Anyone else have a client (like, maybe a major public agency that shall remain unnamed) require you to use their master guide specs, then what they give you is trash?
I’m talking a jumbled-up mess of sections grabbed from UFGS, Masterspec, Arcat, and others, with formatting all messed up, inconsistent or nonexistent use of styles, some proprietary sections (despite being a PUBLIC agency), and generally just a bear to work with.
Aaargh!!!
Dante Alighieri wrote about that…let me think 6th level… Heresy…Canto IX at the very end.
The Owner’s always have perfect masters and we price ourselves accordingly and if we mention that perhaps their masters are copyrighted by others or 15 years out of date, or just tragically bad…HERESY!
Upon entering the Gates of Dis…
“Master, Who are these people that are shut ensepulchred within these coffers of stone, making their sounds of anguish from inside?” He answered, “Here, specifiers who doubt their owner’s masters lie and groan…”
really a direct quote from Inferno
[and to continue]…lie and groan
Along with all the converts that they made,
The followers of every sect, with like
Entombed with like. A greater multitude
Crowds into these graves than you may think they take.
Some sepulchers grow hotter, and some less."
[NB - the Pinsky translation. John Ciardi says “Like lies with like in every HERESY.”]
right on George…you know a couple of years ago I picked up Inferno as Dan Brown was coming out with a mystery of the same title. I was amazed that a book written in italian in 1309 to 1314+/- and then translated to english (I have the same translation you do) was still… after 700 years!.. a pretty good read. It held my interest,(mostly) for the whole thing. THAT is saying something…I wonder if any of my specs will still be read 700 years from now…or simply recycled as fire lighters. PS I never finished the Dan Brown book
Dante’s 700 year old Italian is probably closer to modern-day Italian than Shakespeare’s 500 year old English is to modern-day English. Still, we understand Shakespeare fairly well; Dante probably moreso to Italian speakers.
I spoke a bit about how language changes during my presentation at Construct last month. Our specs will suffer only from the inevitable changes in language usage. Since we are good specifiers and our specs follow sound writing principles, they will probably be surprisingly comprehensible in 700 years.
And we can leave it up to architectural historians and archeologists to figure out what kind of archaic materials we were talking about.
have you read the translation of Beowulf by Seamus Heaney? looking at (and trying to pronounce) the old english is interesting…but the magic is that his work simply asks that it be read aloud…as was in the original…I re-read it every once and a while…along with a child’s christmas in wales by Dylan Thomas…I specify them both to all for great reading (or oral presentation)
I don’s know where Dan is located, but I’ve dealt with “masters” from our local state university that were obviously done by an “administrative assistant” that hadn’t really graduated from typewriter to word processing to Word. When you see 10 carriage returns to accomplish a page break, you will know immediately.
You will know that the spec is not up-to-date and wonder if you should let the client know.
I’ve reformatted many a client’s master spec and never gotten any negative (or positive) feedback. They hadn’t read their own “masters” for a decade. Usually I did it without pointing out what I’d done, because I knew what needed fixing and didn’t want to place the client’s PM into a defensive position.
I try to gently explain that their client master for a carpet spec that actually lists one acceptable manufacturer, one style and one color, and has a subscript in the footer saying last edited in 1997 may not be ideal for the upcoming project.
Perhaps share with the client a copy of the applicable architect licensing statute. It likely says that the drawings and specifications must be prepared under the responsible direction of the design professional who is sealing the documents. I’m sure the architect’s insurer would have some choice things to say as well. It isn’t just about the formatting.
There is one, somewhat local, institution that still requires the MEP to use 15 and 16. ARRRRRGH!
And then, after completing the project manual, I’m told that the Div 01 I downloaded from the secure server is not the right set…sigh.
50% OF MY CLIENTS insist on 16 division format and won’t budge on using 50 divisions.
Some how this reminds me of some of the structural master specifications that I received from architects and was expected to use on the project.