At my job, they had hired me understanding I am partially through the hours needed to start talking the licensure tests. I told them I'm lacking hours in project management, practice management and construction/evaluation. Keep in mind this is a 3 person firm including myself.
I've been at this firm for a year and a half now and every time I submit hoursto the boss, whose also the ncarb supervisor, I mention I sent you the hours let go over it wjen you have time. I also mention the added part that because I'm not privy to the schedule of meetings/construction, any time that I can take part and help get hours to get me closer let me know. We'll it'll take him over 4 weeks to ever review it, which instead of going over with me, sends a frustrated email in which he said he cross checked hours based on time sheets and there's some errors.... and never tells me what those errors are. After some pressing over weeks I am able to squeeze out what those "errors" are - less than 4 hours of error... once i adjust and resend the request it sits in his inbox for another month before he approves it on the ncarb site....
I've gone through this process 3 times now and it's driving me insane. To top it off, those 3 categories where there have been plenty of meetings or on-site construction visits, my plea to learn more about that process and participate is heard & ignored. This results in making less than 10 hours towards any of those categories since I've been here. I get that some projects have limited budget and I can tow along on every project to learn, but if they truly want me licensed I need to get experience hours doing it.
Outside of leaving this job, any advice on dealing with this problem? My boss/ncarb supervisor doesn't seem to care when I mention in reviews that I can't get experience in management or construction if I'm not allowed to experience it at work. He's said I should watch videos about it instead....
Your boss is lame -- I'm afraid there is no good solution to this other than finding a position with someone who actually wants to be a mentor. Now is a good time to switch, a lot of firms are looking for employees. Most people in my experience are not going to penny pinch your hours in this way.
Sounds like they're overly picky on the hours, the idea of cross checking timesheets & bickering over 4 hours is wild to me. I used to report hours like 6 months at a time. I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that they care remotely as much as you do about getting licensed, so you'll definitely have to keep pressing them for opportunities. Quite frankly, if you can't get those opportunities there then you may eventually have to seek out another office.
Unfortunately there will be a number of times when they are essentially going to have to pay two people to do one job when you're getting hours. For the most part you won't know what you're looking at during CE, shop drawings, etc. So someone will have to double check you each time in the beginning. It's normal, but also not efficient & why some offices choose not to hire junior staff for those roles. It's hit or miss on whether someone wants to invest in you.
I remember getting my CE hours was a grind & I had a sticky note on the wall of my desk that I made little prison check marks on each time I got an hour.
Fretting about 4 hours here and there is asinine on the part of the supervisor and a waste of theirs and the candidates time. NCARB has no police-type people investigating each and every AXP report. A report with any plausible quantity of hours in whatever category will be accepted by NCARB with no questions asked.
I think I spent about 10 minutes every 6 months going over my hours with my supervisor. Most of which was focused on what I needed to get more experience on in the next 6 months. I was also pretty pushy about asking for opportunities. I hated calling myself a "project designer".
Your boss sounds like a real piece of sh*t. Since you said we can't advise you to quit (although I think that's the best solution because your job appears to be like a total dead end), maybe do this as a 1st step:
Get an AXP mentor (a licensed architect other than your boss, and they don't have to work in the same form as you):
According to NCARB's website: "there are two experience categories in Setting O that the AXP mentor can endorse: design competitions and site visits. The AXP candidate can accrue up to 320 hours working on design competition entries and up to 40 hours visiting project sites accompanied by his or her mentor. Taking the time to visit work in progress and see the relationship between concept and construction is particularly important in the early years of practice, and a mentor may be able to provide more opportunities for field visits than the candidate can find within their own firm. Design competitions offer a candidate the opportunity to flex their design muscles on concepts that they conceive themselves. The mentor can offer valuable advice and constructive criticism throughout the competition design process."
Also watch a few videos on practice management like your boss suggests and then see if the SOB signs off on the AXP hours for them. I suspect your boss might not and then you will know for sure that they really don't want you to get licensed.
Everything about this is wrong. The form filling of NCARB process is definitely a drag, but is useful in tracking your experience. Bickering over 4 hours after cross checking timesheets is completely ridiculous, and totally misses the point of the process.
If you're waiting this long for something as minor as this, imagine what problems will occur down the line for things that actually matter. Honestly, time to start looking for work elsewhere.
