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Open Letter to the Interns at my Office...

104
plastic_soldier

can someone please swing by my office tomorrow and let the guy behind me know that it isn't very efficient to draw each single line of grass in a detail drawing. i understand in an enlarged detail drawing, one is supposed show as much information as possible, but i doubt anyone will be criticizing the individual blades of grass. YES I AM SERIOUS. (one of the few reasons its time to find a new job after a mere 4 months)

AND

you don't need to change the layer colors to match the reality of the object you are drawing either. flowers don't need to be drawn pink, grass doesn't need to be green, tree trunks don't need to be brown paving doesn't need to be a custom grey....REAL LIFE COLORS DO NOT APPLY TO AUTOCAD.

i will sleep better with this off my chest......

Feb 14, 07 12:56 am  · 
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Katze

I second the "oh f*@k" command.

Feb 14, 07 1:04 am  · 
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Nevermore

'overkill' command feels much better

Feb 14, 07 1:19 am  · 
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BOTS

these shortcut buttons are essential, the eject seat is directly linked across he desk to the intern, the panic button is used to update the boss

Feb 14, 07 4:04 pm  · 
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lletdownl

to further demonstrate my lameness......
i made my exit command 'poo'

im not even joking...

my god what happened to me

Feb 14, 07 4:25 pm  · 
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snooker

I think we just met "exploding hatch girl"

Feb 14, 07 6:49 pm  · 
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el jeffe

15 years ago j would be the one who wouldn't clean the tech pens after using them....and you'd have to take 'em apart and clean them and try to find the office ultrasonic cleaner and leave 'em in there during lunch and then come back and they still wouldn't pull a line correctly so you'd take them apart again and when you went to re-assemble them you'd bend one of the needles so you'd have to run out to the store and pick up another tip and by then you'd lost half of the day and you'd ask them to help you draw but they had to leave at 5:00 to meet someone for dinner and you'd be sitting there drawing at night cursing them....or so i'd imagine.

Feb 14, 07 7:16 pm  · 
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ih1542006

Funny, exploding hatch girl was my handle back in the day of CB radio

10-4 good buddy

Feb 14, 07 7:30 pm  · 
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kyll

vado - brilliant....snatch... i'm still snickering at that...

ahhh....

cad and snatch in one joke...

Feb 14, 07 7:38 pm  · 
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Urbanist

a really fun one is when your client's landscape arch with whom you are collaborating tells you he wants design work done directly in ArcGIS, using code, and your boss says to him, "it'll be ready by tomorrow"...

Feb 14, 07 8:12 pm  · 
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Gloominati

15 years ago I worked in a big firm inking stuff. While there was much of the same frustration related to other people not all being on the same page standard-wise, we didn't go through all the rapidograph-rigamarole el jeffe suggests. Actually we weren't allowed to spend any time at all cleaning technical pens - we were supposed to just throw them away and get a new one from the supply closet as soon as they posed any trouble, because the loss of billable hours spent cleaning pens and trying to put them back together without bending the needles wasn't worth the lost billable hours. Buying new pens in bulk was more economical. Problem is these days we can't just throw the computers out the window whenever the software crashes - but it might still be more economical to rid ourselves of "exploding hatch girl" and get a fresh intern out of the resume pile than to waste billable hours trying to straighten her out...

Feb 14, 07 8:25 pm  · 
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Living in Gin

I wonder if Exploding Hatch Girl is related to a person at my office, Exploding Blocks Girl.

Feb 14, 07 8:32 pm  · 
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holz.box

can you explode xrefs? if so, then we have a newbie that does this on a regular basis. either that, or they aren't xref-ing anything in, they're arectually importing the drawings as a block and then exploding it.

Feb 14, 07 9:33 pm  · 
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Katze

Those damn interns are ruining everything...when will someone take a stand and fire them? I'm looking for a job.

Feb 14, 07 9:45 pm  · 
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Living in Gin

You can bind an xref (which converts it to a block) and then explode it. Not recommended unless you have a damn good reason.

Speaking of xrefs, another classic intern move: After I spend the better part of a day setting up an entire drawing set with the proper xrefs, etc., go into the project folder and rename all the xref files, thus breaking all the xref paths. Gotta love it.

