Wasting time while working

Just out of curiosity, how would you guys suggest this issue being taken care of?

We have a small office (2 Architects, 1 Office Manager/Receptionist and 3 Drafters including myself). The Architects have never used CAD but more or less understand the concept of lineweights, xrefs and the VERY basics.

I have been in charge of putting together an Office Standards Booklet as well as organize the CAD Library.

How do I enforce these standards with the other 2 guys when they act more like frat buddies than professional colleagues? A TON of time is wasted online looking up non-work related stuff, playing games, chatting, etc. and just general goofing off (singing, high fiveing, bs-ing).

The bosses are aware of the chatter, singing and that stuff (and have confronted them, but nothing seems to change), but they don't know how much time is wasted online that is then billed to projects. I would be scared to see how much money is thrown away on projects by this.

I have brought up my concerns to them and because of all the cad related stuff I have done they will soon assign me the position of "CAD Captain" or whatever, basically saying I am in charge when it comes to standards and cad stuff. I have never had this role and am not sure how to approach it. I don't want to overstep my role or create resentment, so any tips on how to go about this?

Thanks for any help!

Just out of curiosity, how would you guys suggest this issue being taken care of?

We have a small office (2 Architects, 1 Office Manager/Receptionist and 3 Drafters including myself). The Architects have never used CAD but more or less understand the concept of lineweights, xrefs and the VERY basics.

I have been in charge of putting together an Office Standards Booklet as well as organize the CAD Library.

 

How do I enforce these standards with the other 2 guys when they act more like frat buddies than professional colleagues? A TON of time is wasted online looking up non-work related stuff, playing games, chatting, etc. and just general goofing off (singing, high fiveing, bs-ing).

 

The bosses are aware of the chatter, singing and that stuff (and have confronted them, but nothing seems to change), but they don't know how much time is wasted online that is then billed to projects. I would be scared to see how much money is thrown away on projects by this.

 

I have brought up my concerns to them and because of all the cad related stuff I have done they will soon assign me the position of "CAD Captain" or whatever, basically saying I am in charge when it comes to standards and cad stuff. I have never had this role and am not sure how to approach it. I don't want to overstep my role or create resentment, so any tips on how to go about this?

 

Thanks for any help!

A few words of advice. First of all, you are fortunate that your superiors have/or will give you the opportunity to take charge and accept the responsibility. The best advice I can give you is to take the responsibility seriously while in the workplace. Show your superiors that you can excell in the position they've created. Do your best, they will be watching. As far as your teammates, they need to know that you intend to be serious about the challenge ahead. Let them know that you have accepted the new roll and you intend to act professionally. Friends in the workplace can be OK, but work must come first. If they are real friends, they should understand this and act accordingly. They must learn to respect your new responsibility. If not, they will give you a headache you do not need at this time. Unfortunately, the friend thing doesn't always work out, but never let others try to hinder your progress. Act professionally and stay the course. You will, or should be rewarded eventually in the long run, and if the other two decide to shoot themselves in the foot, let it be. Your superiors should know by now what really goes on, and it looks like they do, and chose you to head things up. Bosses have a funny way of knowing things, that's why they are the boss.

Keep your chin up, let people know you welcome respect, and shine on.

In this day and age, it's not the easiest thing in the world to keep a job. You friends should know this. If not, they aren't too interested in keeping their positions. They can be replaced in a heartbeat.

Good luck.

Glenn

USA

Thanks for the feedback...and yeah I agree. If I do my job the best I can and there are still flaws with what others do, then that is their issue...and they can take that up in their next review meeting. (which of course they have put off a couple years now since there is no "raise" because of the economy so there is "no point in having a review")

I guess it shows in their work, which is why I have this new title. But now with the title comes responsibility so if they screw around and their work still comes out like crap I am in the line of fire to some extent. Will just have to find a way to nip that in the butt...maybe unplug the internet modem?? hahaha

Thanks for the feedback...and yeah I agree. If I do my job the best I can and there are still flaws with what others do, then that is their issue...and they can take that up in their next review meeting. (which of course they have put off a couple years now since there is no "raise" because of the economy so there is "no point in having a review")

 

I guess it shows in their work, which is why I have this new title. But now with the title comes responsibility so if they screw around and their work still comes out like crap I am in the line of fire to some extent. Will just have to find a way to nip that in the butt...maybe unplug the internet modem?? hahaha

Just a word of caution. If you are in the line of fire, let your friends know in a tactful way that you will not tolorate anything that will jeopardize your employment. Be honest to yourself. I'm betting you need the job.