Wait until you have government clients and archaic contractual language you have to follow. Consider this good practice! Overly zealous bosses aside, you should consider the following:
1) PM hours are 360/ 9 weeks... over the course of your 3-5 years prepping and taking the tests since graduation, those 9 weeks will mostly come at the end. 2) The goalposts aren't moving. Just track your hours weekly at the same time you do your timesheets and make them match. Then you'll get the rubber stamp. 3) NCARB provides an extended explanation of what does and doesn't count as hours for each category. Print that out and be proactive with a discussion (over your immediate boss's head if you have to) on what scope/work falls into each bucket for your firm, what work is coming up that would count for the hours you're missing, and how the firm's billing codes match/reflect the AXP categories. You won't get it with a nice bow tied around, but what would be lovely is if every time you billed job-number.51 that's a 1:1 relationship to AXP hour category X. Get as close as you can and then document your discussion so you can pull it out later in case your immediate supervisor starts nitpicking again.
I'm a supervisor and sign-off on hours. I keep repeating the same thing to everyone: Log your time in quarter hours when you have the opportunity. For example, talk to a senior staff about their projects or read past project CA history (emails, CCNs, site reports, etc) and log that shit. I'll sign off on those hours no problem. Ditto for office management stuff too. Not every intern gets max exposure to everything and as much as we'd like to give exposure, it's often not practical so I reward initiative when I see it.
Is there an office administrator? Maybe if someone else went over the hours before they were submitted to your boss, he could sign off without the mind numbing scrutiny. When I worked for a general contractor that was a big part of my job and when I interned for an architect it was the office administrator's job to record and check hours before they went to partners. Maybe?
I should point out - take the task upon yourself to make it as easy/simple as possible for the supervisor to sign the hours off. Like literally spell out exactly what needs to be done, weeks in advance. Send multiple emails in the lead-up. Get a little bit annoying about it. You want to get as close to just getting a signature verification as possible. The easier you make the task for the supervisor, and conversely the more annoying you make it for them to NOT sign the hours, usually works in your favor... I had success with that going through the NCARB internship process.
Advice on a NCARB Supervisor / boss being very unhelpful with process
At my job, they had hired me understanding I am partially through the hours needed to start talking the licensure tests. I told them I'm lacking hours in project management, practice management and construction/evaluation. Keep in mind this is a 3 person firm including myself.
I've been at this firm for a year and a half now and every time I submit hoursto the boss, whose also the ncarb supervisor, I mention I sent you the hours let go over it wjen you have time. I also mention the added part that because I'm not privy to the schedule of meetings/construction, any time that I can take part and help get hours to get me closer let me know. We'll it'll take him over 4 weeks to ever review it, which instead of going over with me, sends a frustrated email in which he said he cross checked hours based on time sheets and there's some errors.... and never tells me what those errors are. After some pressing over weeks I am able to squeeze out what those "errors" are - less than 4 hours of error... once i adjust and resend the request it sits in his inbox for another month before he approves it on the ncarb site....
I've gone through this process 3 times now and it's driving me insane. To top it off, those 3 categories where there have been plenty of meetings or on-site construction visits, my plea to learn more about that process and participate is heard & ignored. This results in making less than 10 hours towards any of those categories since I've been here. I get that some projects have limited budget and I can tow along on every project to learn, but if they truly want me licensed I need to get experience hours doing it.
Outside of leaving this job, any advice on dealing with this problem? My boss/ncarb supervisor doesn't seem to care when I mention in reviews that I can't get experience in management or construction if I'm not allowed to experience it at work. He's said I should watch videos about it instead....
Your boss is lame -- I'm afraid there is no good solution to this other than finding a position with someone who actually wants to be a mentor. Now is a good time to switch, a lot of firms are looking for employees. Most people in my experience are not going to penny pinch your hours in this way.
send an outlined email showing exactly how you have fulfilled the hours and for which projects. then find a new boss.
Sounds like they're overly picky on the hours, the idea of cross checking timesheets & bickering over 4 hours is wild to me. I used to report hours like 6 months at a time. I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that they care remotely as much as you do about getting licensed, so you'll definitely have to keep pressing them for opportunities. Quite frankly, if you can't get those opportunities there then you may eventually have to seek out another office.
