COVID has changed me

In reply to mfennell :

One thing I really liked about Skype was the integrated clipping feature. While clipping still works in Teams, it was nice how you didn't have to open up another program to quickly clip something during a chat.

I also have the Teams app on my phone, so I can turn that on and it looks like I'm at my desk when I'm not. 

Absolutely. Working from Home Vs Office. Handshakes Vs Namaste 

In reply to aircooled :

You are not wrong. Sone of my competition is really bad too.

One stamp concrete job I bid on I was outbid by a stupid low price.....like the person who came up with the number had no idea what was needed. If you know stamped concrete you know that you can't do a bunch of yardage at a time. The window to get the stamp right is small and it takes awhile. If it's just me, I stop at about 5 yards. This was 30yds.

The outcome was this: he did 30 yards at once. It went off at  half way and he threw a temper tantrum. He then walked all over it in his boots stomping to destroy the concrete. He then smeared concrete all over the guys windows and siding. He then broke the owners dogs leg. He then decided to beat up the home owner. Cops were called and he had to be taken away by force.

I mean......it's pretty easy to top that and be better but all I always do is:

Show up

Do the job 

Come in under budget

Get paid.

And you know......don't break the owners dogs legs.

COVID puts enough stress on everything that it becomes pretty clear what is not working in your life. Even before COVID, it was going to be challenging year.  My wife and I decided to start working through issues/differences that have been darkening an otherwise happy marriage for the 27 years we have been together. That process is hard enough on its own. With the added stress of sheltering in place, and both of us working from home, learning different ways to understand, to communicate, and be together took on a new urgency.

Somehow through it all we are finding ways to communicate and understand each other better. That was something I noticed in we did in conflicts when we were dating. It was one of the things that made me decide to marry her. It not all sunshine and roses.  Nothing is ever happily ever after. But its a lot better.  And for that I am grateful.  

Brought my kids to the dentist today. In the waiting room there was a little girl, about 10 months old. She was animated and friendly and smiled at the few of us waiting. We smiled back. But we were wearing masks. This is the first time masks have made me sad. Those friendly interactions that small kids have with kind people can't happen in the same way when when all you can see is their eyes. You can't wave and smile and play peek-a-boo. I'm still sad. 

Regarding construction, architectural, etc...

Commercial construction is a slow moving process. There is a big lag between economic changes and the response of the construction market. Commercial construction  projects take a couple years to plan, develop, design, and identify financing. 
 

Commercial construction is entirely about the business plan and the revenues. Unlike residential, which is about people's desires. 
 

Commercial construction has continued through the downturn because we are spending money that was put into motion 2 years ago. 
 

Architectural projects in the pipeline are often good indicators of commercial construction projects that will begin in 6 months or so.

I am convinced the commercial construction market is going to take its worst downturn ever next Spring. Businesses are struggling to survive COVID, and the pipeline is empty. They simply are not going to spend a ton of money on a capital project until they figure out what COVID did to business- that will take at least another year after COVID "recovery". I say the market will dry up terribly in the Spring, and will remain that way for a year or more. 
 

This will also affect the residential construction market, as commercial contractors try to survive and switch to residential work.

My company's Atlanta office is already struggling. They do mostly retail, and retail construction is dead. 
 

It's gonna get ugly out there. 

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

I couldn't agree more. With work from home having been proven viable a whole lot of office buildings are going to be empty. 
Yes there might be some construction activity converting them to residential. But I'm not sure they can be attractive if the businesses are moving out. 
Same with repurposing  retail into residential. 
Amazon has changed shopping dramatically.  No longer a drive to a mall, park your car, and walk.  
Now whip out your phone and let your fingers do what your legs used to do. 

I don't disagree, although commercial guys don't always make the greatest residential guys.

But itll take a few jobs from me on the residential side before their rep catches up too. I expect spring to be a little slow

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

That's true. They don't. 
 

But the commercial companies are well connected politically, and have strong sales teams, marketing budgets, and legal teams that the residential guys are no match for. 
 

That's what the first wave looked like in 2008 and other major downturns. A lot of those residential guys who got run over never survived. 
 

Yes, the commercial guys left as quick as they could once there was a commercial market to return to. But the damage was done  to many of the small quality residential companies (including mine). It's part of the reason there are so few decent residential guys now. They never came back. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

That's true. They don't. 
 

But the commercial companies are well connected politically, and have strong sales teams, marketing budgets, and legal teams that the residential guys are no match for. 
 

That's what the first wave looked like in 2008 and other major downturns. A lot of those residential guys who got run over never survived. 
 

