Google

Monday, January 26, 2009

Should I go back to Private Practice?

I can feel the pressure now even more, this is not a joke. I might really lose my job in a few weeks time. I talked to my friends for advice and they all told me that I should do Private Practice as an architect. She said, I should be the most aggressive to do this since I am the very first to get a license in our whole batch, and I have done quite a lot of projects already. With experience in all aspects of architecture, design, project management, construction even purchasing, but I don't know why I am so scared. Maybe because I know that I am so stubborn. I don't like being so nice to clients and kiss ass, I don't like dealing to clients who is as stubborn as me... haha.. that's why I never handled clients. I use to do construction too, but I let my partner take care of the clients. All I did was the technical stuff, I designed, planned and handled the construction but I never really met up with them to discuss, I attended meetings yes but I mostly just smiled. I really am very impatient and if a client argues with me, with something I am sure that Im right usually i just ditch the project and move on to the next project. There are just some client who wouldn't listen. I have encountered a few who really annoyed me. Like this one who said he doesn't have much money and he wanted me to designa simle house for him,we ended up with a plan with 8 bedrooms in a huge lot. He said he liek simple but he wanted a mansion, then he got angry when I said that it will cost him 7million to construct it?!! It shoudl cost 12M, but I managed to lowered it down to 7M. I am sure he has the money for it, he is just trying to make a fool out of me, so ditched that project. Then there was this small condo that they want to be layed out fro interior and when I gave them 3 schems of my design they still constructed a bedroom without a window and a toilet who took all the space. Why do they ask for porfessional design and still wouldn't follow it. They should have not asked for the service in the first place. Then there's this 2 story house that I managed to lower down the cost to 1.3M, a very resonable expense for a 3 bedroom house with maid's room and a huge Master Bedroom and a Master bath, complete with walk-in-closet. It shoul have cost them 3M, but I painstakingly designed the electrical and plumbing in such a systematic way that made them construct it in a much lesser cost. They we're still mad because they said it is still too little. We'll if you want a mansion, then prepare a budget for the mansion.

As you can clearly see, I maybe really good in my Profession but I am a person who knows my limitations. I am an architect and clients should know that architects are the ones knows about this things, that's why they asked for my service in the first place. We studied and still continuing to study about it, so please if your architect tells you that you should have a window for your bedroom, listen do not argue. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life with room that you have to turn on the light 24hours and run your aircon 24 hours too.

Type rest of the post here

4 comments:

GagayMD said...

hello! dropping by!

gagay

Anonymous said...

If dealing with clients annoy you, do you have someone who could take care of the interviewing with clients for you? The benefits of going into private practice is that you make all the rules. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

Chris said...

well, maybe you can partner with someone? :) at least she or he will face clients and you can be the technical partner :D

Unknown said...

Maybe you can have a partner to deal with the people portion, which I'm sure can be daunting, but then a partner can bring on a whole new set of problems. Good luck on your decision.