I rep da bitches, he rep da boyz, if you rep your hood then make some noize!

Oh, don't roll your eyes at me like that! What other blog can give you your architecture fix and quote Li'l Kim? Yo, Tin Man, this here's the jump off! Holla!

So, I promised everyone good news today, and I have good news indeed, but alas, it too requires backstory. The short version is that today was Mile High Guy's last day at his job, and he'll be taking two weeks off to finish painting the condo and go snowboarding. Then he'll start his new job for about a week, and then we're off to Vegas for our anniversary.

Okay, backstory: Guy and I met at Design Associates back in 2000 when I started there and he'd only been there for a few months. We worked on healthcare projects but never with each other. (Well, occasionally, we'd have to work on the same project for a week, and we'd nearly come to blows. One of us would storm out of a conference room shouting, "Fuck you and your 80-square-foot toilet room!") In the last year or so, Guy's project manager became overly hands-off to the point of being a hinderance, sending Guy into meetings without critical information or leaving him the day before the deadline without ever having gotten around to writing the specs for Guy's project. Guy asked his PM as well as our PM's boss for change, and it never happened. Last fall, Guy interviewed with two different healthcare firms in the city and accepted an offer from one. His new firm gave him a 25% raise but only two weeks of vacation for the first two years. (DA gives you three weeks after you've been here for five years.)

Here's another icky truth about the profession of architecture: in general, one has to change firms in order to see a real raise in pay. Now admittedly, I saw an almost-25% raise over the course of 2006 due to the good work on my management of Wheatlands as well as getting licensed. Also admittedly, what happened to me was rare. Howie went to bat for a sista, and DA tends to value their interns getting licensed.

When Guy hooked up with this other firm, Acme Architects, Inc., they had three jobs they were about to get, and they got none of them. Guy spent a great deal of time being underemployed in the office and constantly asked people if they needed any help. He got to do some here and there, but eventually got pretty bored. One day, he was asked to attend the marketing/new business meeting with the bigwigs in the office to figure out how to make up for the three jobs they lost. Guy offered the idea of going after some jobs with some management firms in the area. Often, a hospital will use a management firm to help them keep costs down and keep things on schedule.

Upon hearing this, one of the vice presidents scoffed. "We do high end healthcare; you can't do that with a managed project." Someone else in the room seconded this opinion.

Okay, I gotta blow the whistle and throw the Bullshit Flag. Bullshit...on the offense...15-yard penalty...repeat second down.

By saying that managed projects aren't "high end" design, these people just said that almost all the work Guy had done in the last 6 years--the very work they saw in his portfolio when they hired him--was a pile of chicken poo. Which is a lie. You can do nice design with a managed project; you just need good designers. Duh. Anythang can be perty if you throw enough money at it. Look at Britney Spears. Wait...bad example. Moving on....

Here's the kicker: about 80% of all healthcare projects involve some kind of management. Hence, Acme was cutting itself out of a shitload of work because they were looking down their noses at it. And hence...Guy was bored.

After a crappy day, Guy came home to find an email in his personal email account from the other company with whom he'd interviewed back in the fall. "Just checking in to see how things were," said the headhunter. "Give me a call." And call Guy did. He interviewed last Monday and put in his two weeks notice the very next day. Acme only had enough for him to do for one and a half weeks.

So now he's going to lay around the house for a few days and let his facial hair grow and scratch himself and not shower, which is what I'd do if I were taking time off. Then, he's going to hit Vail and take on some fresh powder and finish painting our living room a delightful orange-red while painting the bathroom a pale grey-blue. Then, he will be going to his new job with the same high pay and three weeks of vacation, like a mofo should have. What he will not be doing is taking any shit offa anyone. I guess his little vacay here makes me the Sugah-Mama-in-Residence for a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, I'm heading off to do a site visit and pre-punch on Wheatlands, which I will explain later. Peace out, my posse.