an image I will use lot.
toasteroven
Feb 26, 15 12:42 am
finding out why someone exploded a hatch is a really easy issue to solve - it happens either because someone doesn't know what they are doing (and just needs a little help) or they were having issues with it and it was faster just to explode and move on instead of trying to figure it out. usually it's the latter.
I've always found that people who get all worked up over CAD/BIM/3D issues are the ones who are difficult to work with - the most dangerous are the ones run to the boss with these issues.
Carrera
Feb 26, 15 1:05 am
Sorry to come back.
Was going to respond to Curt’s latest but something happened to me around 5 that upset me so that I could hardly breathe… follows his comment about “millions”. Doing a little build out for an old friend to keep active… tiny job sought out someone that would moonlight the carpentry… friend of friend connection. At the start I gave him a spreadsheet with work, $24.00 hourly rate & totals. He took the job, did the job, did a good job and when done asked to be paid. I said (text) we would right away but needed his address and SS number because my friend/doctor would need to send him a 1099. He called me and here’s what he said:
He said there would be no 1099 because he “assumed” that it was cash under-the-table and if we sent him one I’d be sorry I did, “I don’t pay tax”. I then said that not sending him one would put the doctor at risk and if the doctor paid me and I paid him I’d end up paying his tax. He said that $24.00/hour was a bargain and what your millionaire doctor needs to do is pay me more to pay my tax. “He’s rich, tell him to fork it over, fucking doctors”. “All people like him do is pray on people… he better not send me a 1099 or there’s going to be trouble for you and him”. I told him the doctor had nothing to do with the rate and we went back and forth. As I fired him on the spot (yes I have fired many trades people on the spot) I told him that there may be many differences between him and the doctor but the #1 difference is the doctor paid his taxes on the million he made and he paid nothing…. And I think a “fuck you” concluded the conversation. He was worried about paying $800.0 in taxes, now he can worry about not getting paid $3,000.00.
What is this thing with “I don’t feel sorry for rich people”? It’s like “I never finished school, I hate working (too aggravating), I’ve never amounted to anything, can’t hold a job, I’ve got six kids, my trucks broke and what rich people need to do is fork-it-over”.
Guess I got “pricked” again, but I do prick back. Anybody know how to recover a lawn from someone pouring acid on it? Love poor people.
Sorry, long again.
awaiting_deletion
Feb 26, 15 7:06 am
Carrera - doctor ok. Young investment banker with no liability ever whose standard mode of operation is to prey on people and bullshit, probably avoids taxes as well....not ok......sounds like the carpenter made a bad career choice, they should of been a banker...........................a good trait is willing to do the best work possible and be responsible and accountable to the agreement.
curtkram
Feb 26, 15 7:35 am
What is this thing with “I don’t feel sorry for rich people”? It’s like “I never finished school, I hate working (too aggravating), I’ve never amounted to anything, can’t hold a job, I’ve got six kids, my trucks broke and what rich people need to do is fork-it-over”.
the person with all that other stuff doesn't have a million dollars, which makes it harder to get food to feed your family, pay for doctors or medicine if you get sick, pay to repair broken cars and air conditioners. i'm not saying rich people need to fork it over. i'm not saying anything about the guy who doesn't want to pay taxes. i'm not saying you owe anyone, or that anyone owes you. what i am saying, is that when you go into a paragraph (the God forbid . . . paragraph) complaining about how it's so hard to be on top, i find it hard to feel bad for you because you have options available to you that the people who aggravate you don't have.
if you made lots of money and won lots of awards as an owner of an architecture firm, it seems likely to me that the team of people you hired to do the work played a significant role in that. granted that's speculation to a certain point, but you seem to show more contempt than appreciation for those people. telling them that if they cross you they should bring a box does not build an environment of trust and comraderie, it builds an environment of fear. it shouldn't be too surprising that the competent people become pricks, especially if the ass-kissers are being rewarded. which kind of ties into why i asked you if you thought being a prick was ultimately a desirable trait in a employee, since someone has to get shit done (otherwise, shit doesn't get done).
can you neutralize the acid with something like limestone?
awaiting_deletion
Feb 26, 15 8:10 am
Curtkram I would suggest Carrera's notion of prick is just someone who does the right job regardless of how anyone feels.
