As a good architect, I’ve already made a change! I’ll publish this letter every other week for a few months until I start commuting again. Let’s see where we go! Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear some feedback! Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter sent to your inbox.
My Comedy of Errors
June 30th was the end of the State’s fiscal year.
Purely by coincidence (my project budget money doesn’t expire this year), I processed a purchase order on June 29.
My vendor was having a problem with this PO. He was in meetings all morning. So was I.
He was sneaking emails during those meetings. And I was responding in the middle of mine. His emails were terse. He wasn’t reading my responses carefully.
We were writing, but we weren’t communicating.
I became irate. I pinged his manager. After the vendor finally got out of his meetings, we solved the problem over the phone.
The PO is resolved, but now I feel awful about my hasty appeal to his boss. I should have been patient and waited to calmly resolve the situation.
What went wrong?
First, being an OPM can get to your head. I need to work on my ego so I don’t get easily triggered when I feel I’m not being treated me with the “proper” respect.
Second, the vendor was under a lot of stress with an insane quantity of work due at 5 pm because of the fiscal year-end. I need give others the benefit of the doubt, especially when we’re working together for the first time.
Third, I should have stopped the email exchange when it became clear that we were going nowhere. I could have left a voicemail and waited patiently. This PO was not urgent, but I had gotten caught up in the rush of the moment.
Every time I get on my high horse, I end up with egg on my face. Self-righteous indignation is a short-sighted play. I felt great for a moment but regretted it soon after.
The challenge is to remember this lesson before I lose my temper.
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How do you slow down before frustration boils over?
Hit reply and let’s chat!
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A Couple Other Notes
Last week, I crossed my three-year anniversary with the SPWD. A plucked phoenix is worth less than a chicken was a rumination of the precariousness of our position as Owner PM’s.
I’ve been pretty lucky in my career. Even my two obvious tangible mistakes came with payoffs that I cherish. I often repeat the line that an architect is paid in money and experience. I haven’t been at good negotiating money, but I’ve been given memorable experiences along the way.
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Three Links
My friend Arnaud Marthouret of RVLTR wrote a beautiful meditation about death, passion, and motorcycles.
Photographer Thom Hogan on snapshots, storytelling, photography, and memory. A great essay on balancing fast and slow in one’s craft.
Beautiful drawings depicting a semi-apocalyptic future.
… and a photo.
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Thanks again for reading this OPM letter! I hope you found some thoughtful prompts for becoming a sharper OPM Architect.
All the best,
Justus Pang, RA