Who Do We Blame?

Am I the only one who's seen this?

Construction is a tough business. No design is ever perfect and no building is ever perfectly built. Most of the time everyone understands this and the design and construction teams cooperate and get the job done.  But occasionally, when stuff goes wrong, fingers start to point - usually at whoever's not in the room.

For a related cartoon, click here.

Cider Security Expert

It's all over the news. We need more cyber security! Russians hack DNC emails. A billion Yahoo accounts are compromised. Hundreds of hackers crammed in sweat shops working for nation states, terrorist groups and crime syndicates. It's like a war.

... and we need a no-nonsense guy like this to protect us.

Expert Advice

Like the old saying goes, you don't have to be crazy to be in this industry, but it helps.

I feel like I can relate to this guy - especially when I'm in Lowes or Home Depot (my favorite stores) browsing for seemingly unrelated parts for some creative new home improvement project (one of my favorite things to do).   Once, and only once, I made the mistake of trying to explain to a helpful Lowes employee what I was doing.  "So you're gonna take this electrical conduit and pound the ends flat and bolt it to this thing and use it as a what?" The more I tried to explain, the more perplexed he became.  It didn't take me long to realize that whenever anyone asks me if I need help, the best course of action is to quickly say, "Nope, I'm good thanks", and then go back to talking to myself.

For another cartoon relating to the mental health of design professionals, click here.

Saw it on YouTube

How'd anyone ever make it before YouTube?  This guy's got the idea - why waste your time on a degree and on-the-job training when you can bypass all that stuff and just watch how to do it on YouTube!  If someone ever posts some YouTube videos on how to engineer a building, I might be out of a job. 

Thought He'd Save Money

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

This poor guy learned the hard way that saving pennies by hiring the lowest priced designer could greatly increase bottom-line costs.  Quality design requires adequate time and the right people to do it.  Cut-rate design may still "work", but often the final cost of the project is many times greater than the small difference in fee between the best designer and the cheap guy.

For a bunch of similar cartoons poking fun at the notion that cheap is really cheaper, click on the "Cheap" category link on the right sidebar.

"There is nothing more expensive than hiring cheap engineers."

                               - Bob Sheeran, Xavier University

Volume's waaaay up!

It feels like we have to compete with this guy a lot more than we should.  He's like the farmer who grew watermelons for $2.00 each, sold them for $1.75, and decided the way he could make more money was to get a bigger truck!

What Are You Thinking?

Occasionally builders complain (and sadly, sometimes justifiably so) that an engineer or architect they know can draw pretty pictures, but he doesn't have a clue how to actually build anything.  And it's worse when that engineer doesn't know he doesn't know and insists that the builder just "build it how it's drawn." 

...and it's even worse if the engineer can only communicate in "engineerese".

On the flip side, it's not uncommon to hear an engineer gripe that the builder on such and such a project needs a lot of "hand holding", or that he fires off dozens of "duh" RFIs which the engineer could answer with, "Did you not even look at the drawings?"

It's a love-hate relationship.  Depending on the day, mostly love.

GOT GRAY?

Sometimes you need some "gray hair" on your project.  After all, they've supposedly already seen it all, done it all, and made all their mistakes long ago - on someone else's project.

Gray hair is hair you can trust - and having lots of it (or for some, at least remnants of it) can be an advantage for us humble engineers.  I was "blessed" with enough gray hair in my mid- twenties that I could easily pass for someone ten years older.  More than 20 years later, I still claim to be in my "late, late twenties".  It must be a genetic trait (the age claim I mean) - my mom still turns 21 again every March 6th.

This cartoon was inspired by a project with a particularly cantankerous owner's rep who insisted we put "more gray hair" on his project - after all, how could some young whippersnapper with a full head of "immature" hair, an engineering degree, and "only" a decade of experience with similar successful projects possibly be trusted?

Good news for that owner's rep:  dealing with him caused the young whippersnappers to sprout a few gray hairs of their own.

Holiday Season Productivity

Everyone knows that not much gets done around the office between Christmas Eve and New Years Day. Most people are on vacation anyway, and those that aren't wish they were.  Even if there's work to be done, no one's around to crack the whip and make sure it gets done.