Donna Sink
Feb 26, 15 8:50 am
So, the carpenter should have made clear from the beginning that this was his rate in cash and that he didn't want a 1099. He also shouldn't have made any kind of threat.
On the other hand, as a non-millionaire I have always clarified with craftsmen beforehand whether I'm paying them in cash or not - and for $3k I would just assume that the 1099 is a pain in the butt for both of us and pay in cash.
Which leads to good traits in an employee: communicate clearly. If there is some small issue that's stuck in your mind because you are afraid it might turn into a bigger problem later say something about it now. Better to raise the issue when it can be fixed easily/inexpensively than to just cross your fingers and hope for the best then realize later that you're facing tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs to grind back all the structural steel half an inch so the insulation will be sufficiently think across it in the super-tight building you're designing for a university*.
(*may or may not be a real example)
Miles Jaffe
Feb 26, 15 9:02 am
The Golden Rule: Those with the gold make the rules.
Taking the story at face value there is clearly a misunderstanding over the deal. If it's cash, that means green, no 1099, and the discounted rate suggests that. Otherwise the rate would have been $36. The carpenter's response as portrayed is a bit over the top, but if this scenario is accurate I can understand why, as Carerra now seems to be the living embodiment of his previously posted terminate attitude (now he can worry ...).
Three grand for work well done, big deal. Probably is to the carpenter, pay him the cash and apologize for the misunderstanding. Be the bigger man here. Let the doctor 1099 you if that's what it takes. You never have to work with the carpenter again, but if you settle the score you will have that opportunity.
I was taught that it is the architect's responsibility to make sure the job comes out right. That means everyone gets paid for successfully completed work.
curtkram
Feb 26, 15 10:05 am
if it's just faster to explode a hatch and move on, you're ultimately disrupting everyone who works on that CAD file in the future. I suppose that's not such a big deal if noone else will ever work on the CAD file, but if they do, it's kind of sociopathic behavior. that's probably an exaggeration but it's the internets so i can flourish.
there was a study a long time ago where they gave a kid a marshmallow and said, 'wait 5 minutes and i'll give you another, or eat this one now.' the kids who waited typically grew up to be more successful. i think the lesson learned is that delayed gratification should be a good trait in an employee. exploding a hatch shows that you'll take the quick and easy way out instead of doing it right.
Menona
Feb 26, 15 10:15 am
With regard to the part of the story where the Boss tells the staff if they're going to gang up on the slow guy to get him dismissed they should bring a box...
See, if I were another employee in that situation, I might think that the boss would also have MY back and be on my side too in some such case. If the boss is going to take on and support someone who is not all profit-generator, then someone who is actually doing beneficial work should feel very supported as well.
But the guy who exploded like 500 of my window blocks and left the remnants littered through my elevations files, he should be drawn and whipped and then quartered, - but fired first so that he can't go to the hospital to get fixed up. All the windows. Exploded. For no reason.
curtkram
Feb 26, 15 10:20 am
by the way, did you notice you can edit hatches by moving pick points now? and if you hover over a pick point, you can add a vertex to change the shape of the hatch. serious quality of life improvement there. not necessarily relevant, but if you're thinking of exploding a hatch, might be worth looking into.
Donna Sink
Feb 26, 15 10:30 am
I was taught that it is the architect's responsibility to make sure the job comes out right. That means everyone gets paid for successfully completed work.
I love this attitude. It has frequently meant that I've suffered an economic hit but the karmic payouts have always been fantastic.
shellarchitect
Feb 26, 15 12:23 pm
"hover over the hatch" blows my mind!
i love it when people assume an entire worldview and personality from a couple paragraph long story.
I think people should be able to work things out among themselves and if it gets to the boss everyone is basically in trouble.
My firm is at about 70 people now, up from about 50 when i started 2 years ago, in that time i think about 5 people have been fired, makes me wonder sometimes if I'm next after a minor mistake.
Carrera
Feb 26, 15 1:50 pm
Shuelimi, better start taking a shower twice a day:)
The #1 reason I went out on my own was for what you just described. Despite the fact that I was really good at what I did I just had a gnawing feeling, all the time, that the rug would be pulled with no notice. Hell of a thing to live like that, so I didn’t and replaced it with the gnawing feeling of going broke, which was actually less stressful.
