I'm seriously thinking of giving up on spec writing

Archive of Older Topics Archive - Specifications Discussions #2
1

The hours are long. Who here works 40 hours a week?

The pay is low. Who here can support a family on one paycheck?

But the main thing that bothers me is the serious lack of respect for the profession. Specs are never read unless there is a problem, then it is the spec writer’s problem not the project architect or team who should have reviewed the specs.

No one ever aspires to be a specifier. In fact lots of times the task of writing specs is given to the new person who does not have enough clout to be able to assign the task to someone else.

Even our own institute does not respect us.

2

Rough day at the office?

I am keeping myself at or about 40 hrs, with the occassional exception. This is a lifestyle choice I have made for myself. Most “white collar” professionals work far more than 40 hours - it is a problem with our society in general.

I don’t have a family, but am earning well into the 6 digits.

My clients (I am an independent), have complete respect for me and the knowledge I bring to the project.

I agree that no one aspires to be a spec writer, which is why I can’t find someone to help me out!

Are you on your own, or working for a firm?

3

To Anon 01 (this is another anon):

I’m new at spec writing, though have been in the architectural field for almost 20 years. I work for a large firm. I guess I’m still in my honeymoon period after so many years of getting beat up by clients, contractors, engineers, and other architects. I feel grateful I only deal with vendors now. I think any lack of respect that I may feel I assume is my own fault. The information we hold, as specifiers, is powerful to me. Other architects, some older and wiser come to me for answers, for help. That is respect. No, there is no glory, but I do feel like I am a valuable team member. The Work could not get done without us.

I agree, I can’t stand people who pass the buck, who make themselves look good by blaming others, or take credit for someone else’s work, but deep in my heart I know the truth, and I get some sick satisfaction from that.

Some days are better than others. Some longer, and colder. Some days I work silently grinding away in the background, but they always come around when they need something, and they always come back. Keep pushing on, and thanks for the opportunity to share.

4

Dear Anonymous,
While you are not alone, I write specs because I choose to do so. I’m an in-house spec writer, and while I don’t make 6 figures (unless you count the ones after the decimal point), I make a comfortable living. My husband is retired, so we are essentially living on my salary and doing OK.
I don’t work just 40 hours either, but I work far less hours than the architects and designers in my office. They come in on weekends - almost every weekend - and I rarely have to do that.
I am respected, both by my colleagues and in my firm. But I had to earn that by respecting what I do myself! I know that I contribute a lot to a project. My expertise in project manual and spec writing - and writing in general - has helped in many cases.
I have a respectful and working relationship with many contractors and product representatives.
By being “out there” in the public eye, I’m helping to make others aware, especially those youngsters in school or recently out, that there are many alternative careers within the construction industry.
And I do know a couple of young spec writers who I mentor as much as they allow.
In general, I respectfully disagree with your assessment and I hope that you will see things in a different light very soon.

5

I quit being an independent specifier for a variety of reasons. None of which was lack of work. If all I wanted was to make money I’d go back to it.
If youre in-house, and the company does not respect you, quit! Be a consultant and Join SCIP If your out of house start marketing.
My clients loved having me to:

  1. Read and write (something they couldn’t do)
  2. Read and write a large book with NO PICTURES
  3. Help them technically.
  4. Catch screw-ups before they went out on the street.
6

As a young pup Architectural grad. in the early 80s, the first Architectural firms that I worked had in-house specifiers. It seemed to me the specifier must be the smartest person in the firm. Well, maybe the second smartest, right behind the owner of the firm. In a world of chicks, fledglings, and wise old birds, the specifier always seemed knowledgeable, professional, essential to complete the project, and during bidding and construction the braintrust to fend off problems, claims, and help the firm out duel the contractor and stay above litigation. A high calling indeed!

As I worked my way up the ladder as an Arch. PM (just one of many) I thought the specifiers position looked pretty good, a calm in the eye of the storm, and yes, something to aspire to. It was with great eagerness several years ago that I had the opportunity to start writing specs. full time. So after almost 25 years in the business, I’m proud to say I am now unique and I am a Specification Writer.

Also, I was right about one thing all along, the Spec.Writer is the smartest person in most firms.

