Resource Management

Many years ago one of my high school friends got married. Before the wedding it was decided that his bachelor party would be in Las Vegas. As is no surprise it was both as ridiculous as the movies make that scenario out to be…AND much duller. Our Las Vegas Odyssey was essentially a case study in the  mismanagement of resources.

While in Las Vegas I lived off greasy burgers,  Red Bull, and vodka. The last two always together. I didn’t drink to excess but the triple threat of those three ingredients made me want to vomit by the end of the trip. The last few hours when two of us hung out after the others had left were the worst. During that time we decided to drop $70+ on what was considered one of the best burgers in the USA. I had to pause halfway through the meal to stare at the toilet and decide if forcing myself to throw up (which would have been easy) would make the rest of the meal more enjoyable. I chickened out. I don’t know if it was the best burger I’ve ever eaten, but it was one of the least enjoyable burgers I’ve ever had.

The night before that event the entire group went to a strip club. I’d never been to one and I am in no rush to go to a second. At the club there where so many examples of resource management gone wrong. First the club let us in for free because of our group size. Score for me because I spent $20 on vodka and Red Bull and otherwise tried to hide in my chair; I got yelled at by at least one stripper for being no fun (and cheap). I can live with that.

One friend got a lap dance and paid. The stripper returned claiming he didn’t pay her enough. Too inebriated to tell whether she was telling the truth, he coughed up more money and ended up way over paying. We’re all pretty sure the girl was lying. But we were victims of our own ineptitude.

Another friend had pockets full of money. Lots of ones and a single hundred dollar bill. Why he brought that bill I’ll never know. But what I do know is he had to watch for an agonizing five minutes after he accidentally threw the hundred on stage. He had to sit and stare at that bill while it lay out of reach, lost to him and mocking his mistake.

We destroyed our resources through foolishness. We didn’t pay attention to how we spent our money. We didn’t keep track of what we had, and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

There are some good architecture and BIM analogies here about screwing up resources and value, but I’ll let you add them in the comments.

Subscribe to my blog to read more about the tricky world of being an Architect in the 21st century: Shoegnome on Facebook, Twitter, and the RSS feed.