Train Wrecks make the best Metaphors

To any emerging professionals reading this, let me make this clear: your first clients aren’t homeowners or businessmen. Your first clients are your bosses. They are the ones you need to impress. They are the ones you need to make happy. Seriously. This isn’t about sucking up to them or treating them like reverent gods. No. It is about treating them like clients. Like people you’re trying to make happy so that you can do the best project you can do, and hopefully use that work in a portfolio to get future clients.

I wish I understood that when I was younger. Shit I wish I understood that even a few short years ago. I don’t think I figured this out until after I stopped having bosses. Hopefully my mistakes can be good reminders for you to do things more intelligently.

#internmistakes

Oh the stories I could tell on Twitter followed by the hashtag #internmistakes…remember when I alluded to a story about building a full scale mockup of a monument to George H.W. Bush in my article Sometimes I wonder if I’m the Bad Guy? Well I wrote up the full story, plus some other interesting tidbits in an article for the latest issue of the AIA CRAN Chronicle. Here’s the link to the saga of that fateful week which convinced one of my ex-bosses that I was a lazy dud:

A Monument to a Former President

After you laugh at my youthful foolishness (and hopefully learn how to avoid some of my mistakes), take a look at the rest of the Winter 2014 CRAN Chronicle. There’s another large article of some other architects sharing their own train wrecks. No one else’s story involves Chinese investors flying half away around the world to see some half-assed model making, but there are some great ones about machete unions, horrible contractors, crazy clients, and some timid architects.

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