Independents and Vacation

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Author Message Tomas Mejia, CCS, CCCA, LEED Senior Member Username: tmejia Post Number: 44 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 04:37 am:    I am a 1 person Independent spec firm. I am taking my first real vacation in over 3 years. I will be out of the country for two weeks. I will not be checking messages or e-mails. How do you inform your clients and when? Dave Metzger Senior Member Username: davemetzger Post Number: 262 Registered: 07-2001 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 08:46 am:    As far in advance as possible. I phone each applicable project manager and tell them my schedule, at least a few weeks before I leave. And then I send out an e-mail a day or two before I leave to remind them. I try to arrange my deliverables to get them to my clients before I leave, so I have as empty a desk as I can when I do leave. And try not to have any deadlines within a week or so of when you return, because you'll need some time when you return to get your head back into work. George A. Everding, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: geverding Post Number: 413 Registered: 11-2004 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 10:09 am:    I have not been in independent practice as a specwriter, but when I was a one-person architectural practice, I would arrange for another architect to cover for any questions on ongoing work, and return the favor for their vacations. I suspect it is a bit easier to arrange deliverables in a spec practice than for an architectural firm, because there always seemed to be jobs under construction while I was out of town. By the way, I was never able to be out of cell phone contact, so congratulations on your plans to be isolated. Robin E. Snyder Senior Member Username: robin Post Number: 174 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 11:43 am:    I add a note to the bottom of my emails (right about my signature) in bold blue font that says: Please be aware, I will be on vacation from xx xx to xx xx. I start this about 2 months before I am leaving - that way, it goes out on EVERY email to EVERY one. I have an assistant that covers the phones for me - you may want to look into a temp service for the 2 weeks if you are nervous about clients reaching an answering machine. One other thing I have learned - despite all the stress - clients somehow manage to survive and the projects all get built. Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: lazarcitec Post Number: 507 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 12:45 pm:    Tommy - congrats on your plan, however although I have been on vacations out of the country, I always manage to check email, for one thing I don't want to have to go through 600 emails on my return, that would be the end of my relaxation; and I do return some of them, esp from long term clients that have actual emergencies - for our firm we have many projects under construction and sometimes a question that pertains to a spec issue can not wait 2 weeks. I find that my clients do not abuse me when I advise them of my plans but they also appreciate knowing that I always have at least one eye open - that is one of the burdens of being independent...at least for me. Perhaps that is why we seldom chase work and are busy year round. George no matter who I would have to cover me (and I usually have another specwriter on standby if the need arises) there is no substitute for the knowledge of a job in my head. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 67 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 12:55 pm:    Tomas, I am a one person firm and I just returned from a week vacation as well in Mexico. First in three years as well. I told my clients about my vacation 6 months in advance, then again 3 months in advanced and then 2 months, and then again 1 month, then 3 weeks, then 2 and then two days before ALL OF THEM got crazy because I was going to be gone. That meant having two jobs DONE before I left at 3 AM that Saturday morning. I did it by working 21 hours...so I prepared them long in advanced and then reminded them basically every week and STILL they only paid attention a couple days before I left...it was maddening. BUT my trip to Mexico was unbelievable. I went to Isla Mujeres, Chichen-Itza and Tulum to see the Mayan Ruins, and toured downtown Cancun and bought some great mexican approved medicines for my back issues. HA HA! Have a great trip! PS - I came back to 1165 emails. NOT JOKING. I get an average of 200 emails a DAY! About 25% are worth looking at! IT took my Outlook system a day and half to download because my internet kept timing out and outlook would lock up because of the overload. BUT I did not want to sit at a computer on MY TIME OFF because it was MY TIME OFF. We need to be able to escape sometimes, don't you all agree??? Are do we work while sitting on the beach sipping a Pina Colada? Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: lazarcitec Post Number: 508 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 01:08 pm:    Melissa, I agree with you but don't you check email while you are away anyway, I don't have time before the vacation to plan everything and I find myself doing research during a vacation on line, so it takes 15 more minutes to delete crap email and another 15 minutes to answer a few. I get about the same amount each day, but after telling clients I will be away, and putting vacation holds on all the news sites, I get about 60 a day while on vacation. And u r right about the mad rush b4 and the mad rush after - always the case, but it is nice to get away from the daily grind. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 68 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 01:27 pm:    I use to be all about my emails and keeping clients happy but the jobs will be there before and after I get back. I need my sanity on vacation. I did not want to bring that type of stress with me. It was my 10 year wedding anniversary trip. I wanted to be completely removed from work if only for a week. It was great. Also, when I did get back cause what was waiting for me? Both jobs I put out. They were not ready to issue yet and the owner had some design changes on both. One of them even decided they did not have the money and it has been put on hold for a "month or two" as it was indicated to me by architect when I returned. So now I have two piles of originals on my desk I have to redo. Can not win for losing. BUT I typically do check email but this vacation was special. It is not everyday that someone makes it to a 10 year wedding anniversary or above it in this day and age. correct? Melissa Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: lazarcitec Post Number: 509 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 01:32 pm:    Agreed I hope to celebrate my 25 yr anniversary with the wife next January - its going to be either Italy or Hawaii - we'll see who's president and how the $ behaves...after 25 years though my wife is just happy to have me with her on vacation, she has been very tolerate of this madness we call spec writing - hell it pays the bills!!!! Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 69 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 01:41 pm:    Congrats. PS - while on your anniversary vacation, try to unplug for awhile...it is very liberating! I actually enjoyed the stillness, ocean breezes, and waves crashing on my chair while I stared at the beautiful scenery. Try to be in that moment, you will find it is great! I came back refreshed and re-engerized and ready to take on the specs! Happy 25th! Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: lazarcitec Post Number: 510 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 01:51 pm:    Hey 25 is still 10 months away...stuff happens, I'll wait until 09 to celebrate....may have to make a side trip to Antartica before it s gone. Robin E. Snyder Senior Member Username: robin Post Number: 175 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 11:06 pm:    I have found that i take 2 different kinds of vacations: one type where I plan on working a bit (maybe I am going up to my place in CO for a long weekend, or out to CA to spend time w/ family), but i think it is extremely important to take the other type of vacation which involves NO EMAIL. There is nothing that will kill a vacation quicker than getting an email about a "crisis" and then worrying about getting it resolved etc. After spending all that money, why waste the time worrying? I have found that, by the time I get back, the client has usually found a way to resolve the "crisis". When I go on a true "vacation" - the cell phone stays in America and no email. The brain needs time to purge and reboot! Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 744 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 10:12 am:    It's interesting to note, fellow wordsmiths, that the word recreation can be read "re-creation"...don't we all need to re-create once in a while? Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 70 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 10:19 am:    Lynn, You always have the right thing to say. I wish I was more like you. Seriously. I love reading your comments. Re-Create! Go forth and Re-Create! Leave your emails, cellphones, and the chain on your arm keeping you glued to that computer behind. Take a vacation. You will live longer if you take breaks. Less likely to cause heart attacks and back problems from sitting at a desk for 20 or more hours a day! PS - I hope everyone has a Blessed day! Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 745 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 11:07 am:    Melissa, thank you! Give yourself many, many more years and you'll probably become more like me; but I'm not sure that's what you'll want! You are right on right now. A Blessed day to you, too. Tomas Mejia, CCS, CCCA, LEED Senior Member Username: tmejia Post Number: 45 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 11:40 am:    Thanks for the responses. I have already mentioned my upcoming vacation to some of my clients. Next week I will send an e-mail to all my clients. I also like the idea of attaching a note to future e-mails. Melissa - I stayed at Chichen-Itza and went to Tulum to see the Mayan Ruins, and toured downtown Cancun - 14 years ago. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 72 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 11:55 am:    Well...now they do not allow you to go up the pyramids anymore due to kids chipping away at the stone and their graffiti. Shame. I bet you got to travel up the top that many days ago. I loved the fact that you could stand at the bottom of the stairs, in the center, and clap, the sound you get back is a sound of an eagles cry. So many wonderful memories! You should go back, there have been many changes. PS - have fun on your upcoming trip! Good luck. PS - Lynn, how many more years are we talking here? hee hee. I am now what my daughter calls 'old'. Yet I do not feel that way, ok, that is a lie. I do feel old. 10 surgeries last 11 years and 4 on my back with the last one a double back surgery removing my tailbone and fusion of lower spine vertabrae. I already have to take horsepills and sometimes use a walker to walk...maybe I don't want many, many more years...hee hee, well unless they are full of fun and friendship and then maybe I will accept it. have a great day ya'll! Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 746 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 11:56 am:    Melissa, you "sound" like you're in your 30's! Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 73 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 11:59 am:    I am! Mid 30's but that is as far as I will admit! hee hee. Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 811 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:10 pm:    Lynn, we are all breathlessly awaiting your answer to Melissa's first PS question!!!! Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 74 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:13 pm:    you guys are so bad. D. Marshall Fryer, CSI, Assoc. AIA Senior Member Username: dmfryer Post Number: 62 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:19 pm:    For those of us unwilling to unplug for a vacation, I offer the following: "I've taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it's a wonderful communication technology, and it has a lot of good uses, it is abused quite a lot. I have too many friends who tell me that they spend the first hour of every morning going through their e-mail messages. I'd like to use my time more carefully. I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we're required to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought and reflection. I believe that we need to slow down. Communicating more rapidly is not necessary the same as communicating more effectively. We've lost the time and the space and the silences to think about who we are, what our values are, what's important to us and where we're going, both as individuals and a country as a whole. So my refusal to use e-mail is just a very tiny protest against this onslaught of information and speed. We're plugged in 24 hours a day now. We're all part of one big machine, whether we are conscious of that or not. And if we can't unplug from that machine, eventually we're going to become mindless." -Alan Lightman, adjunct professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of books including Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 747 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:22 pm:    If Melissa's admitting to mid 30's, it's safe to say that I've not doubled her age - yet. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 748 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 12:29 pm:    Can we send that to our clients, our companies, our bosses, and...? I have some friends who are already mindless when it comes to emails. Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 739 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 03:19 pm:    only a tenured professor would say something that silly. I have a friend who is an administrator at Dartmouth who refused to use email for quite a long time in his career; he had his administrative assistant print out all his emails so he could read them in hard copy. Eventually, he realized that by having someone else print them out, he was wasting her time, and not being very responsive to his colleagues -- so he was wasting their time, too. He now uses a blackberry for work, but still doesn't know how to use email at home.