Carrera
Feb 26, 15 2:39 pm
Miles, in my local the going rate for a no-union skilled trade is $20.00 per hour. Electricians get the most at $25.00 per hour….with taxes being paid & taken out. This isn’t Long Island.
The problem I’m having on many fronts today are “assumptions”. When a person makes an independent assumption they need to own it if they were wrong. The problem today is that if something goes wrong in someone’s life, independent of anybody else, the reaction is to blame others for it. “I fucked up and it’s your fault” is the mantra today.
Carrera
Feb 26, 15 2:51 pm
Curt, sorry to keep pounding on this.
I used to reply to people who said to me “I wish I had all your money” with, “you can have all my money if you take all my bills with it”. It’s all relative. I also want to make clear that those “millions” didn’t come from architecture – you’ve got to be kidding me if you think that.
As for hiring pricks – I didn’t have a very good prick-sensor, always tried to see good. I don’t think they were prick-people so much as just prick-attitudes that yes often come from job frustration.
After getting smacked in the face over 100 times here is a speech I adopted for new hires:
“I founded this firm X years ago and worked by myself for years. I did everything from answering the phone to bookkeeping & drafting. Years later I decided to grow the firm so I could get better, bigger work and because I couldn’t do everything anymore I started hiring people to help me. I didn’t need help because I didn’t know how to do any particular task I hired people because of volume of work. I actually make about the same now as when I started by myself. The reason for growth is to get better work and to provide opportunities to others so we all can benefit from better projects. If you ever get the feeling that I couldn’t do this without you, check yourself, and remember what I just told you, and think of the word ‘help’ not ‘run’”.
what are some of the traits and characteristics of your best employees? Additionally, how can a company collectively build value?
...locks their view ports, drafts on the proper layer, does not over-write dimensions and can successfully (and poetically) discuss at great lengths the value of a vapour retarder. Making a fresh pot of coffee when one is finished is also important.
or the lack of value of a vapor retarder, if you live in a region with more than one season, and condensation happens all over the damn place.
i thought the consensus was to own your own company and then you don't have to worry about it.
Employee traits:
Protecting or being mindful of the boss's time,
Not engaging in office politics,
Being able to figure somethings out on their own.
Ability to listen to and follow instructions
not being a smoker (some folks can not tolerate the smell)
respecting the chain of command when it comes to design decisions
How to build Value:
Respect the client's wishes and priorities
be mindful that it is not your money or your building
keep the client in the loop as to what you are doing and why
provide your client with options and opportunities to guide the design direction
conduct yourself with a sense of urgency
take ownership of your mistakes
avoid hostility with the construction team
do all that you can to make a project as easy for the client as possible
Over and OUT
Peter N
Today it is mice that are valued. Peter, add stop-breathing to your list, albeit a good list. My favorite is “no-smell”.
Very true Curt, but I mentioned VR as an example. Knowing what all those swooshes on the CD represent is key.
Carrera, our office just got a new M.arch kid. Today is his first day and he came in, 45min early, in faded jeans and an un-tucked, wrinkled shirt.
is that good because he's ambitions and self-starting and all that for showing up early, or bad because he doesn't look like you would expect? i kind of figured things were more casual up north, especially when it's 40 below (though i would have expected you to say he showed up in half a dozen layers of battery powered coats and flannel pants).
will he stop breathing on command?
Showing up 10 min early is fine. Showing up 45 min early makes me question his intelligence. As for the dress code, he was either too stupid to notice what people were wearing on his interview or too stupid to ask about it. All bad so far. I won't even ask about his skill set.
Last hire I made lasted 2 days and copped an attitude when I fired him on the spot for being an hour late. At this point I don't think I could hire anyone under 35. Unless she was really cute and single.
Non, better smell him right away and yes he must stop breathing, blinking is also a bad sign (poor productivity)…..see red flags all over this guy, better terminate a 5.
Curt, I walk to the office everyday unless, like today, it's -30C or worse and my shirt remains pressed even under my jacket (s). Flannel pants would have gotten him a gold star however.
Miles & Carrera, I'll reserve judgment until I have to work with the new hire, chances are I won't... but if by some strange twist of events he gets tossed (to the wolves) in our large building department, then I'll report on his faith. Until then, I'll make sure proper eye-lid tape is applied to maintain our standard levels of productivity.
