While not architecture, my previous two employers didn't allow any employees (or the bosses themselves) to work more than 32 hours a week (4 days/week, 8 hrs/day). This was so we didn't burn out, and we had time to enrich our lives with things outside of work. It had nothing to do with benefits or pay, but rather the idea that if one has the time to live a balanced life, your work rises above the rest. This was in a creative field, just like architecture, and the two companies both have international reputations as some of the best in the business.
Final pin-up is on Friday this week for me. I pulled an all-nighter last night (the third this year) and I feel like a bag of shit today. I haven't seen my girlfriend in weeks and I don't know how anybody can do this for any real amount of time.
To give you an extreme example, my gf's father lives and works in a different city than his wife (about 24 hours away by car) and works 100+ hours a week, every week. Forget that business, it's not fair to anybody.
jafidler
its your opinion that better architecture always come from more time spent on it. thats fine, and if thats how you work, great
i just dont agree that that is always the case
and nothing you have said is a concrete definite answer on the subject
i can and will debate otherwise, and just because you think this way doesnt mean every single person here needs to agree with you, just like you dont need to agree with me
but just because eero saarinen worked that way and had good results doesnt mean that is the ONLY way to do things
why are architects so inflexible in their views on things
sometimes spending longer on something will make it better. other times it gets you back to the same place you started at.
JA...I'm know that discussing the articulation of a particular elevation detail and the choice between a 5/8" machine bolt and a 3/4" lag has its value with other architects, the rest of the world doesn't care. Its a very small part of what's really important in the world.
Please take the time to respect that the importance of f___ing great detail that makes you want to sing has its place, but jumping on a trampoline with my two sons is w-a-a-a-a-y more fun!
In the words of a past prof Andrew Gruft what is important in life in order of prioity is: FUN .... FAMILY .... then ARCHITECTURE.
No one is arguing more time doesn't give better end result (it could but there is no guarantee either way...some great solutions don't take time as much as they take a spark of innovation that happens when one is able to step back from a problem...i.e. ride a bike...the light bulb in the shower etc.)...we are arguing the amount of time spent daily as being incompatible with being able to do good work...two very different things. In the end a project has a budget and there is only a certain amount of time you can/should spend on it...by your argument jafidler you would never finish anything because you could always spend more time on it.
slantix hit it...without sleep and a life you are a shell...I will take someone with a full nights sleep against someone who is on day 7 of 5 all nighters anyday...I don't care how good you THINK your project is...you are going to present as an overworked zombie who is burnt out.
And ultimately personal ability plays a larger role...if you are not that good at design...a 100 years will not be enough time for you to get it right. Some people just are not that good and use 'effort' as their metric to somehow feel equal...it is most definitely a crutch outside of the momentary times that it is necessary to burn the candle at both ends.
Also, you will never have that time with your kids again...you will more than likely have another project in which to engage other design solutions that you have considered previously. Own your life.
thats a good point jason. there is no guarantee of anything
if you are getting paid to spend 100 hours on a project, of course it will be better if you spend 200 hours on it. but that is a way to go out of business, or get paid very very little, and nothing like you should be paid.
now to get the result you want, maybe you do spend the 200 hours on it. you are cheating yourself in a way, but if that is what your passion is, then go for it. then just make sure you get the client to pay you for more hours next time
if those 200 hours are crammed into 2 or 3 weeks, i would argue they arent really 200 hours worth of work.
for example, when you are in school and pull an all nighter and work for 30 straight hours, it really isnt 30 hours worth of work.
i view architecture as a business and career first, and an art form second. if someone would pay me to work 60 hours a week on a project i am passionite about, i would go for it. but i wouldnt spend the rest of my career working 60+ hours a week, since i value other things in my life, and know architecture isnt the most important thing.
if you work 16 hours a day/ 7 days a week, you are saying that your architecture is that much more important to you than anything else in your life. i would never want to say that to anyone important to me. but that is just me. to each his own
i guess i would work maybe 10-20% over what i am being paid to on a project in general, if i thought it would get it done right. if it was a project i really liked, then i would consider going higher.
jafidler...... agreed, the more time you can spend on a project the more developed, and therefore better, it will be
But NO one should have to work those kind of hours, you spoke of. The need to work like that is a result of pure ego! If Saarinen wanted to give every client three full developed designs, just for the hell of it, then its extremely egotistical, and should be considered neglect for his employee's and his practice. On the other hand if he had negotiated this type of arrangement and properly expressed the amount of time that it would take to do three detailed designs, then the practice could properly manage the time needed to do such a project.