Word to the wise.

very true. thanks

I agree. Tell them the frat house has to move off campus along with the frat behavior. There are plenty of unemployed CAD drafters/designers looking for jobs. Fun is fun and work is work. The two should not overlap so much that they become indistinguishable from each other.

Do the three of you all use AutoCAD LT?

we all use autocad architecture 2009.

yeah, i agree. it's nice to have a friendly and laid back work environment, because i have been at some very strict and up-tight offices, but all i know is that if this were my place this stuff would not be happening.

It doesn't have to be Draconian.

How about using Standard Checker?

like a program to check that or a person to sit down and look at the drawings before the bosses get them?

I have recently developed a checking procedure with authorisation from my boss that no drawing leaves the office without my say so, in collaboration with using a Productivity Report for every drawing.

This has a double-edged sword of (in time) increasing standardisation, and also it allows me to garner info on things like how users are producing drawings, how long they take, and how long they spend on each command.

I also am in the process of developing as much training material as I possibly can, in order to pass onto whoever wishes to be a sponge and suck it up.

Don't point the smoking gun, until you have exhausted all other options - getting prior agreement with your boss is key to it all.

Also, you may want to look into somehow monitoring the use of the internet.

that's a good idea. at the next office meeting everyone will be informed that i will have this new role, but i never thought about doing any sort of productivity report for the drawings as feedback for what to improve on, etc.

i think i just have to have the bosses take control of the slacking off and if i get involved on the standards and drawing cleanness and accurateness, the two will help each other out because more time can be devoted to drawing and not chatting and less things will be missed.

'Don't let a managment problem become a technical problem' - Mark Kiker

Both Mark Kiker and Robert Green have great advice for Cad Managers who are used to managing Cad, but now have to start manageing people!

I agree with all the advice you've been given, Get the support of the Boss first. Be straight with your 'Mates' but don't take any c**p.

http://www.caddmanager.com/CMB/

http://www.cad-manager.com/

My personal experience has been that you have a job flow to be concerned with, and if they can get the stuff done that they need to get done, there should be a certain amount of leeway regarding "goof off" time.

Sitting down in-front of AutoCAD for 8 to 10 hours a day is brutal, and if there's no goof-off room given, I've found that the quality of work and overall morale will start dropping quickly... not to mention the "space-out" factor.

Standards in terms of how long you should spend at a desk, etc, as set by the CDC (yes, the Center for Disease control):

Work Habits

Repetitious static work (working at the computer) is very fatiguing on your upper extremities as well as your eyes. It is important that breaks from working at the computer be taken every 20 to 40 minutes in order for your body to rest and recover. Taking a short break (3 to 5 minutes) does not mean you have to stop working, other activities such as talking to a co-worker, making copies, filing, etc. could be done during breaks from typing.

It is also important to change positions periodically. Sitting in one position or leaning on your arms for an extended period of time can interfere with circulation.

http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/Ergonomics/compergo.htm#WORK HABITS

If your workflow is unaffected, then let it go. Set reasonable timeframes for accomplishing goals, and if they consistently get done quicker than that, and still goof off in a manner that seems excessive, tighten the timeframes a bit.

Many folks that get real good at AutoCAD and aren't self-employed, have a tendency to streamline their work to permit more goof time. It's what encourages them to work smarter and faster, so if a rush job comes up, they can buckle-down for the single project.

When I implemented that tolerance a few years ago, I found that it worked out pretty well.

I explained to the employees that my official position is required to be "don't screw around at all" but that my unofficial position is "if you're getting your work completed in a reasonable manner, and I don't hear/see too much disruption, you aren't really screwing around."

"However, should the boss come into the room, you had better appear to be working hard and with the minimum of distractions, for the good of all of us. So an attempt at discretion is strongly advised at all times."

I showed my boss the CDC guidelines, and explained that I was being somewhat tolerant of some discreet, short, stretch breaks from time to time, but that was it. He told me that it would be fine as long as it didn't get out of hand.

i understand exactly what you're saying...and i just have to figure out a good balance of it all. i think right now with the way things are, work is affected. even if it is done in the timeline needed, a lot of it is half-assed and either not done correctly or stuff is missed and the bosses come back with corrections. so that is one of the bigger concerns with how time is spent. truely, the singing and bs-ing can always be filtered out by some headphones and music so i personally can concentrate and if the bosses have issues with that stuff they can take it up with whoever on their personal review

Every time a position has me drafting without review by another set of eyes, I've eventually regretted it. Even as "boss" I learned to give my drawings to my underlings to look for issues.