7

Please don’t give up on spec writing. I was only two years out of college when I discovered specification writing and have never turned back. It has many rewards for the person who thinks about materials, systems, details, construction, and building performance. I don’t know anyone who has more friends than a specification writer. The people I have met and become friends with include architects, manufacturers reps, contractors, subs. Ok so maybe it doesn’t seem to us like respect, but don’t be so sure. We are the technical support for the design group. One thing that helps me is the great respect I have for good design. I admire the designers who do good work, and I know how hard that is. I receive great satisfaction from being able to resolve designs technically. I know this sounds like idealism, but who cannot afford to be an idealist. After all the five or six figures are spent what do you have?

And as far as raising a family on one paycheck? Noone knows better than I do how well that can work in this profession.

8

I agree with Mr. Crocco!

Further, I suggest that you get involved in your CSI chapter and participate in local, regional and national activities. You will learn that you are not alone in your concerns about your career choice, but you will also learn many creative ways to improve your situation.

The CSI Show and CSI University will help you broaden your network and inspire you to stick with the profession.

Unfortunately, 40 hours per week is about half of the time you have to work in order to build a professional career, BUT it does not have to be all spent at the office. Write about an aspect of specifying you know about and send it to your chapter newsletter or to The Construction Specifier. Talk to a class of design students about the importance of specifications. Then build on those experiences. You will find that the more people you meet and the more you do, your own respect for specifiers will be raised and you will be proportionally (proportionately?)raised in the eyes of your co-workers.
By actively participating in your professional association, you will get great benefits and make some great connections.

9

Well said, David.

Just when I start to wonder if our firm is respected, I tend to get a reminder. Recently, I had a call from an architectural firm (not a client firm). A project architect had a technical question for which he could not find an answer. After helping him, I asked how he came to call us. His answer: Michael (architect from client firm) told him to call us because we were always helpful to him.

That made my day and confirmed that, in spite of all the perceived aggravation of completing projects, we are a valued team member.

10

I just left a large firm as a full time specifier to join a small firm as a project manager (I’ll still write specs, but not full time). I received this note from a former co-worker, a young architect. It seems a nice sentiment to share on a Friday afternoon after this week’s on-line discussion. I hope you all receive something as nice from your current or former clients / co-workers.

“As I sit here, having just finished my first SD Outline Spec (60 pages! More like 50% DD) I find new appreciation for the work that you do/did and the role of spec. writer on the project. I vow, in the future, to keep the spec. writer in the loop on project decisions and to appreciate the amount of research they do and knowledge they must have. I still will never understand those who choose to do it ALL the time…but for me, for now, it was a good and valuable learning experience. And apparently, the spec. turned out okay too.”

11

Started doing specs in 1960! Doin it off and on since; full time for last 12 years.

Do you know that at that time, it was a valid, worth-while and demanding ambition to be a Spec Writer.

From your drafting table [remember them?] in one row of several in the large drafting room [no cubes; no individual phones; precious little space to operate much less have a picture of the wife and kids]. Many of us had the deep desire to some day!!! Be the man [Sorry ladies] in the chair at the board FACING usi.e. the Chief Draftsman!!

Here was seated the source of ALL knowledge, the driver, the mentor, the cantankerous SOB, who in the end was seemingly always right. With white shirt, and bow tie, he knew what the project was about and how best to document it, using th best of detailing and the most skilled of get this!manual drafting![remember, light weight!!!] Whoa!

But in a room, lined with books and catalogs, and with a well-worn set of Sweets, resided the – quiet now!!!Spec Writer. Paper all over the place, but in neat stacks, and woe to any who move a page much less a stack. Here is where even the Chief Draftsman sometimes found answers and information even he needed. Here was a quiet, studious, pretty much a dedicated work-a-holic, who ground out, page after pagemeticulous, neat, well-drawn, and in the current lexicon, properly wordsmithed!

The air in the room usually smelled of pipe smoke [better than cigarettes, safer, and you could just hold it forever in your teeth. But with that was the smell of experience, knowledge, goodness, reliable information, and if you got on his good side, a resource that was always available, and never messed with your mindyou got good, direct answers or directions, quickly.

Oh, yes; best you store that information in YOUR minddont ask again!

12

We had a new guy start on Monday and as he was being walked around and introduced around the firm, I was introduced as “this is our spec writer. She knows everyone in town, knows everything about buildings and actually has opinions about most of it.” That’s not a bad descripion of both my job and my work personality.