That kind of thinking is very short sighted, in the end it probably took them much more time then if they had fresh alert people on the project.
i've never worked like that. i respect people who do, but certainly do not believe you have to work like that to work in a great office. i just got so much out of this conversation with this ex-saarinen employee. i learned a lot about work ethic, and what it takes to make truly great design (i also loved the full scale detail mock-ups; i'm going to remember that when i have my own practice), and really isn't that what we all aspire to, to work in an environment that is all about exploration and surrounded by people as passionate as we are about architecture. to find such an office, i would sacrafice 80+ hours a week at least for a few years of my life.
that is definitely the way to go about it jafidler
if you can find a place where they are as passionate as it as you are, that would be ideal
but having a good work ethic does not have to mean working 80+ hours a week
someone who works 80+ hours a week is not necessarily more passionate than someone who goes home to his family on the weekends
someone who spends X hours on a project does not necessarily make better architecture than someone who spends Y hours on it
that is my only disagreement with what you have been saying, that this is the best way to do things and anything else produces "lesser" architecture
i agree about the full scale detail mock-ups
we just had one for a wall system we were going with, and it was really helpful through the whole design and detailing process
but again, there are many different ways to create great architecture. no one has found the only one way it works
in japan everyone works 80+ hours a week. it is normal.
japan is perty fickin ugly, architecurally speaking. so the long hours mostly went towards producing more rather than producing better...
good architecture takes time. time with family is worth a lot. career is also impt. balance is not dogmatically possible or impossible, but individual. on other hand there is at least anecdotal evidence that suggests the really great architects spend more time on architecture than others...it may be that the correlation is incorrect however. they may be just driven anal people and they succeed because of that....and the long hours are a kind of side-effect of personality trait rather than reason for success...
currently i am desperately trying to balance full-time job, school and family, and it is at best a controlled trainwreck...i really don't know how the starchitects manage it...
making realistic plans for how a project will progress, drafting these into a schedule to which the client agrees, and proceeding based on this schedule should mean that a project can be produced in the time allotted. if the firm's management has been at it for a while and knows what to expect from their staff, long hours are not a requirement.
if it takes 1000 hours to make a good project, those same 1000 hours spread over a reasonable amount of time, allowing all staff to have lives and sleep, will result in a better and more responsibly considered project than if those 1000 hours are compressed into an unreasonably short calendar time.
MORE hours spent on a project doesn't necessarily mean longer hours, unless the employer is trying to get those extra hours for free.
Sometimes you need to take longer on things...singing details, etc.
Sometimes you don't.
Learning how to differentiate is the hard part.
It seems the more experience you have, the easier it is to see what needs more or less time, depending on the project. So leading the young-ons to better use their time seems to be in the hands of the seasoned architects. Rather than taking advantage of their unguided enthusiasm.
It is certain that good architecture takes alot of time and thought, but getting quality versus quantity depends on how time is managed and making sure your employees are not worn down.
I wonder if we can get some input from offices and how they are run.
From what I've heard, Snohetta has a pretty family/free time oriented schedule and yet are still able to produce good work.
Perhaps office policy is an additional thread.
If you want a "job" go work at a factory. If you want to be a profesional than be prepared to do whatever it takes whenever it takes to make your clients money.
being a professional doesnt require you to absolutely have to work 80+ hours a week. if your client demands that of you, they better be paying for it.
my whole issue is with young architects working for a starchitect for essentially no money, and having to work insane hours. the starchitect is getting paid very well, and in turn is producing the work quickly due to his employees working overtime constantly. in turn, the employees should be getting paid well, or at least compensated for the extra hours.
i get the argument about how they are gaining valuable experience that will help them a lot down the road. but that is not the only way to become a good architect
i post on the nect between tasks sometimes - plus we are a bit slow right now.
seriously - its so cut throat and competetive you have to differentiate yourselves. Good and bad clients are your best advertising - peopel who say they wont go the extra mile for a bad client - thats nobel - but until your in position to turn down their work you need them. Ive found bad clients typicaly have the biggest mouths - and sometimes lead to better refferals
Go ahead - have comfortable lives - but dont complaine your not making enough money or not getting the good projects or comissions because someone else is working longer hours. Thats just life in the jungle -
i have found its not the people who have found the balance between work and their life that complain about not getting paid enough.