Christmas 1999, our first Holiday Season as a company, we had about ten employees - all but one of whom were out of the office happily enjoying their vacation time.  The one person that remained could not work independently, so I had to come into the office each day during the Holidays to try to keep him busy.  I felt like we were the only two people working in the entire city.  The phones were dead.  It was a huge waste of time.  I vowed it would never happen again.  Every year since then we've closed between Christmas and New Years Day.

Final Notice!

Consultants are in a tough spot.  We don't get paid until our client gets paid -and if he gets stiffed, we're usually also out of luck.  To add to it, some people view the architect and engineer as no recourse, zero-interest lending institutions who will finance their project on a handshake for an indefinite period until they "get funding."  If the funding never comes through - "Sorry about that.  But good news! I have this other project I'd like you to fund, er I mean do.  When can you get started?"

Dang Internet's Down

I know lots of people work from home and many of them feel they're more productive.  I wonder just how productive some people really are, though.  Whenever I've tried working at home I seemed to be constantly interrupted with things like "Honey, since you're here anyway, can you just [insert any number of domestic tasks here]..." or "Daddy, daddy, daddy, there's a bean stuck in my nose".

It's clear this guy's been working from home for a long time.

Time To Upgrade

Now that the Great Recession seems to be ending, we've recently started upgrading our computers and office equipment after several years of cobbling old tired machines together.  Sometimes it feels like we're this guy - typewriter, Rolodex, rotary phone.

It reminds me of the quip about the guy who reached the automated phone answering service:  "For customer service, press 1.  For accounting, press 2.  If you have a rotary phone, hang up, put on your leisure suit, sit in your bean bag chair, and listen to your 8-track tapes of the Bee Gees".

Speaking of outdated equipment, I'll never forget the day a few years ago I was standing in line at a Utah ski resort with my 1980's ski outfit and equipment.  I suddenly became aware that my once state-of-the-art setup looked nothing like the fat skis and baggy clothes all the hip young people around me were sporting.  I used to sneer at old guys who hit the slopes with their old-fashioned equipment and outdated clothes.  At that moment I realized I had become the old guy!

Take Your Child to Work...

Wright Engineers' company culture is very family-friendly, and with lots of young families with a lot of kids, our office can feel like a daycare center on "take your child to work day".  I thought it would be funny to show a dad who brought his unemployed, middle-aged, still-lives-in-the-basement-and-plays-video-games son to work with him.

...I also knew Helen would not be pleased.

It's Not How Hard You Work

One of my engineering professors in college had this saying and a similar picture framed on the wall of his office.  It must have made a big impression on me because I've never forgotten it.

This reminds me of the famous quote by John Wooden: "Never mistake activity for achievement", or the words seen on the wall of many a CEO's office: "Bring me results, not excuses".

It's Just a Simple...

Anyone who prepares estimates or fee proposals knows this scenario: You get an RFP for a potential project with a vague description (and, if you're lucky, a rough sketch) and you're asked to provide a fixed all-inclusive precise unwavering fee for all necessary services to see this nebulous project through to completion.

In early 1998, we were asked to quote a structural fee for "just a simple 4,500 square foot restaurant". Little did we know the eventual complexity of the project or that the architect was "going for an award on this one" - a fact we discovered during repeated changes during design. In the end, the project turned out very well, the architect won his award...

...and our final job cost was about 10 times our fee.

The Smell of Success

We all know someone who has this "smell of success". (If you don't, that person is probably YOU.)
This makes me chuckle, but I think there's a lot of truth in this common saying about the ratio between inspiration and perspiration.

It's sentiments go well with a quote I like by Thomas Edison: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

In a Spirit of Partnering and Trust

The joke is that everyone leaves a "partnering" meeting at the kick-off of a project all smiles as "partners", but as soon as something goes wrong, all that goes out the window.

And We'll Need it Yesterday

We can complete a project that's due yesterday without a lot of trouble. Getting it done much sooner than that can be a problem.

You'll Have to Go Through Me

Sometimes the only way to get what you need is to go through Helen Back.

(...not to be confused with her equally helpful co-worker Helen Waite.)

Rush The Rush Job

I love the post office scene in the Jim Carrey movie The Grinch where the postmaster is frantically receiving packages at the counter, stamping them as "RUSH" or "HECKUVA RUSH", and then tossing them back over his shoulder.

With the instant responses that seem to be expected these days via phone, text, or email, almost everything is a "heckuva rush".