1. Ability to ignore the will-full ignorance on the part of others.
2. Skill at not rolling eyes when computer illiterate firm owner suggests the problem is "it is on the wrong layer".
3. Ability to seamlessly navigate multiple monumental egos without interrupting the orderly progress of the work.
^ In all my years in the business I've only known one person who met that criteria.
He didn't do CAD, and it wasn't me.
all these comments about the dudes acid washed jeans...at least he didn't out dress the boss...also a no-no.
"....locks their view ports" that says a lot about a person, a lot. I tend to want to smack people who don't lock view ports.
I like Peter's list, especially being able to follow instructions AND figure some things out on your own.
I once had an outside consultant tell my employer I was a "perfect employee". My best traits at that job were:
- generally cheerful demeanor, and got along easily with everyone
- very little ego about myself, very strong ego about our firm (when we were up against other firms for jobs, for example)
- knew when to work things out on my own and when to call in the principals to help me solve things
- happily switched tasks mid-stream when something came up that needed additional help
- one of the first in, rarely the first to leave. Ate lunch in the office chatting with everyone at the employee lunch table
- shared the same political opinions as my bosses
- enjoyed and often initiated the 4pm Friday beer-while-drafting tradition
I definitely was NOT the smartest, or best designer, or most efficient CADder, but I was highly reliable and never whined.
I'd hire you in a heartbeat.
But only if you lock your view ports.
Whatever the hell that means. Sounds myopic.
I have no idea what locking view ports means. But I can guarantee I've never exploded a hatch!
Don't think I ever fired anybody on the spot. I always tried to cool down and take my time with it. Once I decided I'd time it, it's a really ugly thing.... affects lives & families, can be dangerous. Had a guy throw a chair across the conference room table at me, been called every name in the book... fired a black receptionists, you should have heard that... didn't know I was a "raciest", "white cracker" and "hater".... guess "fuck you" was a universal response. Always got them out of the office within an hour and often hired someone to do the escort.... but always paid them 2 weeks salary regardless of infraction. Realize that doing it on the spot spreads the message but I always made clear to the office why I did it, after. Following Donna, the one thing all these people had in common was that they weren't nice.... must be added to the list.
Too skilled to be unemployed, too disinterested to go into business?
"How can a company collectively build value?"
id love to read more answers to this one. If I'm understanding the question correctly, you're talking about building equity. From what I understand of the question, I might venture to say everyone in 'the company' is almost always going to have different, sometimes conflicting, needs. Building 'collective' equity might mean ensuring everyone's needs are being met professionally, while fostering an environment for productivity. In other words, the junior level might want to learn a specific program and they are likely in need of some sense of ownership over a project or specific set of tasks. In meeting their professional needs you build a loyal employee and team member. If you ignore their needs, or seek to hire drones, as many of the previous replies suggest, you run the risk of expending more energy trying to manage a disjointed team. Of course, all of this matters little if the person has no skill or ambition to begin with.
I read an article several years ago about a large, very successful firm and their hiring tendencies. They rarely hired the 'nicest' or most agreeable person, because they found that the characteristics of the agreeable person was often inversely proportional to their skill level. After all, who was it that said, "creativity is liquified trouble?"
however, it sounds like creativity and skill are very low on the list based on the previous replies.
I am somewhere in what I think is a between stage from working for others to being full fledged on your own with an office and employees and operating very much like one of my engineers. We both count on a network of moonlighters, free lancers, and people like myself who consult hourly or have lucrative hourly full time jobs. What I mean by lucrative - able to take 4 hours off for one of your own jobs or work a good part of the day on your own stuff while always being readily available to run one of your full time jobs. It helps to bring in work for your safety net benefactor (full time job) and also good to avoid conflict of interest. It's a scenario that I only think works when you are capable of making 5 minute decisions that save everyone days worth of work or capable of putting together or managing a project with ridiculous efficiency because you have done it many times. You are also paid hourly and never have downtime (I archinect mornings and evenings during week).....the problem with moonlighters is they are often burnt out by the end of the day and since they have a day job often don't care if they miss a deadline, which is why I always lie to them. But a moonlighter has a day job because they are skilled and do actual work and therefore are more valuable than a free lancer, not to mention they are willing to moonlight which says they dont mind working a lot or really need the money. The freelancer often charges more hourly because it's their main means of income vs the moonlighter. The free lancer may also bail anytime when they get a better job or client. I am finding the limits to this method of managing labor, mainly reliability and amount of production. In this case the good employee traits are the ability to essentially work 12-16 hour days and capable of independent thinking. Unlike the world of salary, people who perform well in this type of environment I have found tend to start companies earlier than others and in my case have employers who realize anyone whose goal is to run their own show is well worth the money to keep around to run their shows.......reliability and independence and workaholic are good traits for a moonlighting network.
