Work

After a long period of not a whole lot of work to do, things have finally started to pick up. Thankfully! I kept myself busy, but I prefer to have an actual job to charge my time to, rather than continually taking tutorials and reading source material.

So, for a couple hours the other day, I got to go do an as-built of some offices across the street for our Interiors department. The client had given them a floor plan but something wasn’t quite right about it, so they wanted me to go verify the measurements.

I love this sort of thing: you take a tape measure and basically get the length of each wall, locating windows and doors along the way.

This particular space has about 6 offices with a common area in the middle. Windows are scattered here and there, along with half-walls, cabinetry, built-in countertops and whatnot.

Some of the walls are tricky, being at an angle. I don’t know how to calculate angles in real life situations like that, but do know that if you measure the heck out of everything, you can usually figure it out on computer once you get back to your desk.

Drawing up what has been measured is always a challenge. While you’re out there with your clipboard, tape, and pencil – things look so easy. You run your tape out from wall to wall and jot down numbers, and there you have it. But when you attempt to draw it on computer, you realize that things aren’t as easy as all that. Going back a second time, and sometimes a third or even a fourth time, is not unusual at all.

I eventually got it done, though – so they sent me out to another site for another round of the same!

This time, the site is occupied… that’s always more challenging. Not only do you have to deal with people wondering what you’re doing and asking all kinds of questions while you’re trying to concentrate on getting the proper measurements – but you also have to deal with all their stuff. Invariably, their stuff is piled right where you need to be, so you either juggle things around their piles or you relocate things temporarily and then try to get them back to their original place without upsetting anything.

The fact that this job is done on the new computer program makes it even more of a challenge. I am really good with AutoCAD… not so good with Revit yet. What should take me only an hour or so is turning in to a full day now, what with the learning curve and all.

But, at least I’m billable!