Vaya con Dios, mi amigo!

This week is Intern Timmy's last week at Design Associates. Timmy managed to get an interview over at the firm that Jacqueline (for DA architect, worked on Pomme de Terre, for those of you who remember) is at now, and he scored a great position with a respectable increase in salary. We're taking him to lunch this week, of course, and while I'm sad to see him go, I'm excited that he's going off to some new challenges at a smaller firm for more cashola.

It's not just the money, though. With less work in the office, Howie has become a control freak/micromanager extraordinaire, and it's killing those who must work with him. The money is what made Intern Timmy's new job offer irresistible, but the fact that his boss has become a grand mal pain in the ass was the straw that broke the camel's back. As I hear it (firsthand and secondhand), both Liz and Ingrid, two long-time members of Team Howie, would love to GTFO and work somewhere they weren't being micromanaged constantly, but there's still not a lot of hiring out there right now. (Timmy found a position that happened to perfectly fit his skills as an intern who's taken a couple of the ARE exams and is extremely good with Revit.) Myself, I know that I'm lucky to have been working for the past few months with Mr. Lassez-Faire himself, aka Sven, on Gestalt HMO's projects. That's probably why I'm still sane and not chewing off my own tongue.

Sadly, though, I understand from Timmy that Intern Kimmy is about to have to finish the CA on TCMC, which Timmy worked on in DDs and CDs and part of CA. Thing is, I worked on TCMC in DDs and CDs, but Howie didn't ask me to do squat on it. This is likely because the project's fee is really low, and Intern Kimmy will cost the project less than me, an architect. Now she has to deal with the mania that is Howie on a much more involved basis.

Working for Howie isn't awful, per se. He's clear and specific, and that can ultimately make one's job (and worklife) easier. But if he doesn't have enough to do, he puts way too much attention on too few tasks, and suddenly he won't get out of his employees' way and let them do their jobs. If he's not careful, he's going to run off a lot more than Intern Timmy.