Back at work

After a month of crying I am back at work. Luckily my colleagues are very understanding. At the same time they value privacy and don’t ask too many questions.

I am an Architect and worked many years as a construction manager. Both jobs, Architecture and Construction Management usually mean long working hours. After ten years of working a lot I was looking for a job with reduced working time. I was very happy about this job, because they had a modern approach in terms of working hours and equal rights. Not easy to find. I started working there in October 2021, first as a construction manager but soon the project demanded correction of the planning. So I changed from management to a bit of back office and mainly organised the planning.

The office had a clearly structured hierarchy. We had project managers, project editors and draughtsmen (the draughtsmen were all male so in this case the gender is correct). I was an editor and had a draughtsman helping me in the beginning. He was a kind soul, but very insecure which sometimes led him being unable to finish the easiest tasks. Mostly he caused more extra work instead of helping to reduce the work load. After a while I found out, noone in the office actually wanted to work with him because he was so slow sometimes. It had been problematic for three years. So at some point I told my project manager, I’d rather work alone than being a kindergarten teacher.

But the workload was too much for one person.

By chance someone applied at our office in April. He was an Architect from Georgia. Mr. G. First he applied as an apprentice. He said we could test him for free for three months and if we like his work my boss and he could talk about a contract. He came in just in time and in recent years it is very hard to find Architects. There are more jobs available than professionals. So we were happy about the apprentice.

In the beginning he did great work. He was helpful and seemed to quickly understand and find solutions by himself. He was assigned to help me in my project. After a month he asked the boss for evalution and if they could talk about a contract. It turned out he needed a work contract so that he could stay in Germany.

My boss asked me and I said, yes he is of good help. We definitely need him.

While I was gone for a month, Mr. G had to work by himself. With help of our project manager. The manager showed me what they had been working on. He was very happy I was back, because coordinating Mr. G was a bit too much for him. Our project manager had a huge work load, he was working on many different projects simultaneously.

The first week of July was quiet, Mr G was on holidays. He went to the Fusion festival. That was good for me so I had time to sort myself and slowly get back.

He came back from his holiday on Friday. After a short orientation time he came to me and said, hey I noticed there is a mistake in the view drawings. I said yes cool, perfect you can do that.

On this monday he bugged me for the first time. He came to me and asked a very simple question regarding the mistake he had found. Something any architecture student learns in the first semester. I don’t know what had happened during the weekend. I guess he was partying too much. Not very unusual for people new to Berlin. But his question was as if he had emptied his brain completely and had no memory at all about what he had been working on the Friday before.

Anyway, my patience had been drained due to the whole radio madness and I kinda snapped. Not very professional, but at the same time I thought I don’t get paid to be my colleagues brain. He has his own and should use it.