I need to chew on this more, but my team mentality can be summed up with “we succeed even though I make mistakes”
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Team concept
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2 out of 3…any way to shift the paradigm for house hunting?
It seems that our house hunt has been a balancing act of Price, House (lot and building), and Neighborhood (schools, etc).
Its hard enough to get 2 out of 3, but seemingly impossible to get all three. This conundrum seems to be common, as an architect the saying is price, quality, speed. And for my health care management friends its affordability, quality, accessibility.
I wonder how we can break out of this slump.
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Watching the Giants play ball.
It’s been a fun roller coaster ride watching the SF Giants in the playoffs. The one thing that has impressed me is that they seem to be a team. Some players are more skilled and talented than others but in general everything comes together. They succeed (and unfortunately fail) as a group.
That is the one thing I really miss from my landscaping days. There was definitely a division between laborer and manager. And of course there were sometimes squabbles among us laborers. But altogether, we were a tight knit team. I wonder sometimes if this is intrinsic to physical labor, and I wonder how you can import such a tight knit spirit into the office environment.
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A moment for some personality psychobabble
I don’t know how useful they are, but I was playing around with some personality tests last night. Basically I had to list my five most awesome moments in life and then tick off some descriptive action verbs off of a big chart. After doing that, it broke the chart into “personality” characteristics: Artistic, Investigative, Realistic, Social, Conventional, Enterprising.
It turned out (no big surprise) that Artistic came out first, followed by Investigative, Realistic, and Social with no ticks in Conventional nor Enterprising. Apparently Architects are supposed to fall in the Artistic-Realistic camp, so I guess I came close to my “category”, especially since I managed to completely avoid the Enterprising group. The Investigative and Social parts came from the problem solving and the coordination work I’ve needed to do as part of my job, especially while currently while doing Construction Administration. Which unfortunately also involve a lot of “Conventional” due to the mass of paperwork that comes with building a building.
I enjoy the CA process in that its a series of problem solving. And I don’t mind a little bit of filing to keep everything orderly, but I have noticed that when I am forced to just do a lot of paper-crunching I get very antsy. So maybe there is some validity to all this.
Or maybe its just a matter of a personality test that lets you see yourself as you want to be seen.
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hmm interesting thought
what I really like to do is problem solving (concerning buildings). Along the way I need to make drawings…something I’m good at and something that I also like to do. But really its about solving problems.
I guess that should go with the other random thought from a couple months ago – I’m really more interested in what happens in a building (and building site), what goes in, goes on, and goes out much more than how the darn thing looks.
job searches certainly make you think….
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BDCS taken, hopefully only 4 more to go….
I took my “Building Design and Construction Systems” test today. It was what it was, I think I did fine, but if I didn’t pass, I’m quite sure I’ll do fine the next time around. The test dealt with a lot of subjects and I’m quite sure that many of those questions will be covered by studying for the remaining 4 tests.
In any case, more interesting than what happened in the test, was the show I stumbled across last night while trying to chill out and relax a bit. I stumbled across a show by Fox Sports Houston called “Athlete 360” Admittedly it is almost infomercial for Memorial Hermann Hospital, but still the episode with Kevin Everett (broke his spine while playing for the Buffalo Bills) was really interesting.
There’s plenty to whine and complain about our profession (low pay, long hours) and getting licenced (missing out on parties and waking early up to study) but shoot…as I get older I get, the less envious I get of the lives of Pro-Athletes. These guys get paid well, but it must feel weird to know that general populace just sees you has basically a high performing piece of meat wearing the appropriately colored/patterned jerseys. And the idea that this guy’s profession was ended in split second at the very height of his career and physical prowess is just mind boggling. I have no idea how he keeps up a good attitude.
In any case, if you’re a sports fan and kind of nerdy this series looks like an promising show. I think I’ll incorporate the other online episodes in my pre-test routine.
Unfortunately they haven’t posted the episode with Kevin Everett yet but here’s the link to the show page.