Architect fired for playing a little too much Portal...

[cicatrix]

If programmers were building houses.

Mar, 1 Yes! We've offered a large contract to build a 12 storey apartment building. Everyone's so excited. Drank 2 packs of beer.

Mar, 2 The customer doesn't like the term 'as soon as we can' and demands to be more specific. Damn, these people just don't know anything about modern technologies.

Mar, 3 Discussing the timeframe. Drank 3 packs of beer. P. says that we can manage in 4 months... well this means 8. Finally we agreed to put 12 months in the contract but it's unlikely that the work will be done any sooner than 16 months.

Apr, 1 We're still celebrating and playing Halo. A. hinted that a little bit of work might be in order. Nobody took him seriously, it's a Fool's day after all.

Apr, 2 P. too says that it's time to get to work. What is wrong with thes peopls? We erected a fence around the building site and hanged fancy banners on it. With a sense of fulfilled duty we resumed playing Halo.

Apr, 20 The customer came today and asked how we were doing. We allowed him to win at Halo and he left satisfied. It appears however, that we'd better start doing something.

Apr, 21 We were discussing the project. S. suggests panel architecture, P. says that panels are too large and hard to handle and nobody knows what's inside them. He also said that only amateurs use them and insists that we should build it the old way - from bricks even if it takes more time. A. suggested the most revolutionary method - not to build a 12 storey house at all but instead to build several small wooden cottages and connect them all with tunnels in the high of fashion. We reminded that the customer wanted a 12 storey house. He argued and cried that customers are all idiots and nobody really listens to them. We ran out of beer at the most interesting point of our discussion so we decided to continue tomorrow.

Apr, 22 We tried to settle the matter with a duel in Halo. A. with his cottages was fragged first but P. and S. ended in a draw. As a result we decided that each one will start building according his own plan and then we'll try to join it somehow.

Apr, 30 We've completed the ground floor and showed it to the customer. He asked us why different rooms have different ceiling heights, why bricks fall out of the walls and why one should enter the house through a window. We explained to him that these were the special restrictions of the demo-version. We're very proud of ourselves actually.

May, 10 P. suddenly remembered that we forgot about the foundation and was swearing a lot about that. Well it was mentioned in the project documentation but who reads the documentation?

May, 11 Were dismantling the ground floor all day. Damn it!

Jul, 11 P. is finishing the 2nd floor, S. is working on the 5th. A. has erected an elevator shaft up to the ninth floor and it now looms over the whole construction and sways suspiciously when the wind is strong. Added wooden supports to it.

Jul, 17 A. is completing the roof and since we don't have the upper floors yet he builds it on the ground, well, we'll lift it with a crane later. At least A. hopes we will.

Aug, 13 S. is having compatibility issues between two panels. The gap is almost a meter wide and we don't have a compatible panel to close it. We asked P. to close it with bricks. P. said he can't without knowing of the inner panel architecture.

Aug, 14 We dismantled several panels so that P. could study the inner architecture. P. swears a lot and says that whoever made these panels were complete idiots.

Aug, 17 P. has finally closed the gap. The panels are now skewed but this is a minor inconvenience. We had to lead the wires from the panels outside and P. fixed them with insulating tape and said that it will hold unless it rains.

Sep, 1 The panel manufacturer released a new version. The panels now have better insulation and strength but their shape and size are incompatible with previous versions and they are tree times heavier. S. is eager to tear down and re-build everything. We hardly talked him out of it. The foundation would never support their weight anyway.

Sep, 9 A. has a new idea, he offers to make all windows sizable. We told him to mind his own business.

Oct, 2 P. has made it to the 5th floor. He was very proud of himself and we told him that his wall was inclined almost by 40 degrees. He was swearing and said we are amateurs. He promised to think about it though.

Oct, 3 The customer came and asked why the wall was inclined 40 degrees. We explained something about the Coriolis force. He listened and said that even though he didn't understand anything in the construction business he'd seen a similar house nearby and the its walls were straight. Damn it! I hate smart customers. Then this idiot A. made a slip about the sizable windows. The customer was naturally interested and insisted that we made them. Damn it again!