oh that brings me back, Donna. to when I was young and stupid.
The misadventures of exploding hatch girl and her faithful sidekick renaming xref boy.
In this episode, unlocked viewport man does battle with dynamic annotations.
since I decided to type; diligence. Or the ability to stay diligent in both the face of monotony and in the face of excitement. ranges from checking drawings, schedules, submittals to vetting that cool new idea that everyone loves. (ok, probably not odd that the guy who railed against proper cad etiquette also appreciates diligence.)
also, one of my recent frustrations, why do i have to teach people to have to research?
creativity, for most, seems to be this elusive and dormant skill that a lot of people have, but needs to be teased out. getting people to work at it, put it out there, and learn from it is sometimes half the battle. (This is probably based on my recent experiences with staff) Of course, there are those with undeniable inherited talent, which must be nice to have.
I like Donna's approach.*
It reminds me of a concept in Orwell's 1984 that's stuck with me since high school. I don't recall the exact language, but the gist is: keep all the small rules and observe all the minor manners, and the resulting good will can forgive the occasional massive blunder.
I've observed this in operation many times over the years.
* except the need for political alignments. It's nice when it happens, but not required.
I'm pretty much living Olaf's life, and probably like 5 blocks away from him.
This just gets creepier by the minute.
good employee traits: people who don't get all worked up over stupid myopic shit in CAD.
Point made, toast, but: exploding hatches is a disaster for all involved! It's even harder to clean up than if a cowoker got drunk at the holiday party and peed on your desk, seriously.
Had a very close friend that founded a tiny but super successful firm in a small town. About 60 at the time he brought in his son (in his early 30’s) to work at the firm. Guess you could call him “slow”, had trouble getting a regular job, but was a sweetheart, a heart of gold and was a savant at hand ink rendering. Not needing a rendering every day he had other office jobs (shoveling snow and the rest) but one day my friend thought he would push him further and gave him tasks involving cleaning up drawings, line weight kind of things, and he was good at it. One day the rest of the staff decided to have a secret “union meeting” over lunch at a restaurant. They came back and that afternoon wanted a meeting with the three principals. They explained that Kevin was mucking up the drawings with this shit you describe, was a distraction around the office and stated in no uncertain terms that he had to go or they would all quit collectively. The principals met and do you know what they decided? They decided to let him go….the founder’s son!
When I heard of this I called Kevin immediately and told him he was coming to work for me. It was a long drive to my town so I bought him a car and paid for his gas. I had my own union meeting and called in my staff and told them the story and stated in no uncertain terms that if there were any problems we would work together to solve them and if they ever decided to have a secret union meeting about him that they better bring a box with them to work that day because they were going to need it.
exploding a hatch is a clear sign that someone does not want to work in a team environment. it's not that hard to communicate your intent within a drawing. put a note on a non-print layer or something, so that someone else someday can work with the same toolset you worked with. all you have to do is be aware that other people work there.
i understand the perspective that cad is just a tool, and thus the view that something like an exploded hatch is an insignificant act when your focus should be on the building you're designing. it's true that your focus should be on the building you're designing. however, i can't help but think an exploded hatch, or equally horrible lack of cad etiquette, suggest the person might think they're some kind of artistic savant that is too good to play well with others, thus sabotaging the rest of the firm's ability to do their jobs, or they're just kind of too dumb to learn how to work with cad. either way i can't see that as a good quality in a coworker or employee.
so why did you bring them in carerra? did you have that person work on cad, knowing they would piss off everyone else? or did you limit their work to drawing in ink and shovelling snow (tasks where their actions have limited effect on other people)? was it just because you were upset you that the other employees were able to overcome the problems created by nepotism? if you really told your employees that they should bring a box if they're going to complain, that sort of suggests you thought there was a power struggle? how did it work out in the end? great employee, great designer after a few years, or you were able to teach them cad better than the previous firm?
from your story, i can't see much good in them as employee, except for the father having a lot of money, so it just seems there is a conclusion to your post that you didn't write yet?
exploding a hatch is a clear sign that someone does not want to work in a team environment.