Specs are not particularly fashionable, and I usually find two or three people in each office who really appreciates what I do. When I was consulting, I found the same thing – about 1/3 of my clients thought I was an evil necessity; about 1/3 thought I was really helpful, and the rest of them had a nodding acquaintance with what I did. I’ve given up trying to convince people its fun (I’ll keep that as a secret, and also know that I never have to compete for my job).

I think this is a job that can be as big or small as you want, and you have the ability to define it more than a lot of people who have to live up to “project manager” " project designer" or other standard definitions.

there’s one guy in my office who said “I see each page in the spec book as one soldier in my own private army that backs me up in the field.” I thought that was pretty nice… (keep that page count up!)

13

I too am puzzled along with Anon about the respect thing. You would think that with today’s litigious construction climate that the specifier would be worshipped like a god.

I can’t tell you how many times the specs have saved the architect’s or owner’s bacon. (Unfortuantely I can also tell you the times that I accidentally omitted a few words from the spec and it cost the owner dearly.)

I figure that the lack of respect from many architects comes from the lack of understanding of what exactly we do. Architects are visual and specifiers are verbal (Sometimes I am neither).

As far as CSI goes, I have always felt that CSI should be on the bandwagon and beating the drum for the profession. They should be lobbyist/PR people promoting the profession of spec writing. After all “Specfications” is their (our) middle name.

14

Now youve got me started David. Respect comes from appreciation and understanding. We all know what we do, and its value. Until others within (and without) the design / construction industry automatically think about construction products and specs when hearing CSI, instead of Marg Helgenberger, well never get it.

In another forum the value of certification was discussed and the same holds true. Im proud to display CCS after my name, and lucky to have FCSI as well. However, Im Damn tired of having to explain what those initials mean day in and day out. Ive been on the Public Relations soapbox for literally years. A past Institute Executive Director told me that its the job of the Technical Committee to publicize certifications and their value. With all due respect to past and present members of the Tech Comm, I havent seen anything! We absolutely must stop preaching to the choir and begin speaking to the masses. Articles in the Specifier arent enough!

Ive written articles for local non-CSI publications and spoken with any number of folks on the subject; yall probably have as well. Im happy to talk at length, with anyone willing to listen, about CSI and its value. Whats needed though, IMHO, is a concerted public relations effort directed by Institute staff to get information about CSI spread across the width and breadth of our industry. Articles and advertisements in other magazines like ENR, BD&C, Architecture, etc; publications of AGC, NFPA, ACI, BOMA, IFMA, IEC, etc.

MasterFormat 2004 is the perfect vehicle from which to launch a PR campaign. In fact information about MF04 has appeared in many of the publications I listed above, but it has to be more than just trying to sell copies of the book. Every one of those pieces should have been accompanied by a well-written article about CSI!

Sorry, I get carried away on this subject, and Ive got work to do.

15

Well said Frank - words spoken for all of us I am sure. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of thing that Institute, and the leadership seem to state as well - but literally, well said by us. There needs to be outreach programs that truly reach out.

When was the last time (of any time) there has been any kind of institute level awareness program directed at architectural firms (or others of the design group) for awareness of the value of specifications and specification writing. Not these conference in educational sessions, but truly promoting to the non-members.

I remember a conversation a former senior member of Institute Staff about 4 years ago (another specifier was also present) where it came up that I was an in-house specifier as opposed to independent. The response was to paraphrase, “studies and trends show that is a rapidly disappearng profession.” To which I asked what was institute doing about it, in the vain that the trend is not a boon to independents but an overall loss to the profession in general. The answer was essentially a blank stare.

Well, that was the former staff leadership … but nothing seems to be happening other than the continued blank stare.

William

16

In my office, I’m respected the way a physics professor is respected: “I don’t understand what she does or why we need it, but she must be really smart.” I do my best to be accessible and couch my work in terms that my colleagues care about. Risk Management knows I keep us current on construction standards and architectural standard of care. Interior designers know I give them the tools they need to enforce their design and construction quality. Architects know I have a ton of product information at my fingertips and can shortcut some of their research for them. Project managers aren’t quite sure what I do, but they know they have to schedule me in advance. :wink: But the specs are a black box many of them wouldn’t dream of opening.

Oh, and by the way, I work 40 hours a week, and the person who is most likely to be dissatisfied by that is a specifier who works 80. It takes some planning, and I do work overtime occasionally as an exception, but I trained my office to plan ahead when I was working 24 hours a week, and they remembered the lesson.

