vague puzzlement
Dec. 13th, 2007 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYou know the trouble with having so many digital channels is that there is always, somewhere, a home makeover or decoration or building show.
... I think I'll have to stop saying I only watch Doctor Who and Torchwood. At the moment I watch DW, TW, and Grand Designs. I mean I never set out to watch Grand Designs, it isn't like I sit down of a morning and go 'oooh, must remember to watch them build a house!', but when I flick through and it happens to be on (which is, apparently, always) then I end up watching.
Some of them are ghastly. Some of them are lovely. All of them go giganticly over budget and over time. And most of them are *facepalm* because they make the exact same mistakes. In general, people decide that they can do without specialists. In specific, the clients decide to be project manager, and sometimes get rid of or stop talking to the architect, and in this last version fire the builder for saying it'll cost £420,000 and then finish it themselves... for £400,000.
Today's was a grand mess, if you ask me. They only got an architect to do some drawings. Then they measured from the wrong point, and failed to notice that the drawings didn't do what they wanted them to, so when the most expensive bits arrived custom made and exactly like the plan... they hated them. *facepalm*
And yet they're convinced they're a good project manager and the house worked out well.
Well, no. I think that building jobs are specialised, project managers generally speaking know what they're doing, architects do lots of studying before they start doing the house thing, and builders go to quite a lot of training first. Oh, and when they get builders to play with materials that looked shiny in the brochure but nobody has any experience of them, that doesn't work out so well either. Finding builders that can do what you want them to apparently needs to go into a lot more detail than 'right then, is builder your actual job?'
And yet the TV finds no shortage of more people doing the exact same thing on a different building. I don't get it. Surely they notice they don't know what they're doing?
I admit that once the problem was some specialist builders came in to do a roof and mucked it up badly, but mostly the problem is non-specialists doing special jobs and mucking them up badly, which seems like it could be fixed if you got a bit more specific when hiring.
Also there's always the fun when they find a building actually has no foundations and the walls are made of wallpaper, or something. I think the relevant job for that is surveyor. Something specialised, again.
Do you think it's that people think cause they can do their own job they're competent in general? Or maybe they've got degrees or something. Knowing x does not mean they know y.
To be fair there have been a bunch of people who got good at doing lots of their own jobs. Usually to save money once something had gone over budget.
I guess building isn't one of the jobs where you can say 'I paid for lunch I get lunch for that price'. I mean, if my breakfast turned up short a tomato and with the beans fried and someone charged me £10 for it, that would be unexpected, and not so much likely to get them paid. If builders turn up with the floor wonky and the windows leaking and charge a few thousand for it apparently it leads to them getting a few thousand more while they fix it. This arrangement I do not understand. Methinks there's something specialised with contracts not being done if that can happen too.
Is pretty cool when people get good at slate roofing or installing windows or putting wool in the walls or whatever else jobs is needed. But I always end up wondering how much quicker it would be to let people do it who do it a lot. And if the man hours and actual cost would end up all that different. And if houses come with warrantys or something.
I used to like designing houses for me to live in. Lately I got bored with anything less than planet sized. But anyways, 'grand' though these designs may be, I don't think I'd get the illusion I could go make them by myself.
Maybe the people that don't think like that don't get on TV. *shrugs*
... I think I'll have to stop saying I only watch Doctor Who and Torchwood. At the moment I watch DW, TW, and Grand Designs. I mean I never set out to watch Grand Designs, it isn't like I sit down of a morning and go 'oooh, must remember to watch them build a house!', but when I flick through and it happens to be on (which is, apparently, always) then I end up watching.
Some of them are ghastly. Some of them are lovely. All of them go giganticly over budget and over time. And most of them are *facepalm* because they make the exact same mistakes. In general, people decide that they can do without specialists. In specific, the clients decide to be project manager, and sometimes get rid of or stop talking to the architect, and in this last version fire the builder for saying it'll cost £420,000 and then finish it themselves... for £400,000.
Today's was a grand mess, if you ask me. They only got an architect to do some drawings. Then they measured from the wrong point, and failed to notice that the drawings didn't do what they wanted them to, so when the most expensive bits arrived custom made and exactly like the plan... they hated them. *facepalm*
And yet they're convinced they're a good project manager and the house worked out well.
Well, no. I think that building jobs are specialised, project managers generally speaking know what they're doing, architects do lots of studying before they start doing the house thing, and builders go to quite a lot of training first. Oh, and when they get builders to play with materials that looked shiny in the brochure but nobody has any experience of them, that doesn't work out so well either. Finding builders that can do what you want them to apparently needs to go into a lot more detail than 'right then, is builder your actual job?'
And yet the TV finds no shortage of more people doing the exact same thing on a different building. I don't get it. Surely they notice they don't know what they're doing?
I admit that once the problem was some specialist builders came in to do a roof and mucked it up badly, but mostly the problem is non-specialists doing special jobs and mucking them up badly, which seems like it could be fixed if you got a bit more specific when hiring.
Also there's always the fun when they find a building actually has no foundations and the walls are made of wallpaper, or something. I think the relevant job for that is surveyor. Something specialised, again.
Do you think it's that people think cause they can do their own job they're competent in general? Or maybe they've got degrees or something. Knowing x does not mean they know y.
To be fair there have been a bunch of people who got good at doing lots of their own jobs. Usually to save money once something had gone over budget.
I guess building isn't one of the jobs where you can say 'I paid for lunch I get lunch for that price'. I mean, if my breakfast turned up short a tomato and with the beans fried and someone charged me £10 for it, that would be unexpected, and not so much likely to get them paid. If builders turn up with the floor wonky and the windows leaking and charge a few thousand for it apparently it leads to them getting a few thousand more while they fix it. This arrangement I do not understand. Methinks there's something specialised with contracts not being done if that can happen too.
Is pretty cool when people get good at slate roofing or installing windows or putting wool in the walls or whatever else jobs is needed. But I always end up wondering how much quicker it would be to let people do it who do it a lot. And if the man hours and actual cost would end up all that different. And if houses come with warrantys or something.
I used to like designing houses for me to live in. Lately I got bored with anything less than planet sized. But anyways, 'grand' though these designs may be, I don't think I'd get the illusion I could go make them by myself.
Maybe the people that don't think like that don't get on TV. *shrugs*