Monday, May 7, 2007

Born to space plan, baby.

I've been pitching in here and there for different project managers at DA while waiting for MCRC to begin and as Wheatlands winds down to a graceful denouement. Friday, I was finally able to start working for a project manager who has a handful of small but urgent projects. First, I worked up a scope narrative and a few pricing plans for a two-room remodeling project in a small hospital. This took forever mostly because this particular gal is out of the office a lot and is hard to find. Since I work pretty fast, I'm done in a few hours, and she's gone again and I can't review anything with her to get more direction.

However, I finally got done with it today, got it out the door, and was ready to start on her next project, which was space planning a 5,000-sf outpatient procedure department in a local hospital. Yee-haw! As frustrating as it can (and usually does) get, I love love love space planning. Space planning is the process of figuring out where to locate what rooms in a space. This is something at which I excel, if I do say so myself. Departments that take most folks eight hours to design take me about two or three. Finally, thank God, I have something to do at work that's totally fun. This should fill in nicely before I spend Wednesday and Thursday in Wheatlands.

In other news, I'd like to say so long and Godspeed to one of my favorite bloggers, "Subservient Worker" over at Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds. She's quitting her crappy job at the HOA of an elite country club in southern Florida and ending her blog so that she can dedicate her time to writing--really writing. She's renamed herself Subservient No More, and she certainly is her own gal. Her tales of the rich and stupid--real or imagined, I still can't figure it out--tickled and horrified me. I'll miss her marvelous writing style and wit, and I hope she finds time to blog again sometime in the near future. Rock on, Subservient No More! Edited to add: Wide Lawns is indeed evolving her blog and not quitting after all. Yay!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Space planning is where it's at. Everything else that happens flows from all the space planning decisions. Do a good space plan and you have the foundation for a good project.

Writing software is the same way. We create a function chart that describes what the software is to do and then we create a chart that describe how the data is to be stored and accessed. Everything else flows from there.

I always like this part of a project. Because you can take a piece of paper and just think. It is just sheer pleasure to put the brain into open thinking mode, let it run and have the ideas pop out.

I am looking forward to writing a new module for the facility management system I support. It will be a key management module that will allow a facility manager or a security person to manage all the keys or key cards in your facility.

Anonymous said...

When you space plan, be sure that the adjancenies include setting the MRI next to the entrance feed for the building. Also leave out the EMI shielding between the MRI room and the entrance feed.

When you power up you should get at least an aurora in the air or maybe even a really cool electric arc before everything melts.

Enginerd said...

QUICK! Go look. Subservient No More is morphing - perhaps the catepiller will become da beeyootifull buttafly.
:)

i too was bummed. glad she's sticking around.