Guy working weekends, film at 11.

It occurrs to me that I haven't said much about Guy in recent weeks/months. Which I guess is to be expected, since this is my blog, "Why Architects Drink". If it was Guy's blog, it would be, "Why Architects Watch A Lot of ESPN and Kick Ass on Computer Games." Or something. Nevertheless, Guy's happenings are an integral part of my life, and if things get bad for Guy, it could make me drink just as well.

Backstory for the uninitiated: Guy and I met at DA in 2000. The cuteness of the story is here. Architects do end up marrying other architects, or at least interior designers, landscape architects, or contractors, because of the nature of our work. Put simply, it's so fucked up that only someone else in that field understands it. Because Guy and I are both healthcare architects, we speak a language that few others speak, or really want to speak for that matter. One of us can say, "Man, that's like putting VCT in a sterile core!" and the other one laughs their ass off. It makes for some pretty lame pillow talk in our house: *smooch* "Honey, have you ever gotten a 20-minute rating and smoke gasketing on an ICU door?" "Naw, Honeybear, you can't get it; the pivoting action of the far panel will rip the seals off in a month."

So, longtime readers of WAD know that Guy left DA in fall of 2006 and worked at a weird little firm downtown, realized they were more fucked up than Courtney Love doing Jello shots with Andy Dick, and then moved in early 2007 to his present office, Acme Architects. Acme is a national architecture and engineering firm, and their Denver office is only a couple of years old. However, they specialize in healthcare, so they wanted some good healthcare people around for whenever they got their first project. Hence, they hired Guy at a 20% raise from what he was making at DA. In the meantime, he helped out other Acme offices, like their outpost in Arizona and the main office in Kansas. He spent some time doing some onsite CA work in Arizona, in the middle of which I sprained my ankle. But otherwise, he's been really nonbillable for a while. A long while.

It's one thing to doodle around at work during a slow time for a day, maybe two, maybe even a week. For super-busy/motivated people like Guy and me, anything more than one day of doodling feels really uncomfortable. Guy's been alternately surfing ESPN.com and sites on architecture and healthcare as much as he can, but he's gone crazy for months now. I'd pick him up at 5:10 every day, and he'd get in the car and say, "Well, I actually had about three hours of billable work today, that was nice." Being constantly underemployed is taxing on the soul. Guy felt like leaving that the end of 2007--"I haven't done very much, and I don't feel like it's ethical of me to take their money like this"--and they must have smelled it, because they gave him a 10% raise and a small bonus. Guy's big boss even said, "Please don't leave, Guy, I know things are really slow, but we're going to need you."

All of a sudden early last week, Guy gets the chance he's been waiting for: Acme is trying for a medical office building job on a CDC outpost north of Denver. They want to see a schematic exterior rendering and floor plans of some of the labs, treatment areas, and offices. Guy is jonesing. They give him this other guy to work with, some guy who's supposed to be a real design expert, but the punk totally doesn't do a damn thing and Guy does everything--exterior, interior, the works. Guy shows this fellow up (inadvertently) in the end of the week pin-up with their big boss. Sometimes, doing good work while no one else is doing it can be a means in and of itself.

Guy had to attend an interview and tour of the existing facilities with Designer Punk and a couple of contractors last week. They drove up to Longmont in Designer Punk's car to the contractor's office, then carpooled in a Contractormobile (aka large SUV) to the CDC's campus. Now, let's all think for a second: The Center for Disease Control is studying really virulent things on this campus, things that could be used as biological weapons in the wrong hands. What do you want to bet they're gonna want to see your ID before you drive onto their campus?

What do you want to bet Designer Punk left his wallet in his car? In between the front seats? Where someone just walking by could see it?

"What did you do?!" I gasped when Guy told me the story. Guy just chuckled.

"He had to walk half a mile back to a Citgo and wait for two hours. We couldn't take him, cuz we were already late for our meeting," Guy replied.

*sigh* Amateurs.

As I type this, Guy is at work, figuring out a site plan for this building. It's his big chance to prove to Acme that hiring him was the right thing to do. Of course, I could have told them that. No one says "negative pressure immunodeficiency patient room airflow" and makes your toes curl like that man of mine.