Well - I should not have taken it on, but I did. The strays of clients who have been done wrong by their now fired architects and engineers. They come in a desperate state and hope I can fix it.
Sometimes I say yes (do I have a superhero streak?) FEMA is kicking me out of the trailer I was given from the flood that destroyed my house and they give me 3 months to get another house to live in. Ok - you are in a pinch - yes, and I will give you a discounted rate. Not your fault.
Sometimes no, no, no, well ok yes (you wore me down) to the church committee doing a big addition. The first architect took too long and designed something so ridiculous that it could not be build and was 150% more than they wanted to spend and they didn't like the design and they didn't feel confident that they could finish the project in time for permits, zoning meetings and construction to start in three months. Can I help them? (Really, your asking a new architect to do the whole project from scratch in 2 months and you feel confident with that? really?) This one seemed like a huge liability issue - like I was going to get sued by the first architect. They begged pleaded and cried in my office three times. Yes I took it on - went on a mania and did it - really pulled it out. Now it is built and they love it - in budget, on time and what they wanted. Hmmn - yes superhero (well my firm is called "
Secret Base Design" so it is either hero or evil genius - I prefer evil). But it takes from me to work this way.
And sometimes no "I ripped a whole in my double wide and my daughter is bringing her new baby home and we need a new room" (true real call)... oh you mean the one that you were building without plans on the weekend so code enforcement wouldn't catch you - but somehow they did and now you are calling me on a Sunday and you need plans drawn up right now! Double wide... hmmn = not paying me much & scoff law - no thank you very much... "sorry Sir we have a four month waiting list".
This recent sometimes yes was a couple of guys who had their engineer tell them (after working on it - sort of - for 4 months) that he was not qualified to finish their project. Now they are two or three months behind schedule and need to start construction before the weather gets bad. They wanted to build an ice cream shop & pizza take out place. Now I love to design restaurants - but they can be very difficult - kitchen layouts must really work and they are pretty technical. But I have done two pizza places before so this is pretty familiar territory for me - lucky for them since they didn't know about the pizza side. They knew the ice cream so they helped me with that. Well after being hired on Tuesday night - the finished permit set of drawings was in the code office Friday morning at 8:30 AM. Ok that blew my mind - it is the fastest full job I have ever done. I am insane - I really hammered through it and bumped other important projects... that are now on critical!
I miss my kids. I miss my husband. I miss Karate class. I miss reading, sleeping, and doing something other than sitting in my chair.
Why do I do this... crazy work all the time. Then get super lazy and just don't do a damn thing.
I just really hate the professionals who do this to clients - I want to make it up to them... to redeem Architects.
I really do not get on well with other architects - perhaps that is obvious.