Back to Basic

Its only been 9 days since I transfered to the main office and I already rendered a total of 29hours Over Time. The only days that I left a early was Tuesday and Wednesday, the rest of the week I go home around 11pm. I even went back to the office on a Sunday and spend the whole day there. I am so tired, and honestly I don't think I should be doing that much over time. I miss little J so much. I don't get to see her anymore, she's already asleep when I get home and still asleep when I leave in the morning. Tonight as I went home, I texted my sister-in-law about little J, because she's in our home visiting little J. She said little J is looking for me and throwing tantrums already, maybe because she can't understand why I am still not home, she's asking for me and wont go to sleep. Nang Nang said she managed to distract her by reading storyboks, little J soon fell asleep. I cried, because IU should be the one doing that. I should be the one by her side. This is so hard for me, maybe even harder than what little J feels, but I had to go through this. I gave myself 6 months to weigh things out, now I want to shorten it to 3 months and decide if I am for this or not. As an architect I really need this experience, its a chance for me to learn the facets of my caree, and what better way for training than in the No.1 architectural firm in th country.

I did not plan my career well, or maybe I was just too lucky. I jumped, I didn't go through the phase of being a draftsman, of learning the little things. I started my job as a project coordinator and I am so blessed to be promoted so fast. At 27 years old, I already had experience as a Project architect for developer, as a Mall Architect for 4 Malls, as a Marketing Manager, a Project Management head and even put up my own construction company, but as I grow older, challenges change and I can't successfully fulfill my work if I don't know the little things. There are a lot of details that I don't know about, I don't even know how to Schedule a drawing production, much less layout which plans should have details, or blow-up. I realized I can't skip the ladder, I had to go back to the basic and I am lucky to be given an opportunity to do that. In this Architectural firm, my function is as low as a draftsman, the lowest step of the ladder, but I am still lcuky because what they didn't know is that my salary is as much as thier Project Architect, maybe even more. So this is really a good deal, my function, my resposnsibility is really low but the pay is high. I just have to swallow my pride. The other employees doesn't know that I am a licensed architect already, they don't know about my salary either. Some even make me feel stupid, because they only look at me as a draftsman, they get angry if I don't use the right text hieght. I really have to hold on to my nerves and stay calm. Deep inside in the real world, your client doesn't care whatever font you use, whatever height you use. What they care about is the substance of the work, they will not care if your pen assignment is 0.5 thiner that it should be. They will not care if your layout is 10mm off, they will not even see that it is not aligned well. In the real world, what matters is how well you plan, how well you design, in fact that may even be secondary if you market it well. If you are really good in presentations and how well you introduce and explain it to that client, they will not even understand about your concept our your schedule. This is what earns the money, this is what makes you survive. I saw that early on, maybe because I am more exposed to dealing with people, rather than staying in front of the computer 15 hours a day, doing drafting works. What they didn't know is to be able to be a successful architect, you should stop thinking of the drawing, but rather how to find projects so that you'll get to do the drawing. In fact, one sign that you are already half way to your success is when you totally stopped doing the drawing and pay somebody else to do that for you.

I know all this, and I realized all this early on. I really smart and straight foward lady talked to me about this and we instantly gained trust with eachother, she because she is happy to know that I understand all this. She further congratulated me that I have an open my mind and well defined vision to actually saw this, she believe that I will make it big in this career. She's a marketing person and she aknowledge that I recognized the power of marketing in the field of architecture, she said that I have my mind on the right track. We both agreed to one thing though, that as a technical person which is the core of being an architect I am still very raw. She is right, and I know that too, that's why I made my way in to going back to the lowest level to relearn everything. I have to remind myself that it is just a character I am playing, that I am a draftsman, I need too do that. If not, I will eaither lose confidence or just flare up and just leave the company. I can just get my own projects and earn twice as much with half the effort but I have to do this. I have to go back to basic and relearn things,

tiis, tiis lang

. I need this, I will bever succeed as an architect if I don't understand the basic.

Wish me luck blogger friends. I will not be present online most of the time and I will not be able to drop ec anymore, but I still visit hyour blogs every night. Sorry, if I don't leave much comments. Hope you still pay me a visit.