You're Fired!

 

Some people brighten a room when they walk in... others when they walk out.  And then there are those, like this guy, who make the team stronger when they're no longer on it.  

As Jim Collins put it in Good to Great: 

"Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people."

Still Fits!

Most of us put on a few pounds as we age, but it happens so gradually we barely notice until we try to squeeze into an old favorite buried in the back of the closet.  And in that moment, reality clings tighter than a pair of skinny jeans after a 7-day cruise buffet.  

Except for this lady—one of the rare few who can still claim to have (at least part of) her high school figure.

Management Experience

 

A wise manager knows that creative ideas come when people are feeling relaxed and stress-free, and a little goofing off in the middle of an intense work day can recharge the creative juices and actually make you more productive.

Speaking of working smarter, not harder, reminds me of a meeting between a salesman and another wise manager.  "This tool will cut your workload in half," says the salesman.  "Great!" says the manager, "I'll take two."

Be Serious!

They say there are four stages of life:

1.    You believe in Santa.
2.    You don't believe in Santa.
3.    You are Santa.
4.    You look like Santa.  

Not sure what stage this guy is in, but one thing's for sure—he knows that if you don't ask, you don't get.  

Here's hoping you get everything you're asking for this Christmas, big or small.

Merry Christmas!

Capped a Pipe

Contractors killing power, sinking piles, leveling ground, knocking out supports, gutting buildings, and hanging ducts.  Developers slashing budgets and inspectors cracking down.  Architects cutting sections and taking out square footage.

A lot of shady stuff going on in this industry.

No Sense of Direction

We don't need a sense of direction or a back seat driver nearly as much these days since we all have GPS now.  In the old days, GPS was a paper map bought at the corner gas station or torn from a phone book and the back seat driver was responsible for holding the map and saying things like, "You just missed our exit!" or, "I see the problem now--had the map upside down."

A backseat driver and paper map would have come in handy several years ago when I left a meeting and used GPS to navigate to my next meeting.  I drove for miles blindly following the GPS directions, finally arriving 20 minutes later at my destination: the building right next door to the one I just left!

Poor Communication Skills

 

It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't communicate well.  This also includes simply being accessible and responsive to clients and co-workers.

This guy at his next job interview: 

        HR:  I see you majored in communication. 

 
        This guy: No, miscommunication.  

        HR:  But it says on your resume, "Communication".  

        This guy:  See?

...the Revised Design

Good design requires the right people to do it, along with adequate time and budget.  A low-budget or rush design may still "work", but all too often problems during construction, change orders, and delays can make the final cost of the project many times greater than any up-front savings in design fee.

I've seen many well-intentioned but misguided souls willing to invest millions in their project, who believe they're saving money by skimping on the design phase.  It's a lesson that usually only has to be learned once - the hard way - but eventually everyone discovers that the bitterness of poor design remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

How Do I Block All Emails...

My in-box size could be cut in half if I could just stop all those emails with the "good news" about my inheritance of millions from some long lost rich Nigerian  relative - all I gotta do is send a copy of my ID and bank account number "entirely risk free" to Barrister so-and-so and he'll "secure the funds" and wire me my rightful share post haste!  Who are these people?  And more importantly, who are the numskulls who respond to these emails?  Somebody must be doing it.  It's probably this guy.

About Half Work Here

There's the occasional news story where they discover some government worker who collects pay and benefits but hasn't shown up for work in years.  Much more common is the person who retires on the job - they quit and stay - show up for work but do nothing.

Despite the potential for abuse, I've never been one for time clocks or tight supervision.  I've always believed that the best people don't need to be tightly managed - just give them the objective, provide training and resources and a good environment, set up ways to measure performance and success, and then get out of their way.

We Pass the Savings on to You

I love the one about the boss who asks the employee, "Who's the stupid one, me or you?" to which the employee responds, "Everyone knows you don't hire stupid people!"

