Reply To: Lets nuke the computer whiz. . .

i am actually appaled at the reactions u have been getting brian. i would suggest backing up your drawings on ur hard drive if they do that.

Exactly how many young architects starting off in practice for the first time in their lifes do you think are going to know what a hard drive even is?

I regularly have to show people how to format a floppy disk, find the C: drive in their computer and show they how to save a document. I still think it is a bit beyond the average abilities of young architects out their in practice to prempt such disasters occuring, in the manner you have described.

In the case of files disappearing from the main file server – I had a CDROM backup of all my work in that case. But I didn’t even bother to restore the files to the file server. Because the damage was already done in my opinion – if people want to do things like that at all – why even bother?

The client phoned up asking for a print of the drawings, and the said building was already at foundation DPC level and my architects firm had to just tell the client, ‘we have no drawings’.

Of course, they did suceed in making me look bad in this instance, in the eyes of my particular employer. But then, I believe that everyone in the practice should be playing on the same team at least, otherwise it is hopeless. The client is just paying you to hold very expensive personal arguments, and that is in general the service which clients are receiving in a lot of cases today.