Yes, the commercial guys left as quick as they could once there was a commercial market to return to. But the damage was done  to many of the small quality residential companies (including mine). It's part of the reason there are so few decent residential guys now. They never came back. 

I don't disagree.

I have a few jobs lined up to start spring so hopefully it won't effect me too much

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I don't mind MS Teams that much. It means I don't have to be in the office for meetings.  Even before we moved to Teams and most of our meetings were simple phone meetings, I soon learned that it didn't matter if I was sitting at my desk in the office or at my desk at home, so if someone scheduled a 3 PM meeting, I'd leave the office early and call in from home.

BTW - one of my MINI club friends in an Architect and was furloughed a couple of months after all of this started. Let go officially a month or so ago.  If you guys are hiring, send me a note maybe?

Sorry man - can't help. My firm has been laying off as well. We've been shifting people around between sectors but the head count is down 15% (from 1300) a year ago and will certainly continue to fall. 

In 2009/10 we went from 1500 to 700. It was a bloodbath but I ended up in Atlanta during that time to work on a campus expansion for [redacted] due to a prior relationship with the client. It was a horrible recession but the client had cash and construction was cheap so they pushed in their chips and we got lucky. I learned last week that right now, all but FIFTY of that client's 5,000 employees are WFH... Half of those are security guards. 
 

I work on projects 99% of my time as a construction contract administrator. Like Paul said - these are long duration events. One project is about nine months from completion and another that I'm working on will be under construction until fall 2022 (my fingers are crossed that it doesn't stop once the parking garage podium is complete).

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I don't mind MS Teams that much. It means I don't have to be in the office for meetings.  Even before we moved to Teams and most of our meetings were simple phone meetings, I soon learned that it didn't matter if I was sitting at my desk in the office or at my desk at home, so if someone scheduled a 3 PM meeting, I'd leave the office early and call in from home.

BTW - one of my MINI club friends in an Architect and was furloughed a couple of months after all of this started. Let go officially a month or so ago.  If you guys are hiring, send me a note maybe?

I forgot about Teams...

I don't mind it. It's a good app - I'm just sick of being on calls all day every day. I actually  hate the instant messaging- everyone thinks if you've got the app turned on you will reply instantly. 
 

And berkeleyity berkeley berkeley berkeley that.

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

Regarding construction, architectural, etc...

Commercial construction is a slow moving process. There is a big lag between economic changes and the response of the construction market. Commercial construction  projects take a couple years to plan, develop, design, and identify financing. 
 

Commercial construction is entirely about the business plan and the revenues. Unlike residential, which is about people's desires. 
 

Commercial construction has continued through the downturn because we are spending money that was put into motion 2 years ago. 
 

Architectural projects in the pipeline are often good indicators of commercial construction projects that will begin in 6 months or so.

I am convinced the commercial construction market is going to take its worst downturn ever next Spring. Businesses are struggling to survive COVID, and the pipeline is empty. They simply are not going to spend a ton of money on a capital project until they figure out what COVID did to business- that will take at least another year after COVID "recovery". I say the market will dry up terribly in the Spring, and will remain that way for a year or more. 
 

This will also affect the residential construction market, as commercial contractors try to survive and switch to residential work.

My company's Atlanta office is already struggling. They do mostly retail, and retail construction is dead. 
 

It's gonna get ugly out there. 

This is my fear as well. I'm pretty sure you are right. 

So what you're saying is, wait until early next year to have my deck done?

In reply to pheller :

Pretty solid bet

COVID was a big factor in my deciding to retire a few months ago. That is one of your life's biggest decisions. I had planned on working another 4-5 years but from what I was seeing at work and out in the community, I'm not pushing my luck. We had the best PPE and training but there was still too much fail. Much more fail out in the community. There were several other reasons why I decided to retire as well. I turned 62 a few weeks ago and I'm not looking back.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

No worries.  I figured it was a long shot, but you never know until you ask.

I suppose I'm lucky in that as long as baby boomers have money and want drugs to keep them alive, the pharma industry will keep cranking them out.  Not to mention vaccine production... helped by the fact interest rates are low so money is cheap (which is another reason why I don't think the housing market will collapse any time soon).  While a lot of the administration work of a pharma company can be done remotely, labs and manufacturing still get done on site and those are the buildings I do designs for.

I'm just hoping to hang on for another ten years and maybe I can retire at 60.  But who knows... 

pheller said:

So what you're saying is, wait until early next year to have my deck done?

Definitely