And the profession is declining. Now, how could that be...?
First of all the founder was selling the firm to the other two and was outvoted. What I was trying to illustrate is that you work things out. The attitude today is “terminate” sometimes at the drop of a hat….look at all the TV reality shows today it’s all “terminate”, “your fired”, “eliminate”, it’s becoming a mindset. The only way I can get ahead is by eliminating you.
My brother was a sever alcoholic and went to work drunk (factory job) and it was a hell of a problem for the employer, but they didn’t fire him they got him help…it took a long time, relapsing, added up to months of paid time off for treatment, but they stuck with him, he got well and is enjoying retirement with a good pension….they didn’t give up on him, they worked it out.
Kevin didn’t stay with me but a few years because I moved the firm 100 miles away. but I got him another job at a rendering company and he kept the car. Fortunately I had enough volume to keep him rendering, took care of office things and I trained him on Photoshop to help me with marketing. I worked it out.
God forbid that you may become aggravated in your work; my whole life was aggravation including dealing with these little pricks. Who’s running things? Who has their house on the line to cover the line of credit to meet payroll? Who’s bringing in the work? Who didn’t get paid for months at a time because things got slow? Who’s going to hire me if things go south? Felt sometimes that my whole life was on the line. So it is them who decide? I used to tell people when they came in with a bitch about somebody that I was doing the best I could and would try to work things out, but if they had a problem with that I told them they had something I didn’t have and that was the luxury to leave.
Today if you don’t smell right, don’t look right, make a mistake in a keystroke, smoke or drink you’re unemployable. Give me somebody who is nice, somebody with a good heart and I’ll work out the rest. Let’s make a different list, of prick attributes and reverse engineer the list. Sorry to be long.
^bravo!
What? A heretic in in the Temple of Avarice? Guard! Eject this philistine!
Good story
in context, you just said in a forum about 'good employee traits' that you hired someone who upset everyone they worked with, to the point where the whole office felt they had to come together in a single voice to force a resolution to the problem. on it's own, that sounds like a bad trait, doesn't it? anyway, i'm glad you were able to find a good place for your friend. from your more recent post it sounds like it worked out well, despite the trouble at his previous employer.
sorry you surrounded yourself with so many 'little pricks.' you said in another thread you've made over a million dollars. i find it hard to have too much sympathy for you over all the people who would have relied on your judgement to keep ahead of student loan payments, rent, car payments, etc.
to your thought of prick attributes, why did you hire those people, and the people you said you dreamt of firing? maybe 'prick' is a desirable trait in an employee?
Today if you don’t smell right, don’t look right, make a mistake in a keystroke, smoke or drink you’re unemployable
i hope that's not entirely true.....
Great observation, Carrera.
The attitude today is “terminate”
And not just TV reality shows. Slash and burn politics, economics, media, etc.
null, don't worry I live New Jersey....or do you live in NJ as well and commute?? and non that is an image I will use lot.
finding out why someone exploded a hatch is a really easy issue to solve - it happens either because someone doesn't know what they are doing (and just needs a little help) or they were having issues with it and it was faster just to explode and move on instead of trying to figure it out. usually it's the latter.
I've always found that people who get all worked up over CAD/BIM/3D issues are the ones who are difficult to work with - the most dangerous are the ones run to the boss with these issues.
Sorry to come back.