A word of warning though.. you'll get a lot of resentment if you don't have a clear set of standards for them to either reference and/or directly use (ie- dimension styles). Some errors in standardization are a result of personal preference, and that can get tricky to deal with when you put red marks all over their drawing that can't be clearly justified better than "it just looks better this way" (even though that's what a lot of drawing standards are).

Something that helped me as an employee was to create a spreadsheet "cheat sheet" that listed all the jobs I've done, and some of the highlights of them, and/or what makes them different from previously catalogued entries.

My new jobs are compared to the cheat sheet, and I start by using the job that's closest to what I'm doing. That means any corrections I made previously, regarding notation phrasings or dimension styles, etc.. are already in the drawing.

You just have to be sure a second eye looks them over, because if you're distracted, it's easy to lose your place, and not know whether you've updated or not. You should also resave the old work under the new name, in the new location, immediately upon starting so accidents involving alterations to existing jobs don't happen.

Works for me anyways.. good luck!

One warning though.. It will completely mess up any "drawing time" evaluations... it'll stack-on the original drawing time as well, but what can sometimes take a week to complete, I can sometimes finish in an afternoon because the info was there, it just needed to be shifted around, and the titleblock remade.

I see what you're saying and yeah, I have to be careful. I want to get a well developed copy of the office standards out to everyone and from that point I will say I'm more of the filter between us and the bosses so that simple and easily overlooked mistakes as well as graphics aren't overlooked. We all recently had "the talking to" about this stuff and I think the bosses are just fed up with getting drawings that they have to redline for graphical errors instead of actual design and construction.

In addition I have been working on the cad library here and there so it's easy to take blocks and whatnot from old projects without having to redraw them or spend time looking for them in the archives. That's just something ongoing, but the standards should help out big time in the immediate near future.

Just a thought on graphical errors; in our company we have, as part of our QA documentation, a designers / draughters drawing checklist.

This must be filled out by the drawing producer and passed on with the drawings for checking.

If the checker comes across 3+ of the points in the checklist that have not been checked by the draughter then he stops checking the package and hands it back without mark ups to be brought up to standard and resubmitted for checking. He also makes a note of this happening which highlights who is having problems (or being lazy).

Yeah, I created our own version of the drawing checklist a year or two back, but it is hardly ever used and never enforced. It was primarily set up to be used before the DD Documents went out and also the final Construction Documents. I personally use it at those mile markers, but not really any other time.

But I like the idea of not wasting time going thru the drawings if 3 or more things are missed. Why waste more time on something that should have already been done by the drafter.

Just out of curiosity, how would you guys suggest this issue being taken care of?

We have a small office (2 Architects, 1 Office Manager/Receptionist and 3 Drafters including myself). The Architects have never used CAD but more or less understand the concept of lineweights, xrefs and the VERY basics.

I have been in charge of putting together an Office Standards Booklet as well as organize the CAD Library.

 

How do I enforce these standards with the other 2 guys when they act more like frat buddies than professional colleagues? A TON of time is wasted online looking up non-work related stuff, playing games, chatting, etc. and just general goofing off (singing, high fiveing, bs-ing).

 

The bosses are aware of the chatter, singing and that stuff (and have confronted them, but nothing seems to change), but they don't know how much time is wasted online that is then billed to projects. I would be scared to see how much money is thrown away on projects by this.

 

I have brought up my concerns to them and because of all the cad related stuff I have done they will soon assign me the position of "CAD Captain" or whatever, basically saying I am in charge when it comes to standards and cad stuff. I have never had this role and am not sure how to approach it. I don't want to overstep my role or create resentment, so any tips on how to go about this?

 

Thanks for any help!

!!!OH MY GOD, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT MY OFFICE IS LIKE!!!

PURE IGNORNACE, AND SO UNPROFESSIONAL

Nukecad has the right idea..

I used to take an employee's drawing and put red marks all over the thing. A red dot meant that I was verifying that item, a red dash meant that I'd verified it, and an X meant there was an issue.

I checked it off against my guideline list, and then, if the errors were overwhelming, or suspected to be on subsequent pages, I sent it back for them to fix-up without checking them.

As they fixed something, they'd apply a yellow highlighter to my red mark.

Then they'd reprint and I'd compare it to my last set of mark-ups. If it was indeed fixed, it got hit by a blue highlighter that turned the mark green, and I'd sign-off on the last copy.

If it wasn't fixed.. they had some splainin' ta' do

I kept track of who did what, and who get's repeated sendbacks, and who didn't..

"It's not necessarily the best way, or the easiest way, it's a series of preferences that have become our company's standards. If you can't meet those standards, or if you'd like a formal change made to them, let's discuss it."