Unfortunately there will be a number of times when they are essentially going to have to pay two people to do one job when you're getting hours. For the most part you won't know what you're looking at during CE, shop drawings, etc. So someone will have to double check you each time in the beginning. It's normal, but also not efficient & why some offices choose not to hire junior staff for those roles. It's hit or miss on whether someone wants to invest in you.
I remember getting my CE hours was a grind & I had a sticky note on the wall of my desk that I made little prison check marks on each time I got an hour.
Fretting about 4 hours here and there is asinine on the part of the supervisor and a waste of theirs and the candidates time. NCARB has no police-type people investigating each and every AXP report. A report with any plausible quantity of hours in whatever category will be accepted by NCARB with no questions asked.
I think I spent about 10 minutes every 6 months going over my hours with my supervisor. Most of which was focused on what I needed to get more experience on in the next 6 months. I was also pretty pushy about asking for opportunities. I hated calling myself a "project designer".
Your boss sounds like a real piece of sh*t. Since you said we can't advise you to quit (although I think that's the best solution because your job appears to be like a total dead end), maybe do this as a 1st step:
Get an AXP mentor (a licensed architect other than your boss, and they don't have to work in the same form as you):
According to NCARB's website: "there are two experience categories in Setting O that the AXP mentor can endorse: design competitions and site visits. The AXP candidate can accrue up to 320 hours working on design competition entries and up to 40 hours visiting project sites accompanied by his or her mentor. Taking the time to visit work in progress and see the
relationship between concept and construction is particularly important
in the early years of practice, and a mentor may be able to provide more
opportunities for field visits than the candidate can find within their
own firm. Design competitions offer a candidate the opportunity to flex
their design muscles on concepts that they conceive themselves. The
mentor can offer valuable advice and constructive criticism throughout
the competition design process."
Also watch a few videos on practice management like your boss suggests and then see if the SOB signs off on the AXP hours for them. I suspect your boss might not and then you will know for sure that they really don't want you to get licensed.
typo above: "form" should be "firm"
Everything about this is wrong. The form filling of NCARB process is definitely a drag, but is useful in tracking your experience. Bickering over 4 hours after cross checking timesheets is completely ridiculous, and totally misses the point of the process.
If you're waiting this long for something as minor as this, imagine what problems will occur down the line for things that actually matter. Honestly, time to start looking for work elsewhere.
Is this clown AIA?
Wait until you have government clients and archaic contractual language you have to follow. Consider this good practice! Overly zealous bosses aside, you should consider the following:
1) PM hours are 360/ 9 weeks... over the course of your 3-5 years prepping and taking the tests since graduation, those 9 weeks will mostly come at the end.
2) The goalposts aren't moving. Just track your hours weekly at the same time you do your timesheets and make them match. Then you'll get the rubber stamp.
3) NCARB provides an extended explanation of what does and doesn't count as hours for each category. Print that out and be proactive with a discussion (over your immediate boss's head if you have to) on what scope/work falls into each bucket for your firm, what work is coming up that would count for the hours you're missing, and how the firm's billing codes match/reflect the AXP categories. You won't get it with a nice bow tied around, but what would be lovely is if every time you billed job-number.51 that's a 1:1 relationship to AXP hour category X. Get as close as you can and then document your discussion so you can pull it out later in case your immediate supervisor starts nitpicking again.
I'm a supervisor and sign-off on hours. I keep repeating the same thing to everyone: Log your time in quarter hours when you have the opportunity. For example, talk to a senior staff about their projects or read past project CA history (emails, CCNs, site reports, etc) and log that shit. I'll sign off on those hours no problem. Ditto for office management stuff too. Not every intern gets max exposure to everything and as much as we'd like to give exposure, it's often not practical so I reward initiative when I see it.
Find a new (better) job.
Is there an office administrator? Maybe if someone else went over the hours before they were submitted to your boss, he could sign off without the mind numbing scrutiny. When I worked for a general contractor that was a big part of my job and when I interned for an architect it was the office administrator's job to record and check hours before they went to partners. Maybe?
I should point out - take the task upon yourself to make it as easy/simple as possible for the supervisor to sign the hours off. Like literally spell out exactly what needs to be done, weeks in advance. Send multiple emails in the lead-up. Get a little bit annoying about it. You want to get as close to just getting a signature verification as possible. The easier you make the task for the supervisor, and conversely the more annoying you make it for them to NOT sign the hours, usually works in your favor... I had success with that going through the NCARB internship process.
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