Feb 14, 07 10:15 pm  · 
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I draw in layer zero on a seperate file, I give reference points for them to insert the drawings. By them I am ofc referring to CAD monkeys - I'm the designer...I am your God...your Archi-God!

Feb 14, 07 10:42 pm  · 
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Katze

Archi-god looking for archi-love (or a temporary archi-garwondler)...sounds like a wonderful story unraveling before our eyes:)

Feb 14, 07 10:52 pm  · 
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lol

I can see it now...a twisted cross between sliding doors and train spotting

Feb 14, 07 10:56 pm  · 
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Katze

lol ... now thats a story...:)

Feb 14, 07 11:07 pm  · 
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BOTS

that is a story, I've seen Gwen in Glasgow doing heroin. She is a right smack head...

Feb 15, 07 4:24 am  · 
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Medusa

Renaming Xrefs Boy, distant cousin to Exploding Hatch Girl.

Feb 15, 07 10:25 am  · 
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evilplatypus

how about forgeting your in the refedit comand and then closing the refedit window without save your edit - this makes the xref into a block and completly ruins your Sat as you go in and fix the internssloppy drawings. Just give me their salaries and I'll do it.

Feb 15, 07 10:54 am  · 
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Dapper Napper

Must be someone with very creative f-up skills cause autocad doesn't let you do that very easily.

Feb 15, 07 11:25 am  · 
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evilplatypus

Im amazed at all the ways they find to f up the drawings - but of course they didnt do it.

Feb 15, 07 12:16 pm  · 
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whistler

I have an environmental consultant who needs everything tied into some global geo referencing grid that every other consultant doesn't require. Needless to say we just send them the file and let them figure it out. Some folks can get really a little too anal about teh computer demands and what the purpose of the computer is for..... its just a tool to get your work done and not the end product. Getting the thing built is what's important, if it helps along the way great if not resort to other means.

Feb 15, 07 1:12 pm  · 
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evilplatypus

sounds like NAD cordinates.

Feb 15, 07 1:14 pm  · 
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Sarah Hamilton

I am currently going through TONS of details updating them to correct "Office Standards" because the previous person just draws however he wants! Oh wait, he's the one with a liscense, I'm the Intern. AAAAA!

Feb 15, 07 2:15 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

Dear intern,
Please do not add lavender drop shadows to all the floor plans.

Feb 15, 07 4:42 pm  · 
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ochona

let he who is without sin throw the first stone. come on, folks, we've all done this stuff ourselves.

how about this: tell the person what they did wrong, and ask them not to do it again? that's what happened when i exploded hatches, exploded dimensions, changed the x-ref name accidentally, and accidentally deleted a folder full of source x-refs...a folder called "archive"

Feb 15, 07 6:23 pm  · 
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unfortunately though, some people react very defensively when you try to get them to change their habits. All of the sudden everything they do is right and valid because they've done it, regardless of how difficult it is to work with....

Feb 15, 07 6:26 pm  · 
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ochona

sorry, posted mid-rant.

oh wait, that would require "management" and "communication" with a healthy helping of "empathy." and potentially some "confrontation."

we were all young once. and yes, we were just as bad. some of us still are.

the cure for ALL of this would be to properly train entry-level interns, but i don't ever see that happening with penny-wise/pound-foolish architects.

i mean, come on. two weeks' training...how much would that cost? $3,000 when pay is included?

would that not pay itself off in, like, a month? have we ever stopped to realize how much CAD mistakes cost?

Feb 15, 07 6:53 pm  · 
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job job

'Renaming Xrefs Boy, distant cousin to Exploding Hatch Girl.'

oh god, I love them both I really do

way back when we used tablets and 8-button mice, I enjoyed drawing lines with differing z values. or setting pickadd to 1

they called me ochona, or watercoloronly

Feb 15, 07 6:53 pm  · 
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ochona

if they respond defensively, then it's their problem, not yours. if they continue to do shit wrong, document it and either go to your superiors...or if you're in control, fire them.

is it not this easy? are we really such wusses?

nobody's really ever been too pissy when i've corrected them...of course, i couch it like this:

"please do not explode hatches"

pretty simple, direct, and easy to understand. most of the time the answer is

"okay"

Feb 15, 07 6:57 pm  · 
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I could get on board with that Ochana, if it were expanded to include the older members of the office as well. My problems, esp. my cad-related problems, actually have much more to do with those who "learned" cad on-the-job than they do with young people exploding hatches. If these people who all thought they know cad could be convinced to get a bit of training (and supported to do so by the firm financially), I think you're right that we could be a ton more productive.