and to be honest, if you arent making the money you want to as an architect, you either have unrealistic expectations of the profession, or you are getting taken advantage of by your firm
either way, its your own fault, and you can fix that yourself
i agree, you should probably go the extra mile as often as you can. but you should go about it the right way, getting extra money if you need to do more work than you originally agreed to. i imagine in most cases, you end up working more hours than originally planned on a task, and that is usually ok. but if it gets unreasonable, you should work that out with the client. i think it really is an extreme case to turn down work, and really isnt good for anyone involved
sure it does...if to "do whatever it takes "...then you could also say break a law or two or do something else outside of merely giving more time...fraud doesn't a happen accidentally...many times people feel pressured to cut corners or 'make things happen' to get ahead as well...I have witnessed bosses ask it of people indirectly...just playing devils advocate to the tone of your argument.
I still argue that to differentiate yourself you hone skill sets...not just labor more...work smarter and harder...not longer.
who said anyone is complaining...from what I see people are able to have lives and do great work and have great clients...not always...but it doesn't have to be an endless 80 grind...but if you want it...feel free...but you are not doing better work by working longer...its simply a fact. The reason for a 40 hour work week has as much to do with the ability to be productive as anything else.
how do we get from "work life balance" the premis of this whole debate - to "doing illeagal or fraud" - clearly doing whatever it takes within the argument of work/life balance refers to the topic at hand.
The 40 hour work week is based on how many ciggarettes were in pack at a factory in 1900 - thats what Ive heard anyways. something about 10 hr shifts, 2 smokes an hour, ( which is 50 but then they didnt have to work Sat)
it seems like a 40 hour work week is reasonable
1/3 of your day at work
1/3 at home with family
1/3 sleeping
now of course it never works out like that, but it seems to make sense to base things on that
thats funny if that is what its based on evil
though i dont get how that makes 40 hours when they didnt have to work on Saturday
wouldnt 10 hour shifts mean you only work 4 days a week?
My staff only work 4 days a week, my choice. A little longer day maybe but fridays is not expected to be a work day unless we need to get something done specifically for a client. Works well and I've trained the clients not to phone in on fridays. I leave early for a bike ride and or go for a ski in the morning. I still work the five days because it tends to be quite and I actually am pretty productive when no one else bugs me.
What they may or may not have figured out is that they are more effective in 4 days than they are in 5, mostly out of the sub conscious knowledge that they don't want to come in for an hour or two if they can avoid it and generally get more completed in the 4 day period. I actually get about 90% of a 5 day work week in about 32 hours.
It basically follows the adage that "work expands to fit the time available".
Not really a problem because I'm in the office and I just tell them we'll deal it with Monday. It also happens that I'm more than likely skiing or biking with their boss, the contractor or the client himself. Its not a big town, and its understood that know one makes unrealistic demands. We turn those projects away. I have great staff who are all talented, mature and capable of running their own projects, I don't babysit them and they get the work completed as is required, its not rocket science just being practical, realistic and professional enough to say no when its appropriate.
I was taught friday is the most important day for the architect because questions and issues from the week need to be solved by Monday morning 6:30am or you'll have thousands of dollars of people and equipment just sitting around or being slowed down - but thats just me
As the leader of a given project the architect is responsible to be there to answer questions on Friday - we came accross this on the construction side all the time - the missing architect. The dollar waiting on the dime syndrome. Eventually we and the client just agree to ignore the architect. Thats what happens. I dont know your market but it sounds a lot different.
Friday is always the busiest day in an Architects office - thats when all the issues found during the week must be dealt with before the following Monday crews show up - ckp, the word "eventually" indicates multiple occurences - read before you speak
And we did have problems with about 90% of our architects. Miss meetings, out of office, bad specs and drawings - believe me the rest of the world is just as busy its not just architects
there will always be issues and questions on a project, to expect the drawings to be perfect is unreasonable, as is expecting an answer in a day. there is coordination to be done, consulting with engineers, etc. sometimes its not just possible.
you cant call up the architect on friday with a laundry list of items and then if he doesnt answer them all instantly, think he is not doing his job
Yes you can - if they were supposed to be figured out already - Im talking from example string of bank teller dims dont add up, missing dimesions that the cock sucker said "I left them off intentionally" or my favorite - set 0,0 to the height of a deppressed slab in the rear of a building out of the scope of work and didnt note this then based all his dims off the front slab and then wouldnt return calls just emails saying "he gives us permission to interpret the intent of the dimensions" Thanks for the permission jagoff - you want to come pull the caisson out of the ground?