Oct, 4 We asked A. if we had to rebuild everything for these windows of his. He said that this was not necessary and all windows already had this undocumented feature. This, of course, didn't include the brick part of the house. P. swears again and objecs violently.

Oct, 5 P. admitted there was a problem with the wall. He said that he must have put some brick wrongly. But in order to understand which particular brick it was he would have to examine them all. Well, it's easier to re-build it from the ground.

Oct, 6 We explained to P. that we simply don't have time to re-build this all using bricks. We even some calculations and showed them to P. and he finally agreed to use panels.

Oct, 8 We damaged the panels in the process of dismantling the brick part. The whole construction creaks and groans and is swaying dangerously. We made wooden supports and went playing Halo.

Nov, 11 We remembered that our crane can only reach the height of the 8th floor. We sent S. for a new crane. Were playing Halo all day.

Nov, 24 S. came back. He was unable to get a new crane but instead he brought an excavator. He suggests to dig up a deep pit and build the house downwards. He says that the contract didn't specify that all 12 storeys must be above the ground. We hardly talked him out of it.

Nov, 25 Were brainstorming the crane problem. Found a solution at last. Now we're building a 4 storey house near the main one then we can install our crane on its roof.

Feb, 2 Well, we're finishing the 12th floor. Tomorrow we're going to install the attic and the roof made by A.

Feb, 3 A. is an idiot. The roof keeps sliding down. We had to temporarily support it with the crane.

Feb, 4 A. says it's not his fault because the 12 floors made by S. are 4 meters higher and 5 meters wider than the 12 floors made by P. We've discovered that we were building these parts using different panels. But A. is an idiot anyway because his roof fits neither part. So does his elevator shaft.

Feb, 5 Were patching the roof all day. P. says that it will hold unless it snows.

Feb, 7 It snowed.

Feb, 10 Made a roof out of ply-wood and painted it as if it was made of tin plates. Let's hope that the customer wouldn't see that.

Feb, 11 Testing the elevator. It stops between the floors but you can still get out of the cabin on the even floors. We should mention this in the documentation.

Feb, 13 P. has optimized the elevator speed. It accelerated, broke through the roof and flew away. It's good that we have a wooden roof we patched it in no time, but the elevator shaft collapsed. We remembered that we had never removed the wooden supports that held it. Well, climbing the stairs is healthier anyway.

Feb, 15 We're doing the inferiour finishing. Plasterers and colorers keep disappearing for some reason.

Feb, 17 We've discovered that due to S's mistake the doors on some floors can be opened only from outside. We've found a crowd of plasterers and colorers who were unable to get out. S. promised to think of somehing. Meanwhile we feed these people through the windows.

Feb, 20 A. has finally completed his sizable windows. Testing revealed that glass keeps breaking if you change the size of a window and there are several side-effects - a bathroom of one apartment can appear in the bedroom of another one, also some doors disappear and some balconies fall down. We can't comlain since the developer company says that we shouldn't have used the undocumented features.

Feb, 21 The customer came today and asked if it was possible to build several wooden cottages connected with tunnels instead. He has read about it somewhere. We managed to neutralize A. before he was able to say anything then explained to the customer that he was misguided.

Feb, 22 Balconies continue to fall down although we had left the windows alone. It appears this is an independent glitch. We would have to try to explain to the customer that this is done for better performance.

Feb, 25 A. made another attempt to make his windows work. Finally half of them had shrunk to zero and refused to restore. We told him to leave the windows alone.

Feb, 27 We remembered that we forgot to make an entrance. We argued if the house would collapse if we made a hole now. We decided not to take risks and described how to enter through windows in the manual.

Mar, 3 We've managed to convince the customer that we needed one more day for final testing. After the examination we discovered that: some floors and ceilings had doors; it's impossible to get into some apartments; half of the house has no running water supply and the other half has no power; the sewer pipe ends on the sixth floor; there is a rope ladder between 8th and 9th floor. Well, we would simply have to lead the customer the 'right' route and hang pictures with surroundings on the walls with missing windows.

Mar, 4 Yes! We did it. We're celebrating the completion. I don't drink much because I have to leave before this whole thing collapses.