I have to disagree, respectfully, with Doug Frank about MF04 being a good vehicle for a PR campaign. It is, in professions that were underrepresented before in MasterFormat, but it’s a sore point with some of our friends at AIA. As an architectural specifier, I wouldn’t want MF04 to be in the first paragraph of what CSI has done for AIA lately. Training programs, resources, the professionalism we can expect from our product reps, and the standards that will be necessary as we move into new project delivery methods, CSI has been doing all this for architects and others.

We should take this discussion of CSI promotion of itself and us professionals to CSI’s sadly underutilized discussion forum, where staff and leadership can see it. Maybe we can make some of the right kind of noise. I’m proud to explain who CSI is and what the CCS after my name means, but I haven’t been doing for 20 years yet.

17

Vivian,

Where you say, “We should take this discussion of CSI promotion of itself and us professionals to CSI’s sadly underutilized discussion forum, where staff and leadership can see it. Maybe we can make some of the right kind of noise. I’m proud to explain who CSI is and what the CCS after my name means, but I haven’t been doing for 20 years yet.”

Having led the Task Team that helped create those forums, I would have to strongly disagree. Staff representatives and many officers read here. Many of them that read here, don’t read there.

Since these were created, they are the most underused, underendorsed product that CSI created that actually turned out pretty decent for its first release.

I wold love to see those forums used, and every year I have urged upon the president and other officers to endorse them and to require staff, officer and directior participation there.

Nothing ever happens. The most that has happened is when Edith Washington gave them a resounding endorsement at the Chicago convention in 2004 at the membership meeting and several other times. But, no one actually does anything, which leads to the presumption that whether or not true, no one at institute cares.

After spending so much time during the creation and then seeing their non-existent support, it was really depressing. However, having been one of the most vocal and among the original major champions of any discussion forums from the ones I ran for several years to this one, and others, I still say CSI only needs to wake up, support them, and maybe something will happen.

Our incoming president taking office July 1 was a member of that task team. I spoke with him about this at the convention and I have emailed him about a no-cost, no-budget-impact method to make something happen. I have not had his response yet, but in the words of the ever hopeful, ‘there is always tomorrow.’

William

18

Why is CSI’s discussion forum not used? It’s cumbersome, it’s slow, you can’t see the posts as you can in 4specs.com, Colin had something better sooner (at least I think that’s the case), and - it isn’t used. Why would you go there when we have 4specs? I do drop in to the CSI forum occasionally, but always give up after trying to follow just a few comments.

Ideally, the CSI site would be the place for these discussions, but we missed the boat. Even if you could move the discussion to CSI’s site, why would you do it? There is no inherent advantage to it’s being there, and many of the officers and staff try to keep up with what’s going on here. Since the Internet makes location of the information irrelevant, how about a link on the Institute site to bring in 4specs.com?

19

Go see the new thread on Institute Discussions. William and Sheldon are right, 4specs.com is easier and better-utilized than CSInet.org’s discussion groups.

I owe William a special kudos, though, for his dedicated participation in the CSInet discussion groups. I’ve found his posts friendly and helpful, both here and there, and recently read one on CSInet that was exactly what I needed. Thank you, William!

20

William:

I was posting while you were, so I didn’t see your comments until I was done. I recall talking with you about the discussion forum some time ago, and I do appreciate your efforts to make it work, as well as the many other things you have done for CSI.

There are several things that make the Institute site less useful than it should be. Navigation is not as clear as it should be; searches do not produce usable results; and searches turn up far too many documents that, when accessed, generate a “sorry, you don’t have top secret clearance” message.

At one time there was a map on the Chapter and Region Locator page - very useful for quickly deciding which region to choose. Now there is no way to know which states are in which regions without looking at each.

The Who CSI’s Members Are page presents some interesting thoughts about organization of the construction community. Architects are a subset of specifiers; building owners, building officials, and just about everyone else are construction product representatives.

The Annual Report is dated 2002-2003. Dianne Ehmann is still on the staff contacts list. Until December 2004, the Board of Directors page still showed Edith Washington as president.

I have commented on these issues many times over the last few years, and nothing has been done to correct the problems, with the exception of updating the Board of Directors.

Yes, there is always tomorrow, but without some significant, unique feature, it will be difficult to justify the time and effort required to duplicate something that already exists.