Was going to respond to Curt’s latest but something happened to me around 5 that upset me so that I could hardly breathe… follows his comment about “millions”. Doing a little build out for an old friend to keep active… tiny job sought out someone that would moonlight the carpentry… friend of friend connection. At the start I gave him a spreadsheet with work, $24.00 hourly rate & totals. He took the job, did the job, did a good job and when done asked to be paid. I said (text) we would right away but needed his address and SS number because my friend/doctor would need to send him a 1099. He called me and here’s what he said:
He said there would be no 1099 because he “assumed” that it was cash under-the-table and if we sent him one I’d be sorry I did, “I don’t pay tax”. I then said that not sending him one would put the doctor at risk and if the doctor paid me and I paid him I’d end up paying his tax. He said that $24.00/hour was a bargain and what your millionaire doctor needs to do is pay me more to pay my tax. “He’s rich, tell him to fork it over, fucking doctors”. “All people like him do is pray on people… he better not send me a 1099 or there’s going to be trouble for you and him”. I told him the doctor had nothing to do with the rate and we went back and forth. As I fired him on the spot (yes I have fired many trades people on the spot) I told him that there may be many differences between him and the doctor but the #1 difference is the doctor paid his taxes on the million he made and he paid nothing…. And I think a “fuck you” concluded the conversation. He was worried about paying $800.0 in taxes, now he can worry about not getting paid $3,000.00.
What is this thing with “I don’t feel sorry for rich people”? It’s like “I never finished school, I hate working (too aggravating), I’ve never amounted to anything, can’t hold a job, I’ve got six kids, my trucks broke and what rich people need to do is fork-it-over”.
Guess I got “pricked” again, but I do prick back. Anybody know how to recover a lawn from someone pouring acid on it? Love poor people.
Sorry, long again.
Carrera - doctor ok. Young investment banker with no liability ever whose standard mode of operation is to prey on people and bullshit, probably avoids taxes as well....not ok......sounds like the carpenter made a bad career choice, they should of been a banker...........................a good trait is willing to do the best work possible and be responsible and accountable to the agreement.
What is this thing with “I don’t feel sorry for rich people”? It’s like “I never finished school, I hate working (too aggravating), I’ve never amounted to anything, can’t hold a job, I’ve got six kids, my trucks broke and what rich people need to do is fork-it-over”.
the person with all that other stuff doesn't have a million dollars, which makes it harder to get food to feed your family, pay for doctors or medicine if you get sick, pay to repair broken cars and air conditioners. i'm not saying rich people need to fork it over. i'm not saying anything about the guy who doesn't want to pay taxes. i'm not saying you owe anyone, or that anyone owes you. what i am saying, is that when you go into a paragraph (the God forbid . . . paragraph) complaining about how it's so hard to be on top, i find it hard to feel bad for you because you have options available to you that the people who aggravate you don't have.
if you made lots of money and won lots of awards as an owner of an architecture firm, it seems likely to me that the team of people you hired to do the work played a significant role in that. granted that's speculation to a certain point, but you seem to show more contempt than appreciation for those people. telling them that if they cross you they should bring a box does not build an environment of trust and comraderie, it builds an environment of fear. it shouldn't be too surprising that the competent people become pricks, especially if the ass-kissers are being rewarded. which kind of ties into why i asked you if you thought being a prick was ultimately a desirable trait in a employee, since someone has to get shit done (otherwise, shit doesn't get done).
can you neutralize the acid with something like limestone?
Curtkram I would suggest Carrera's notion of prick is just someone who does the right job regardless of how anyone feels.
So, the carpenter should have made clear from the beginning that this was his rate in cash and that he didn't want a 1099. He also shouldn't have made any kind of threat.
On the other hand, as a non-millionaire I have always clarified with craftsmen beforehand whether I'm paying them in cash or not - and for $3k I would just assume that the 1099 is a pain in the butt for both of us and pay in cash.
Which leads to good traits in an employee: communicate clearly. If there is some small issue that's stuck in your mind because you are afraid it might turn into a bigger problem later say something about it now. Better to raise the issue when it can be fixed easily/inexpensively than to just cross your fingers and hope for the best then realize later that you're facing tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs to grind back all the structural steel half an inch so the insulation will be sufficiently think across it in the super-tight building you're designing for a university*.
(*may or may not be a real example)
The Golden Rule: Those with the gold make the rules.
Taking the story at face value there is clearly a misunderstanding over the deal. If it's cash, that means green, no 1099, and the discounted rate suggests that. Otherwise the rate would have been $36. The carpenter's response as portrayed is a bit over the top, but if this scenario is accurate I can understand why, as Carerra now seems to be the living embodiment of his previously posted terminate attitude (now he can worry ...).
