Unfortunately I have to work with Mr. G again. End of summer I had managed to get rid of him, because eventually he turned out to be a bigger work load than the other draughtsman who was supposed to help me before.
For a few months, Mr. G was assigned to different people, the result was always the same. Everybody complained about his lack of skills regarding language and architecture. The only thing Mr. G is really good at, is producing super realistic renderings. But this skill is not very useful for us, our focus is mainly on creating execution planning. One colleague calls this kind of people “Fachplaner Hübsch”.
His very last chance is to work as a draughtsman for us. During fall he gets his own project.
Mr. G’s job is to create the measurement drawings for the school from the GDR. The building’s structure is simple, three staircases connected with hallways which have class rooms attached. Nothing special.
The difficulty is, someone else drove there and took the measurements by hand. So Mr. G has an old plan full of hand written notes and the hand writing is awful. Second difficulty is, the building was made in the GDR. Meaning, back then sometimes they ran out of material and had to improvise. The improvisation can lead to crooked walls and little differences. But the supporting structure is easy to understand as the GDR perfected prefabrication. With a little bit of basic knowledge of building and structural engineering this task is easy to do. Should be no problem for someone with a Master’s degree in Architecture.
Great, the drawings of one of the schools I am supposed to create fire protection planning for, are produced by Mr. G. And Mr. G’s drawings are so awfully wrong that on Thursday, after further inspections of his drawings with my notes from the field trip on Wednesday, I had a talk with my boss and my project manager where I told them it is impossible to correct these drawings just like that. Mr. G didn’t understand the building’s structure and produced drawings that look right but in detail no corner and no wall matches reality. Everthing has to be redone completely.
Thursday afternoon Mr. G is told about his mistakes and that he better hurry to deliver correct drawings. The deadline for the fire protection planning is quite short.
So, this Friday must have been quite stressful for Mr. G. I myself am stressed because of my deadline. I stay late and wanna leave the office around seven.
The only people left in the office are Mr. G and one of the clerks. They sit in the same space. I just wanna say goodbye and wish a nice weekend, but Mr. G has questions.
He doesn’t understand his task. Quickly he involves me in a discussion about what exactly to do with the staircase. His problem is, the taken measurements are slightly different in each level.
I say, well why don’t you look for the average and then you’ll draw it like that?
Mr. G keeps repeating the same questions: But how can it be that the walls are different in each level?
I say, this probably happened because the plaster was applied by hand. I have seen it, I was there. Unfortunately the walls are not straight. Why don’t you have a look at the original GDR drawings I gave you? There you see the measurements of the prefabricated walls that were used everywhere. If you add 1.5cm for plaster to each wall, you have usable dimensions and these will represent the reality. We don’t care that much, if a wall is 1cm thinner in reality as long as the structure of the drawing makes sense.
Mr. G again repeats his question and I get caught up in feeling like I am a record with a crack that is repeating the same thing over and over.
Suddenly he changes the subject and says, oh ok so the staircase is crooked but look at the windows! They are all indifferent as well!
At this point I really have trouble to keep calm, because here again the answer is kinda the same. Why don’t you examine the building structure because all you need is to understand how this building was build.
The fight ends with me getting very angry, because I feel he does not want to understand what I am saying or his lack of German is so big, he doesn’t want to admit that he is literally not understanding the words I use.
The clerk interferes and says, I guess it is better if you go home now. I cannot help you here because I’m not architect.
I leave in rage saying: How can someone be so stupid?
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