Augi World - July/August 2008 - (Page 7) Extreme jobs In the December 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce outlined what they called “Extreme Jobs—the Dangerous Allure of the 70-hour Workweek.” They search for answers as to why people spend this amount of time at work, what drives them and what, if any, are the rewards. They outline how some people gladly spend extreme amounts of time at work and actually love doing it. They list 10 characteristics that they believe define “extreme” jobs. I want to review a few of their definitions of what constitutes an extreme job and see if they apply to CAD management. According to authors Hewlett and Luce, only five of the ten characteristics need apply for a job to be considered “extreme.” Any five, when combined with a 60-hour work week, can move you into the extreme zone. Here are the ones I think apply to CAD managers. 1. Unpredictable flow of work. CAD managers must always adjust to the “feast and famine, stop and start, get it done yesterday” kind of environment. Most of the time, a CAD manager is working from other people’s “to do” lists. This extends not only to the day-to-day interruptions that arise, but also the overall thrust and focus of their environment. How many times have you had to redirect your efforts to meet someone else’s rush items? Every day, right? 2. Fast-paced work under tight deadlines. CAD managers must work to other people’s deadlines. They work under the pressure of multiple deadlines funneling through their systems. They do this with multiple projects at a time. One of the things that hits us all the time are the issues of fixing things that are broken—in quick order. 3. Inordinate scope of responsibilities that amount to more than one job. Wow, we live here. Ever feel like that? You know that you have, especially if you have project duties and CAD manager duties. Some of us may work the equivalent of three different jobs. We have project duties that require us to be productive and billable. We have CAD duties that require us to work on other people’s problems. And there might be other areas of oversight that go beyond the first two. 4. Work-related events outside of regular work hours. Do you belong to a user group? This qualifies you. Many events happen after work hours. Or we might belong to groups that operJ u l /A u g 2 0 0 8 The job many of you are doing is CAD management and to some, it is the ultimate dirty job. ate outside of our “paid” environment. The time we spend at these events or on outside, work-related activities contributes to the overall stress of the position. 5. Responsibility for mentoring and recruiting. You may not be recruiting much, but you are constantly mentoring, training, and moving people forward. You do this by developing and delivering training and more. You publish tips and tricks and online help topics. You prepare them, present them, discuss them, and encourage others to follow. 6. Physical presence at workplace at least 10 hours a day. Well, some of us may not actually do this, but we easily could. Many spend more than 10 hours of their day at the office. Many extend it into the weekends. Even when you aren’t physically in the office, you’re probably thinking about work issues and, while that may not command the same dedication as is required when you are physically at work, the random reminder of office issues on the weekends can get annoying. These are only six from the list. Do they describe you? Do you have an Extreme Job? more often than not it is just an opinion,” says Harrington. “The problem is that everyone has one, an opinion, and when you define standards by majority you get a very vanilla approach.” Harrington is one of many that, while developing a standard with a team, may have one that does not fully express his personal goals with CAD. “So standard in hand,” he continues, “you customize for it (vanilla or not, it is the standard), and try to enforce said standard via the menu and related programs. Inevitably, someone doesn’t like it and instructs the lowly CAD tech to deviate or die (or get nagged repeatedly). So then the CAD tech will come looking for backup from me. Then I am forced to explain why the standard is the way it is and defend something that does not reflect my personal perspective.” All of us are called on to enforce the CAD standard. It may be the “dirty” part of the job. In fact, it may be the dirtiest part of it. Edward C. Lick of Information Technologies for STV, Inc., notes, “The dirtiest parts are the personal attacks for our impersonal CAD standards.” When this happens it can really “get dirty.” Lick is aligning his team to the US National CAD Standard, but some think that he is personally writing them and forcing his perspectives on others. So we have two swings of the pendulum. One is when people think you are personally responsible for every word that goes into the standard and another when you have to take responsibility for other people’s work in developing the standard. Steven Fletcher, CAD Systems Administrator with HMC Architects, mentions other items that may make CAD management a dirty job. “Wearing multiple hats and being good at it seems be a curse in the CAD management world,” he says. “You’re known as the jack of all trades… you can draft fast and efficiently, fix computer issues, you’re a wiz with CAD issues, you 7 I Dirty jobs asked several CAD managers and CAD support staffers about the concept of their jobs being tough and “dirty.” What I found is that many CAD managers have areas of struggles, but these do not shape the job functions in totality. These are anomalies that happen, but can be common to everyone in this position. David J. Harrington, Senior Associate and Office Computer Manager with Walter P. Moore, comments, “My biggest annoyance is having to be the standards policeman.” The requirements of constantly maintaining the high bar of the standard does take forbearance. “In some cases I care about the standard in question, but
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