Today in the Architecture Career Guide Day in the Life segment we feature a good friend of mine who works in the architecture field. Briana Ellis graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with me and has gone on to work at a custom residential architecture firm. She is currently a Job Captain and is in the process of taking her Architecture Registration Exams. With that I will let her take it:

A little background for ya: I worked as an intern part-time my 5 yrs in school and have been working full-time now for 5. I’ve worked for 3 companies, 350 strong at the first spot, down to 2-5 folks at my current. Here’s a snapshot of my life as a job captain.

Monday. Yeehaw.

Seriously, no matter how much you love your job, Mondays can be rough. I work for a small firm (it has grown from 2 people to 5 in my time here), so I have to “wear a lot of hats”. And, let’s just say the hat I had to start my week with on my head is not my favorite.

Disclaimer: I try not to be Negative Nancy as I describe this, but Hey! That’s what Monday morning called for.

7:30 am- Building Department, City of Somewhere in Southern California

My less than favorite thing to do is process permits through the building department. This is where you take your beautiful drawings that you have worked so hard on and you give a bunch of your client’s money to a governing agency to ask permission to build the project. A lovely human being then writes all over your project in red ink and tell you to change it….over and over until they think it’s ready. There’s a lot of frustrating parts about this step in the process which I’ll leave out; you just have to accept them and push through it so you can hand your baby over to a contractor. Okay, negative part DONE.

9- Starbucks

I mentioned it was Monday, right?

9:30- Made it to the office

Had a quick powwow with the Boss regarding the status of the projects I am managing. Checked in with my coworkers – how was your weekend?, etc.

10- Structural engineering coordination

I responded to an email regarding the foundation for a new lifeguard tower. Wait, like a ‘big headquarters’ type of tower? Or a ‘one man and a pair of binoculars’ type of tower? The later, actually. The cool thing about this tower is that it will be 30 ft above the beach, sitting on giant concrete caissons that will come out of the side of the bluff. I then called the same engineer about another project we’re working on together; he thinks we need to add a steel column. I told him it would completely kill the aesthetics of the building. We go back and forth for a bit on how to make the building “pretty” AND stand up.

11ish?-

I ordered drawings printed for a mixed use building that is at the end of the construction document phase ( at the end of the building department’s review, specifically). The Boss will mark these up with HIS red pen, making sure we have all of the critical information included to reduce the likelihood that we’ll get sued if something goes wrong. This red pen, I don’t mind so much….

+/- 12pm- Food

Solo lunch break. Just me, a burger, and a sunny patio. I make it a point to leave the office for lunch; it’s really easy to get glued to the computer. And the thought of being .125% more productive is alluring…. Beware the shiny gold star you feel you’ll earn by working through lunch! You’ll get burned out and resentful quick.

1- Phone

Back at headquarters. I returned a call to a client who has redesigned their house because of budget constraints. “Casa de Awesome” has been downgraded to “Decent Remodel.” I feel for them, but there’s not much to be done.

1:30- Earbuds in

I attempted to tune the rest of the office out for a bit and get some design work done. Project: a 4,000 q. ft. Andalusian-style custom home with an ocean view. It’s fun to design these fantastic places because, in a way, you’re living in them in your head for 8 hrs a day.

2- Fail

I ended up taking my own pass at redlining the Mixed use plans, since Boss is so busy. We are so swamped with work. Sometimes you have to chose one deadline over the other and remind yourself no one will die if something isn’t taken care of ASAP. Ah, THERE’S the reason I didn’t become a doctor!

5:30- Pencils down

I left the office on time tonight (another thing I try to stick to, like lunch)!

I would like to thank Briana for being a part of this series and I look forward to hearing more from her. If you have a story to tell, let me know and I would be happy to feature you on the website as well. Don’t forget to also check out my new book, Beginners Guide: How to Become an Architect available now on Kindle!

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