This is why work as an architect never gets boring: who knew that interior design/architecture work entailed a day in the O.R. I sure didn’t know that was what I was signing up for. Now you are thinking, where is this girl going with this post? After telling my  Mom “hey” on the phone tonight I proceeded to say that I spent my whole day in the O.R. at the hospital, and that came as quite a surprise! She was thinking the same thing you are, “What? Are you okay?”. So let me explain. I am not sick, I did not have surgery, and NO I am not changing professions. It was just work. I literally walked the entire 1st and 2nd floor of that hospital wing to verify every existing column, plumbing fixtures, chases, undocumented soffits, walls, etc. Sounds fun, right? Believe me the action picked up quickly when entering into the “sterile” zone. Bunny suits, hats, shoe covers, masks, floor plans and TAPE MEASURE in hand…I headed in. The full on white jump suit was an XL, and it swallowed me whole. Pretty much HUGE all over. The head surgery nurse proceeded to give a shot at her seamstress skills. She gave my suit some slight “alterations”, meaning she took the scissors to the pant leg and snip-snip. Done! Perfect jagged hem and all. I was rockin’ that suit. I definitely felt totally out of place, like I was somewhere I didn’t belong. It is not every day that you see a doctor with a tape measure clipped on their scrubs, maybe a stethoscope or something. I did come across a sterile “wrench” looking object in one of the supply closets. The fact that they might use something like that for a human is scary. It looked like you could tighten the fasteners on your hardware with it or something of that nature. Well my nonchalance in meandering through patients prepping or recovering from surgery got me to thinking. You know on TV shows when people discreetly suit up, and pretend to be doing something so they can snoop. That was totally me, and I was snooping for sure. I opened every single closet door and ran my eyes across every single nook and cranny of that floor. It was intense. Not to mention the interior finish selections in some areas was horrendous. I’m talking “med green” 4.5-inch wall tile three-quarters of the way up the sides of the hallways and operating rooms, throughout the entire O.R.  Talk about literal translation of  a “medical-look” in terms of design concept. Whoa…good thing this area is getting a nice makeover.

So, this brings me to my point and choice of words for the title of this post. You never really know what’s to come your way in the “day in the life of a designer”. No day is predictable. Sure enough when you think things are going to be smooth, speed bumps or those stupid round-a’bout things that obnoxiously get in my way slow things down. I guess that’s the point, right. No day in the office is necessarily pretty. Revit makes you mad, CAD makes you scream and the printers can make you pull your hair out. Ugh…technology!! So getting out in the “real world stuff” can be fun. I mean what other profession allows you to learn so much about so many fields, hobbies, projects, human needs and the list goes on? Really to me the most fasinating thing about architecture and design is what you can draw from the projects you work on, and the people that surround you. Your knowledge base is constantly expanding on an exponential level. Honestly A LOT of times my brain feels like it is bursting at the seams. I just cannot physically or practically accomplish ALL the things that I creatively process through my relatively itty-bitty brain. I need a few more hands, and my feet need to move a little quicker. But since we all know that isn’t going to happen, it’s a wrap. I’m calling it a day, with 4 minutes to go. 11:56P.M. and counting…I am off to bed!