Seriously - I hate architects. You all suck. I cant take this site anymore you make me want to vomit on myself.
back to "work/life balance" -- I've observed over the years that some of the happiest, most productive individuals I know have found ways to blur the distinction between "work" and "life" -- they find ways to merge the two concepts into one -- for them, it's less of an "either/or" and more of a "both/and".
and yes, those types of issues shouldnt happen, and are the result of a bad architect. to say that is typical, really is untrue.
my comment was saying that there will always be a question that comes up during construction, and that is normal and ok.
i agree with what your last comment quiz
like with most people who are happy with their careers, it seems to work best when its not "just a job"
if its not a chore to do, then you are obviously happy and will find a balance between work and life
if you dont have to just get through the day, i think you are in a good place
your work should be a part of your life, but not your whole life
evilp, you were working with a shitty architect, and if your a GC, you shouldn't have bid on a set of dwgs you knew you wouldn't be able to work with. You should have sent them back to the architect requesting they be ammended and if they came back telling you to climb a tree you should've let that project go.
Work/Life balance
DJ -- I like your style, man.
While not architecture, my previous two employers didn't allow any employees (or the bosses themselves) to work more than 32 hours a week (4 days/week, 8 hrs/day). This was so we didn't burn out, and we had time to enrich our lives with things outside of work. It had nothing to do with benefits or pay, but rather the idea that if one has the time to live a balanced life, your work rises above the rest. This was in a creative field, just like architecture, and the two companies both have international reputations as some of the best in the business.
Final pin-up is on Friday this week for me. I pulled an all-nighter last night (the third this year) and I feel like a bag of shit today. I haven't seen my girlfriend in weeks and I don't know how anybody can do this for any real amount of time.
To give you an extreme example, my gf's father lives and works in a different city than his wife (about 24 hours away by car) and works 100+ hours a week, every week. Forget that business, it's not fair to anybody.
all of this is only peoples opinion
jafidler
its your opinion that better architecture always come from more time spent on it. thats fine, and if thats how you work, great
i just dont agree that that is always the case
and nothing you have said is a concrete definite answer on the subject
i can and will debate otherwise, and just because you think this way doesnt mean every single person here needs to agree with you, just like you dont need to agree with me
but just because eero saarinen worked that way and had good results doesnt mean that is the ONLY way to do things
why are architects so inflexible in their views on things
sometimes spending longer on something will make it better. other times it gets you back to the same place you started at.
slantsix
how does this guy ever see his wife if he is working 100+ hours a week?
ick
i'll never do that
JA...I'm know that discussing the articulation of a particular elevation detail and the choice between a 5/8" machine bolt and a 3/4" lag has its value with other architects, the rest of the world doesn't care. Its a very small part of what's really important in the world.
Please take the time to respect that the importance of f___ing great detail that makes you want to sing has its place, but jumping on a trampoline with my two sons is w-a-a-a-a-y more fun!
In the words of a past prof Andrew Gruft what is important in life in order of prioity is: FUN .... FAMILY .... then ARCHITECTURE.
No one is arguing more time doesn't give better end result (it could but there is no guarantee either way...some great solutions don't take time as much as they take a spark of innovation that happens when one is able to step back from a problem...i.e. ride a bike...the light bulb in the shower etc.)...we are arguing the amount of time spent daily as being incompatible with being able to do good work...two very different things. In the end a project has a budget and there is only a certain amount of time you can/should spend on it...by your argument jafidler you would never finish anything because you could always spend more time on it.
slantix hit it...without sleep and a life you are a shell...I will take someone with a full nights sleep against someone who is on day 7 of 5 all nighters anyday...I don't care how good you THINK your project is...you are going to present as an overworked zombie who is burnt out.
And ultimately personal ability plays a larger role...if you are not that good at design...a 100 years will not be enough time for you to get it right. Some people just are not that good and use 'effort' as their metric to somehow feel equal...it is most definitely a crutch outside of the momentary times that it is necessary to burn the candle at both ends.
