When I first came to WDG, I was neither 7 feet tall, nor did I weigh 380. I was also not hired as a principal. I was hired simply as head of specifications to implement a program/system for writing specifications for the firm. At that time, I was also not a fencer, so I wasn’t even likely to be carrying any weapons around.
The firm had a long history - founded in the late 1930s. When I started in 1983, the founding principal was still there, but not actively practicing. The other principals had been there for some time. And the usual situation of each doing their own project manual, cloned from the last version of the project manual was how they proceeded. Consultants for structural, civil, MEP, landscape, and any other specialty consultant wrote their sections any way they pleased, they were just bound in as is.
1983 was a turning point for many firms. It had been a rough economy for a few years and those turning round in 1983 were ahead of the curve. Many firms, some very large ones locally and nationally, were still in the doldrums. WDG with its varied client structure was gaining momentum and doing well. But they knew they could not keep up the pace and continue with a quality product - and realized that what they had been doing was getting by.
I was not the first one they tried. They had a person in and it simply had no worked out. We had 2 conversations, and I talked about a need for scheduling, avoiding conflicts, and that for any given project the supreme person was the project architect. That he is the only person that knows (or is supposed to know) everything about the project. And if that was the case, that person had to give me what they knew, and can’t live inside their head. I might realized some A, B, C connections that they don’t, and I will suggest it, but they need to follow through.
At the same time, I had also implemented a personal process as an experiment - is it possible to write really good quality specifications and not look at the drawings in any detail. The answer is yes, though it handicaps you a bit. So to show what the intent really was I explained this process. With a really good checklist, completed conscientiously and as completely as possible. A 2 to 3 hour interview process with that checklist the project architect and the set of drawings at that time, that’s what we set up. The PA is responsible to get everything off the drawings and into the checklist. If I am sitting around with a set that is not current the instant it is printed, no one is going to tell me something is added, revised or removed. And later with a newer set, its going back through the whole thing all over again.
That’s just plain silly and a total waste of time.
You set up a really good checklist, you get people on board starting at the top level, you implement a program where you show the results in a fashion that provides fewer revisions and glitches over the construction process and actually stops money from going out the door, and you get true respect, not begrudging participation or, ‘here’s my project drawings, I need the spec by mid-week’.
Just remember the quote from the Dean hearings during the Nixon scandal when the lawyer said, “I am not a potted plant”. You are not a potted plant, and you should refuse to act like one. If you let them put you in corner, water you, and they expect (and you perform) shedding specs like seeds, you will be unhappy, they will get a poor product no matter what, an no one will respect anyone.
Just say no. That advice is for a not dissimilar situation.
We have hired many new project architects in at that level, and some higher than that over the years. The process is explained to them. Its never an option to do it ‘the way they are used to doing it’. There is only the standard office process - no options.
I am still not 7 feet tall and still don’t way 380. I am a Fellow though, and I am also now a principal (I do fence fairly well but I don’t bring my swords to the office). But for the first 19 years with the company, I was not. Maybe the managing principals at WDG were an especially enlightened group or maybe I just got lucky. But I don’t think so.
The only thing I can say is that up front, you have to have a process, you have to explain it before you start working there, and you have to have buy in at the top…and the first few projects you do need to be about the best you have ever done even if you bend the process to make it happen.
If not, they don’t deserve you. Go somewhere else - be confident in your abilities and by golly you can.