Helping Out When There is No CAD Manager

So…

I’ve been trying to get back into some “Good Old Habits” which sort of went by the wayside since the great recession. By the way, I still believe we are in a recession because there are a lot of people still out of work,  being underpaid, or doing extra work just to hold on to their jobs.  Anyway, what I mean by a good old habit is simply this; “Helping Out When There is No CAD Manager”

When I started out working as an engineering assistant one of the duties given to me was to assist or help out my peers, and or supervisors with AutoCAD support. I guess this is something I carried over from my brief stint as an AutoCAD Instructor at Lincoln Technologies.  I never had a problem with helping people out, in fact I enjoyed being a part of the team that came out with a solution for AutoCAD issues.

Here I am some 10 years later and it seems as if so much has changed, and unfortunately for the worst, (just my opinion, but that is probably not the case). 

Where there use to be handy websites to get information, you now have to hunt for a website to get the same information that was at the tip of your fingers years ago. I blame this on the recession and the fact that there have been so many updates. Not just to software  (which in most cases is a good thing) but to the updates or removal of some websites. Probably the one good thing is the “Cloud” which has been good for collaboration.

As I stated, it seems to me due the downturn in the economy, that CAD Support has taken a hit. I know for a period of time I was asked “not” to help out because even engineering assistants were now required to be “chargeable” on projects and that there was no time in projects for me to do CAD support. Anyway, the only way to help give support was to simply give in to working some “O.T.” (own time). By the way, this is one of the reasons for me to start my consulting business, (again due to the economy).

 Well, I’m glad people still look to me for help and wish I could do more which is why I started working as a consultant. As far as helping my peers out in my office, I will continue in the best capacity that I can, to be a support or a consultant person in the CAD or BIM field.

Robert Green’s  latest article regarding “The Peer-to-Peer CAD Manager”  has some very good points for anyone that has been in my position as far as being a “Go To” person without actually having a CAD Managers Title.