Also, you will never have that time with your kids again...you will more than likely have another project in which to engage other design solutions that you have considered previously. Own your life.
thats a good point jason. there is no guarantee of anything
if you are getting paid to spend 100 hours on a project, of course it will be better if you spend 200 hours on it. but that is a way to go out of business, or get paid very very little, and nothing like you should be paid.
now to get the result you want, maybe you do spend the 200 hours on it. you are cheating yourself in a way, but if that is what your passion is, then go for it. then just make sure you get the client to pay you for more hours next time
if those 200 hours are crammed into 2 or 3 weeks, i would argue they arent really 200 hours worth of work.
for example, when you are in school and pull an all nighter and work for 30 straight hours, it really isnt 30 hours worth of work.
i view architecture as a business and career first, and an art form second. if someone would pay me to work 60 hours a week on a project i am passionite about, i would go for it. but i wouldnt spend the rest of my career working 60+ hours a week, since i value other things in my life, and know architecture isnt the most important thing.
if you work 16 hours a day/ 7 days a week, you are saying that your architecture is that much more important to you than anything else in your life. i would never want to say that to anyone important to me. but that is just me. to each his own
i guess i would work maybe 10-20% over what i am being paid to on a project in general, if i thought it would get it done right. if it was a project i really liked, then i would consider going higher.
jasoncross.... well said
jafidler...... agreed, the more time you can spend on a project the more developed, and therefore better, it will be
But NO one should have to work those kind of hours, you spoke of. The need to work like that is a result of pure ego! If Saarinen wanted to give every client three full developed designs, just for the hell of it, then its extremely egotistical, and should be considered neglect for his employee's and his practice. On the other hand if he had negotiated this type of arrangement and properly expressed the amount of time that it would take to do three detailed designs, then the practice could properly manage the time needed to do such a project.
That kind of thinking is very short sighted, in the end it probably took them much more time then if they had fresh alert people on the project.
just like marmkid said "when you are in school and pull an all nighter and work for 30 straight hours, it really isnt 30 hours worth of work."
i've never worked like that. i respect people who do, but certainly do not believe you have to work like that to work in a great office. i just got so much out of this conversation with this ex-saarinen employee. i learned a lot about work ethic, and what it takes to make truly great design (i also loved the full scale detail mock-ups; i'm going to remember that when i have my own practice), and really isn't that what we all aspire to, to work in an environment that is all about exploration and surrounded by people as passionate as we are about architecture. to find such an office, i would sacrafice 80+ hours a week at least for a few years of my life.
When work and Life are the same, you will have achieved complete equilibrium, my friend.
that is definitely the way to go about it jafidler
if you can find a place where they are as passionate as it as you are, that would be ideal
but having a good work ethic does not have to mean working 80+ hours a week
someone who works 80+ hours a week is not necessarily more passionate than someone who goes home to his family on the weekends
someone who spends X hours on a project does not necessarily make better architecture than someone who spends Y hours on it
that is my only disagreement with what you have been saying, that this is the best way to do things and anything else produces "lesser" architecture
i agree about the full scale detail mock-ups
we just had one for a wall system we were going with, and it was really helpful through the whole design and detailing process
but again, there are many different ways to create great architecture. no one has found the only one way it works
in japan everyone works 80+ hours a week. it is normal.
japan is perty fickin ugly, architecurally speaking. so the long hours mostly went towards producing more rather than producing better...
good architecture takes time. time with family is worth a lot. career is also impt. balance is not dogmatically possible or impossible, but individual. on other hand there is at least anecdotal evidence that suggests the really great architects spend more time on architecture than others...it may be that the correlation is incorrect however. they may be just driven anal people and they succeed because of that....and the long hours are a kind of side-effect of personality trait rather than reason for success...
currently i am desperately trying to balance full-time job, school and family, and it is at best a controlled trainwreck...i really don't know how the starchitects manage it...
saarinen died young.
making realistic plans for how a project will progress, drafting these into a schedule to which the client agrees, and proceeding based on this schedule should mean that a project can be produced in the time allotted. if the firm's management has been at it for a while and knows what to expect from their staff, long hours are not a requirement.
if it takes 1000 hours to make a good project, those same 1000 hours spread over a reasonable amount of time, allowing all staff to have lives and sleep, will result in a better and more responsibly considered project than if those 1000 hours are compressed into an unreasonably short calendar time.
MORE hours spent on a project doesn't necessarily mean longer hours, unless the employer is trying to get those extra hours for free.
So again, it's back to balance.
Sometimes you need to take longer on things...singing details, etc.
