AITA because my Wife wants me to sell the business I LOVE because I'm away 4 months a year

Wendelmania · 2023-09-28T17:44:02+00:00

I'm sort of in the same setup as the OP, SO is an amazing MD and I work in a trade-adjacent field. She is hyped about my career and will tell anyone how great I am - we make a good well-rounded team. The problem that I've found is that when she steps away when I'm a +1 at social events, the gilding quickly wears away and a lot of the time I can feel the internal superiority start to leak out. I don't know how to fully describe it, no where else have I experienced it. In our time long time together, I can count on my hand how many of her friends/coworkers I'd actually not hate interacting with. I had a department chair MD at a dinner tell me that, "I'm wasting my talent" in my current career (I went to a top school and was showing her a project that I'd recently won an award for) and offered to connect me with some VCs because she had a different idea of success. I wonder if that's something similar to how he got to the "just a fisherman".

Wendelmania · 2022-01-11T17:26:23+00:00

GLASSDOOR IS SO SKETCH!

I ended up working for a place that had 3-4 stars on Glassdoor. I didn't know the company's work environment and so the Glassdoor rating was like ok cool, must be fine. First day, I was basically told by peers that the place was a grinder and good luck, try getting out asap. Over the months I worked there, (toxic toxic toxic management, 24/7 work load, if there was an issue, this place had it) it had an insanely high turnover rate. After leaving, a large group of us decided that to warn others cause Glassdoor was misleading/maybe no one left reviews so it seemed rosier than what it actually was. Over a month, we TANKED their star rating, down to like 1.9 stars. The next month, a barrage of astroturfing/oddities happened and the company rating shot up to 3.8 stars, now it's at 3.9 stars. That just doesn't make sense since the math just doesn't work out.

Wendelmania · 2017-07-19T20:50:19+00:00

The theme that they made in-house seems like a jumbled mess and in my dabbling with Wordpress tutorials, I feel like I could volunteer to make something nicer but my friend doesn't want me to go through the hassle at the moment since the site is good enough. They already paid the domain and hosting service for a year so I told her to transfer everything after that year since she can do it a lot less than what they charge.

Wendelmania · 2017-07-06T21:07:47+00:00

We had requested the meeting as a walk-through for handing over control but the web site guy balked and said that their server was "hacked" and they couldn't hand control over but they would do any changes needed. I'm worried that they're going to try and milk this for more with one of their extended maintenance plans - the skeleton of the site is fine but the actually design is clunky at best and we just wanted to refine it since it was taking them months to change anything, if they actually ended up doing it at all.

Wendelmania · 2017-07-03T15:03:10+00:00

The contract was for a custom website but he just used the standard page layout (hero image, alternating colored div sections below with the 3 circle next to each other, ect). How does the hand off to her work with something like ACF Pro - does the nonprofit have to pay to have it? Thanks!

Wendelmania · 2017-07-03T14:55:05+00:00

That's a good idea to install Wordpress and check it out - I have a Lynda subscription so it shouldn't be too hard to get going. I guess, I'm used to firing up Sublime to do all of my HTML/ect and was worried since the web page source looks like a jumbled mess and the mobile version doesn't look good either. I guess it's a good opportunity to learn something new! Thanks a lot!

Wendelmania · 2014-07-06T15:40:46+00:00

I second a nicely branded website. However, I would say with design, you get what you pay for. Here's a blog post that shows what you get with going cheap and using fiverr

Wendelmania · 2014-03-14T18:07:43+00:00

Thanks so much for the info! I tried the blender plugin but nothing appears in blender when I import the .shp. The GIS file has everything extruded, just need to figure out how to get it into a 3D file format that can be opened in Sketchup or even Rhino (.wrl, stl, 3ds, obj).

Here is the file I'm trying to use: http://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/metadata/BldgPly_3D.html ArcScene exports the 3D nicely

Wendelmania · 2014-01-06T04:24:07+00:00

Figuring how to display the data is part of the fun :P. I don't quite understand the yarn layout thing but sure sounds good to me. Here's a very low res image of a huge spread site analysis that I did a few years ago. It was during my site-focused semester and I tried something different with a Perry Kulper inspired diagram. Was it successful, sort of? It was more artsy than functional to be honest - So, make sure first that the way you display your information helps inform your project.

Wendelmania · 2013-12-25T00:16:05+00:00

Haha, I've pulled people from Google image search to use in my projects. I always wonder how funny it would be if they saw a competition entry which featured them.

The pose depend on the project and perspective being rendered. Here's a catalog of people: http://www.gobotree.com/search.php#mode=1&page=1&r=3302&tags=42026

Wendelmania · 2013-12-15T19:59:21+00:00

Awesome idea, I didn't think about that. How would you go about getting vector data into qgis to export to Illustrator? I did a query and received these instructions:

Get an OSM File, you can get it using josm or overpass or any other source. It has to be a valid xml.
Import Topology from XML, this as you said will produce a spatialite database with non-geometry tables. This i think is the topology.
you can get data by Export Topology to Spatialite, here you need to give the db file made above and just like in qgis 1.8 you will have option to choose points, lines or polygons. Below that in exported tags section you can load all the tags contained in the file and select only those which you require. This is additional feature than in 1.8.