Feb 15, 07 6:58 pm  · 
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architorturealist

i typically use the f@#k command after i hit the F1 key becuase it is too damn close to the ESC key.

Feb 15, 07 10:26 pm  · 
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khmay

for some reason i bet the majority of cad and bim experts across the country are interns. or at least younger than anyone who'd make a statement like that

Feb 16, 07 12:15 am  · 
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dedubs

i'm particularly fond of the 'LAYOFF' command.

Feb 16, 07 1:43 am  · 
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i am totally self-taught in cad, rationalist. but i learned to draft on vellum, and the rules didn't change that much. i love cad though. some of you may not remember but changing wall thickness or location in old days was not the easy task it is today. the rest, xref and all that shit, i couldn't care less (although i am not inclined to explode anything). not really. but then again there are only 2 of us doing dwgs right now, so easy to keep things working smooth....and even if i was back in large office i think ochana's method sounds pretty ok to me...

as for interns being automatically stupid, well, i think we all make mistakes at whatever position we are in the system, and by and large the mistakes interns make are pretty benign. more to the point, in general i really do believe the garbage in garbage out rule works with people too. if yall really think so poorly of the people you hire, i think i finally understand why so many here are hating their jobs.

Feb 16, 07 7:33 am  · 
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vado retro

it has nothing to do with stupidity. it has to do with being exposed to many ways of doing things for the first time. one can only learn not to explode hatches after they have exploded one and then were advised not to explode hatches.

Feb 16, 07 9:01 am  · 
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misterTT

after reading this thread, I consider myself advised to not explode hatches. ever.

Feb 16, 07 9:29 am  · 
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jump- I'm not saying that it's impossible to be good if you're self taught, but I have far more technical problems with those who are than those who learned cad in school. Many of the older guys in my office know cad just well enough to draw lines, but not well enough to be really sure that those lines are straight and on the right layer and the file is easy for others to work with. If you've made an effort and learned it really thoroughly, then good for you!

Feb 16, 07 11:45 am  · 
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Ms Beary

my co-workers tell stories of a girl that used to work here that never used snaps - she just zoomed in really really really close, claiming it was faster than engaging snaps.

Feb 16, 07 1:23 pm  · 
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24out1in

why would the older guys/gals (who are a bit behind on their autocad skills) be drafting in cad anyway. why not delegate the tasks according to one's strengths?

Feb 16, 07 4:36 pm  · 
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snooker

I want to know did they call her the Zoom Zoom Girl.

Feb 16, 07 4:36 pm  · 
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vado retro

just for kicks im going to explode some hatches now...

Feb 16, 07 4:40 pm  · 
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snooker

I have old guy strength.....guess they will put me on the jack hammer....

Feb 16, 07 4:50 pm  · 
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won and done williams

I'm working on a project with a curvy curtain wall. Tons of offsetting grid lines. I swear for the life of me I can't keep a consistent work point. I know exactly how to create the arcs, but as I'm detailing mullions I inevitably get something out of whack. I know I'm driving the structural engineers nuts. After this experience, I'm never going to take a crack at someone else's CAD skills. We all have our ACAD weaknesses.

Mar 28, 07 5:46 pm  · 
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Buckity

I don't even think women are allowed to wear sweat pants in public. I'm positive that no one is supposed to wear them to work.

Mar 28, 07 6:12 pm  · 
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Women can wear sweatpants in public, provided that they do not have those elastic bands around the ankles. But yes, not at the office.

Mar 28, 07 6:14 pm  · 
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vado retro

i have a different pair for every day of the week...

Mar 28, 07 6:29 pm  · 
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