Sometimes you don't.
Learning how to differentiate is the hard part.
It seems the more experience you have, the easier it is to see what needs more or less time, depending on the project. So leading the young-ons to better use their time seems to be in the hands of the seasoned architects. Rather than taking advantage of their unguided enthusiasm.
It is certain that good architecture takes alot of time and thought, but getting quality versus quantity depends on how time is managed and making sure your employees are not worn down.
I wonder if we can get some input from offices and how they are run.
From what I've heard, Snohetta has a pretty family/free time oriented schedule and yet are still able to produce good work.
Perhaps office policy is an additional thread.
If you want a "job" go work at a factory. If you want to be a profesional than be prepared to do whatever it takes whenever it takes to make your clients money.
being a professional doesnt require you to absolutely have to work 80+ hours a week. if your client demands that of you, they better be paying for it.
my whole issue is with young architects working for a starchitect for essentially no money, and having to work insane hours. the starchitect is getting paid very well, and in turn is producing the work quickly due to his employees working overtime constantly. in turn, the employees should be getting paid well, or at least compensated for the extra hours.
i get the argument about how they are gaining valuable experience that will help them a lot down the road. but that is not the only way to become a good architect
Evil, thinking that way will get you sued or arrested eventually...or both.
Professional is a label attached to a specific non labor skill, i.e. an accounting...not a word for slavery. You need a new dictionary Evil.
Funny, jason, "slavery" was exactly the word that came to my mind when I read evilp's last post.
It's admirable to go an extra mile for a good client. Not necessarily the extra mile, or for a bad client.
To each his own on parsing the difference.
does posting on archinect count as doing whatever it takes whenever it takes to make your clients money?
i post on the nect between tasks sometimes - plus we are a bit slow right now.
seriously - its so cut throat and competetive you have to differentiate yourselves. Good and bad clients are your best advertising - peopel who say they wont go the extra mile for a bad client - thats nobel - but until your in position to turn down their work you need them. Ive found bad clients typicaly have the biggest mouths - and sometimes lead to better refferals
Go ahead - have comfortable lives - but dont complaine your not making enough money or not getting the good projects or comissions because someone else is working longer hours. Thats just life in the jungle -
jason - "Evil, thinking that way will get you sued or arrested eventually...or both."
this makes no sense
i have found its not the people who have found the balance between work and their life that complain about not getting paid enough.
and to be honest, if you arent making the money you want to as an architect, you either have unrealistic expectations of the profession, or you are getting taken advantage of by your firm
either way, its your own fault, and you can fix that yourself
i agree, you should probably go the extra mile as often as you can. but you should go about it the right way, getting extra money if you need to do more work than you originally agreed to. i imagine in most cases, you end up working more hours than originally planned on a task, and that is usually ok. but if it gets unreasonable, you should work that out with the client. i think it really is an extreme case to turn down work, and really isnt good for anyone involved
sure it does...if to "do whatever it takes "...then you could also say break a law or two or do something else outside of merely giving more time...fraud doesn't a happen accidentally...many times people feel pressured to cut corners or 'make things happen' to get ahead as well...I have witnessed bosses ask it of people indirectly...just playing devils advocate to the tone of your argument.
I still argue that to differentiate yourself you hone skill sets...not just labor more...work smarter and harder...not longer.
who said anyone is complaining...from what I see people are able to have lives and do great work and have great clients...not always...but it doesn't have to be an endless 80 grind...but if you want it...feel free...but you are not doing better work by working longer...its simply a fact. The reason for a 40 hour work week has as much to do with the ability to be productive as anything else.
how do we get from "work life balance" the premis of this whole debate - to "doing illeagal or fraud" - clearly doing whatever it takes within the argument of work/life balance refers to the topic at hand.
The 40 hour work week is based on how many ciggarettes were in pack at a factory in 1900 - thats what Ive heard anyways. something about 10 hr shifts, 2 smokes an hour, ( which is 50 but then they didnt have to work Sat)
it seems like a 40 hour work week is reasonable
1/3 of your day at work
1/3 at home with family
1/3 sleeping
now of course it never works out like that, but it seems to make sense to base things on that
thats funny if that is what its based on evil
though i dont get how that makes 40 hours when they didnt have to work on Saturday
wouldnt 10 hour shifts mean you only work 4 days a week?