Three grand for work well done, big deal. Probably is to the carpenter, pay him the cash and apologize for the misunderstanding. Be the bigger man here. Let the doctor 1099 you if that's what it takes. You never have to work with the carpenter again, but if you settle the score you will have that opportunity.
I was taught that it is the architect's responsibility to make sure the job comes out right. That means everyone gets paid for successfully completed work.
if it's just faster to explode a hatch and move on, you're ultimately disrupting everyone who works on that CAD file in the future. I suppose that's not such a big deal if noone else will ever work on the CAD file, but if they do, it's kind of sociopathic behavior. that's probably an exaggeration but it's the internets so i can flourish.
there was a study a long time ago where they gave a kid a marshmallow and said, 'wait 5 minutes and i'll give you another, or eat this one now.' the kids who waited typically grew up to be more successful. i think the lesson learned is that delayed gratification should be a good trait in an employee. exploding a hatch shows that you'll take the quick and easy way out instead of doing it right.
With regard to the part of the story where the Boss tells the staff if they're going to gang up on the slow guy to get him dismissed they should bring a box...
See, if I were another employee in that situation, I might think that the boss would also have MY back and be on my side too in some such case. If the boss is going to take on and support someone who is not all profit-generator, then someone who is actually doing beneficial work should feel very supported as well.
But the guy who exploded like 500 of my window blocks and left the remnants littered through my elevations files, he should be drawn and whipped and then quartered, - but fired first so that he can't go to the hospital to get fixed up. All the windows. Exploded. For no reason.
by the way, did you notice you can edit hatches by moving pick points now? and if you hover over a pick point, you can add a vertex to change the shape of the hatch. serious quality of life improvement there. not necessarily relevant, but if you're thinking of exploding a hatch, might be worth looking into.
I was taught that it is the architect's responsibility to make sure the job comes out right. That means everyone gets paid for successfully completed work.
I love this attitude. It has frequently meant that I've suffered an economic hit but the karmic payouts have always been fantastic.
"hover over the hatch" blows my mind!
i love it when people assume an entire worldview and personality from a couple paragraph long story.
I think people should be able to work things out among themselves and if it gets to the boss everyone is basically in trouble.
My firm is at about 70 people now, up from about 50 when i started 2 years ago, in that time i think about 5 people have been fired, makes me wonder sometimes if I'm next after a minor mistake.
Shuelimi, better start taking a shower twice a day:)
The #1 reason I went out on my own was for what you just described. Despite the fact that I was really good at what I did I just had a gnawing feeling, all the time, that the rug would be pulled with no notice. Hell of a thing to live like that, so I didn’t and replaced it with the gnawing feeling of going broke, which was actually less stressful.
Miles, in my local the going rate for a no-union skilled trade is $20.00 per hour. Electricians get the most at $25.00 per hour….with taxes being paid & taken out. This isn’t Long Island.
The problem I’m having on many fronts today are “assumptions”. When a person makes an independent assumption they need to own it if they were wrong. The problem today is that if something goes wrong in someone’s life, independent of anybody else, the reaction is to blame others for it. “I fucked up and it’s your fault” is the mantra today.
Curt, sorry to keep pounding on this.
I used to reply to people who said to me “I wish I had all your money” with, “you can have all my money if you take all my bills with it”. It’s all relative. I also want to make clear that those “millions” didn’t come from architecture – you’ve got to be kidding me if you think that.
As for hiring pricks – I didn’t have a very good prick-sensor, always tried to see good. I don’t think they were prick-people so much as just prick-attitudes that yes often come from job frustration.
After getting smacked in the face over 100 times here is a speech I adopted for new hires:
“I founded this firm X years ago and worked by myself for years. I did everything from answering the phone to bookkeeping & drafting. Years later I decided to grow the firm so I could get better, bigger work and because I couldn’t do everything anymore I started hiring people to help me. I didn’t need help because I didn’t know how to do any particular task I hired people because of volume of work. I actually make about the same now as when I started by myself. The reason for growth is to get better work and to provide opportunities to others so we all can benefit from better projects. If you ever get the feeling that I couldn’t do this without you, check yourself, and remember what I just told you, and think of the word ‘help’ not ‘run’”.