Despite this guy's misguided strategy, experienced people know that you get the best results when you hire the best. For more cartoons making fun of the notion that you save money by hiring less-than-the-best, click here.

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.

Big Box Space

Reminds me of the forts I made as a kid.  I once made a hut in my parent's basement out of an abandoned refrigerator box, moved in a sleeping bag and a lamp, and used it as my bedroom until my parents finally "repo-ed" the box and threw it out.

Wright Engineers has provided structural engineering for millions of square feet of industrial big box buildings (and not once was an abandoned refrigerator box specified on the plans - though you can click here for a project that came close).

Duck Penetration

Those dang duck penetrations always seem to show up in the wrong places!

I'm an outdoorsman and occasional hunter, though most of the time all I take home are memories.

This guy reminds me of a pretend hunter I used to know who bags "trophies" at canned hunts where tame animals are grazing on hay less than a stone's throw away.  Once as he described a recent buffalo hunt, I imagined him spotting the giant beast far off in the distance and then stalking and finally crawling through the brush to within shooting distance.  Then I saw the video - the mighty hunter rode out on a wagon towed behind a tractor to a group of tame buffalo grazing on bails of hay like cows and picked off his quarry from about 20 feet.

He's a good reason why the sign at the entrance of Bass Pro stores says "Welcome hunters, fishermen, and other liars".

For more cartoons with ducks, click here.

I Said GLU-lam!

George Bernard Shaw famously said, "The single best problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

I've worn out countless red pens marking up engineers' memos so they actually say what the engineer thinks it says.  It's like there's a crystal clear picture of exactly what the engineer's thinking in an imaginary bubble floating over his head as he writes.  Unfortunately, that picture can get lost in translation and there may be an entirely different picture in the imaginary bubble floating over the head of the person reading it.  When this happens, you get situations like these (click here).

One helpful rule of communication I learned at home as a kid:  "Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".

Try Plotting at a Smaller Scale

If only it was this easy!  It reminds me of the carpenter who cut the board twice and it was still too short.

...and the related story my dad used to tell of the new guy on the construction crew who cuts the board too short so his boss sends him to the superintendent to ask for a "board stretcher".

...or the electrician who instructs his apprentice to "wipe up the voltage drops".

...or the engineer who's told his design is an ID 10 T solution.

...or the new attorney who's sent to fetch a stack of "verbal agreement forms".

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.

Too Much Stress

After a lifetime in the construction industry, both as a structural engineer and as a builder, I've learned that there's always more than one way to solve a problem - and often the builder has the better idea. 

...but I'm not so sure about this guy.

Other brilliant things I've learned:  measure twice, cut once; the north arrow does not mean "this side up"; the boss may not always be right, but the boss is always the boss; treat people how you want to be treated; and all's well that ends.

You Think These Things Grow on Trees?

From the time I was about age 11, I spent a good part of summer vacations at the construction site building houses with my dad who had a small construction company.  One day we were framing a house and had just nailed down the plywood over the floor framing.  Dad told me to go down and throw up some studs so we could start framing the walls.  After waiting a few minutes and no studs, he walked over to the edge to see what was the hold-up.  As soon as he appeared over the edge of the house, I bent over and began retching and heaving loudly as if I was trying to vomit.  Finally I looked up and said, "Dad, I've tried and tried but I just can't 'throw up' any studs".  We had a good laugh, and then it was back to work.

Unlike this guy, we never had a crane to lift our trusses.  Instead, we hefted them up by hand one at a time.  It was always a relief when the roof trusses were all safely standing in place.

Big Enough Fer The Both of Us

If only they'd built those old west towns a bit bigger, there might have been a lot fewer gunfights. 

I can see it now:  Two rough characters square off at twenty paces in the middle of town wearing tool belts and slinging nail guns.  "This here town just ain't big enough fer the both of us", one would say, "so me 'n my gang'll start buildin' over there and you'n yer gang c'n build over here."