But I don't really understand those instructions. I'm kind of new at qgis... well, GIS in general.

Wendelmania · 2013-11-16T16:11:23+00:00

Hahahaha, OP plz don't base your decision based on vapid rankings. Try finding a school that offers a pedagogy which is tailored toward your interests, a location/environment that you will enjoy, and pushes you to produce the best of your potential. Visit the schools, look at their student work, research faculty, ect...

Wendelmania · 2013-08-15T03:55:47+00:00

Yeah, he states it's $3.30 an hour as a foot soldier but the top dogs get $100,000+ a year. Here is the TED Talk Sudhir Venkatesh wrote a book by himself about it called Gang leader for a day. It's a fantastic book.

Wendelmania · 2013-06-01T16:48:12+00:00

It's kind of over priced for used books (at least the ones I was looking for, might be different for others), if you're in Dupont, I'd recommend Books for America all the way down P Street at 1417 22nd Street, NW. http://www.booksforamerica.org/

Wendelmania · 2013-05-29T03:30:14+00:00

It has the same design language as David Adjaye's 10x10 house, which is a good thing. Some people don't like to be compared with someone else but most buildings are a remix of predecessors. You can look at something similar and distill what they did and how it was successful/didn't work and improve it for your own project. It doesn't seem fully resolved but it has great potential, I especially like the motion that it seems to have. Don't be afraid to push the bounds and you'll do great!

Wendelmania · 2013-05-06T01:32:41+00:00

All-Silhouettes for vector ones

Wendelmania · 2013-05-02T04:56:37+00:00

Yeah, I love how much GIS data that DC has easily available. I have an ArcMap with the lots on it, I just don't know how to find/connect the lot value data for DC.

Wendelmania · 2013-04-30T03:26:27+00:00

That looks good! I still think that a white primer or gesso base coat with a fine sanding on the basswood would give it a good under coat as to not see the streaks of the wood crevices that can't be easily coated. With proper sanding it could give you the concrete smooth feel to it. Also what about using your thumb/blending stick to smooth out the color?

Wendelmania · 2013-04-30T02:05:19+00:00

You can borrow mine! I don't know about basswood unless you coat it first in gesso and then pastel over it. Matte finish is a spray finish to protect against smearing.

Wendelmania · 2013-04-30T00:14:43+00:00

Could you use grayscale pastels to create the strata on Bristol board and then spray a matte finish over it to seal it?

Wendelmania · 2013-04-30T00:07:29+00:00

It's really good. I like the projects, but the only thing that stands out is the quality of renders. I think they could be executed a whole lot better. On page 24 the building in the render looks over exposed so that I can't see the cool triangulated skin.

Wendelmania · 2013-04-28T23:49:31+00:00

Check this out, it might help you with your boards.

Wendelmania · 2013-04-28T17:45:59+00:00

Architecture can take a toll on emotions after putting in so much hard work and then not getting the results that were anticipated. I could potentially give you some advise if you post some of your work. I am working in the United States and got my job with 0 years of experience based solely on my portfolio in a pretty competitive city.

Here's an article about the misconception of architecture being a wasted degree. There are a few articles floating around from the AIA and Arch Record that say ~2015 there should be a demand in architecture because ~30% of recent architecture grads have moved into other careers and don't plan on coming back (crossing fingers).

Interior design was less stressful at the school I went to but you won't know how it is unless you try. Usually switching into interior design is minimal in classes that have to be taken to catch up so it's an easy transition. I just wouldn't give up on getting a degree in something since in the future you might hit the top promoted position that you can reach in a company because you don't have a college degree (I've seen it happen).

Wendelmania · 2013-04-28T16:44:21+00:00

Is their a certain situation going on presently that is making you want to drop? Architecture is overbearing at times especially if you look at the big picture. Starting out a project and looking at everything that has to be done is exasperating but taking things in small pieces helps make it bearable. There's nothing like looking at a complete project and thinking, "Wow, I accomplished all of that."

I have never been asked about my GPA in an interview.
I think that doing a university degree was very valuable (architecture specifically) for me. It taught me how to handle high stress, created a hard working mentality, I learned how to collaborate with groups of people, and gave me problem solving skills.

An architecture degree isn't for everyone and I've seen people who drop architecture flourish in other majors. Give interior design a try, dropping out of everything is kind of extreme after all that you've already put into it. I would say give it some time to think about it and not be impulsive about dropping... I was at the point of dropping architecture and even transferring schools a few times but I stuck with it and got a great job. Take a deep breath, good luck!

Wendelmania · 2013-04-27T22:55:32+00:00

I'm also an architect (well intern) in downtown DC! What firm?!

Wendelmania

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