My staff only work 4 days a week, my choice. A little longer day maybe but fridays is not expected to be a work day unless we need to get something done specifically for a client. Works well and I've trained the clients not to phone in on fridays. I leave early for a bike ride and or go for a ski in the morning. I still work the five days because it tends to be quite and I actually am pretty productive when no one else bugs me.
do your employees work 4-10's then?
more or less ....
What they may or may not have figured out is that they are more effective in 4 days than they are in 5, mostly out of the sub conscious knowledge that they don't want to come in for an hour or two if they can avoid it and generally get more completed in the 4 day period. I actually get about 90% of a 5 day work week in about 32 hours.
It basically follows the adage that "work expands to fit the time available".
i would definitely work 4 10 hour days and then have 3 days off. that must be nice
how do you get your subs to go along with that? is it ever a problem where they bitch at you for not being there on a friday?
Not really a problem because I'm in the office and I just tell them we'll deal it with Monday. It also happens that I'm more than likely skiing or biking with their boss, the contractor or the client himself. Its not a big town, and its understood that know one makes unrealistic demands. We turn those projects away. I have great staff who are all talented, mature and capable of running their own projects, I don't babysit them and they get the work completed as is required, its not rocket science just being practical, realistic and professional enough to say no when its appropriate.
are you hiring?
I was taught friday is the most important day for the architect because questions and issues from the week need to be solved by Monday morning 6:30am or you'll have thousands of dollars of people and equipment just sitting around or being slowed down - but thats just me
No ...... See, I know when to say no because I don't want to manage anymore than six people
Evil I didn't say monday can be a bit of a shit show either... and it is, but by and large our thursday is your friday.
I agree with whistler - learn how and when to say "no." If you let people around you know your time is valuable, they will value your work more.
As the leader of a given project the architect is responsible to be there to answer questions on Friday - we came accross this on the construction side all the time - the missing architect. The dollar waiting on the dime syndrome. Eventually we and the client just agree to ignore the architect. Thats what happens. I dont know your market but it sounds a lot different.
Really? After one day of not being available?
It sounds like you probably had much bigger problems with your architect than just their work week.
you ignored the architect all the time?
i dont think that is normal, for missing just one day of questions
Friday is always the busiest day in an Architects office - thats when all the issues found during the week must be dealt with before the following Monday crews show up - ckp, the word "eventually" indicates multiple occurences - read before you speak
And we did have problems with about 90% of our architects. Miss meetings, out of office, bad specs and drawings - believe me the rest of the world is just as busy its not just architects
i think you were working with bad architects then
there will always be issues and questions on a project, to expect the drawings to be perfect is unreasonable, as is expecting an answer in a day. there is coordination to be done, consulting with engineers, etc. sometimes its not just possible.
you cant call up the architect on friday with a laundry list of items and then if he doesnt answer them all instantly, think he is not doing his job
Yes you can - if they were supposed to be figured out already - Im talking from example string of bank teller dims dont add up, missing dimesions that the cock sucker said "I left them off intentionally" or my favorite - set 0,0 to the height of a deppressed slab in the rear of a building out of the scope of work and didnt note this then based all his dims off the front slab and then wouldnt return calls just emails saying "he gives us permission to interpret the intent of the dimensions" Thanks for the permission jagoff - you want to come pull the caisson out of the ground?
Seriously - I hate architects. You all suck. I cant take this site anymore you make me want to vomit on myself.
back to "work/life balance" -- I've observed over the years that some of the happiest, most productive individuals I know have found ways to blur the distinction between "work" and "life" -- they find ways to merge the two concepts into one -- for them, it's less of an "either/or" and more of a "both/and".
so you were working with a bad architect
you think thats normal?
and yes, those types of issues shouldnt happen, and are the result of a bad architect. to say that is typical, really is untrue.
my comment was saying that there will always be a question that comes up during construction, and that is normal and ok.
evil / marm -- you boys want to take this argument outside?
no i'm good now
i agree with what your last comment quiz
like with most people who are happy with their careers, it seems to work best when its not "just a job"
if its not a chore to do, then you are obviously happy and will find a balance between work and life
if you dont have to just get through the day, i think you are in a good place
your work should be a part of your life, but not your whole life
evilp, you were working with a shitty architect, and if your a GC, you shouldn't have bid on a set of dwgs you knew you wouldn't be able to work with. You should have sent them back to the architect requesting they be ammended and if they came back telling you to climb a tree you should've let that project go.
Trust me, I speak form experience.
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