Here’s the holiday greeting I sent to colleagues this afternoon. This was built as a stage for a local mental health facility. It’s now a mechanical room and the outdoor seating area has been fenced-in as a yard for the chiller.
That said, I’m fond of this alternative. I tried to convince my wife to let me send this version. However, we decided to keep playing it safe. As a government employee, there is no downside in being slightly boring and zero upside in taking any aesthetic risk.
I hope you are enjoying the end of this year, and all the best for the new one!
Our home renovation was the first project under my stamp. The second was this renovation at Building 1300.
It was built as a residential center the disabled. Fifty years later, it’s an administrative building. We removed two kitchens, freeing up space to become an indoor exercise activity space for the clients and a training room for the staff.
In school, we design majestic pretend structures. Sometimes we get to participate in marquee IRL projects — my wife worked on curtain wall details for an addition to an iconic museum and I’ve played a part on three university building projects.
But really, Architecture is a mundane practice.
We make incremental improvements to what’s around us. We get paid to make the world a little better.
Four years ago, I left private practice to become an Owner’s Project Manager for the State of Nevada.
I’m the ultimate middleman — I don’t deliver nothing. The Architect designs the project. The Contractor builds it. The Agency uses the facility to serve the public.
I just shepherd the team to deliver the project on time and on budget, hopefully at an optimal quality.
My tasks are unremarkable. Calculate estimates. Send emails. Meetings and phone calls. Double check drawings and dollar signs. I shuttle documents around our bureaucracy.
My position is five steps below the Governor on the org-chart, but it’s blessedly free from politics. The Citizens elect our Politicians. They determine our directives. The Division gets it done.
But nothing happens without people.
My big paradigm shift after taking this job was realizing that work is all about relationships. As a professional architect, I delivered tangible documents. Now, my only unique skill is familiarity with the government bureaucracy.
I’m here to balance the conflicting demands on a project, negotiate the cross incentives within the team, and chart a path through the process.
It’s not always daisies. On Friday night, I dropped the velvet hammer on a flooring manufacturer for delaying another project. It’s my duty to be fair and firm as a steward of taxpayer dollars.
I grasp the checkbook, but I work for those who do the real work. Construction isn’t easy, but I hope to make it satisfying. I try to conduct myself with honor and enable each team member to to do their best. I care about each of us, in our roles and as individuals.
This is our work. Let’s make the most of this precious opportunity.
Maybe even walk out with a smile.
This Kitchen Demolition project did not go smoothly. It started as an extensive renovation with a consultant architect, but the agency suddenly realized that the funding was about to expire.
With that nasty deadline, I could only deconstruct. I slammed demolition drawings on AutoCAD LT and pushed it out to bid. The contract was approved, signed by all parties.
Then COVID hit.
The Capitol feared we were at the precipice of a depression and killed this little project. (Of course, the cancellation dragged out amidst the pandemic confusion, leaving the contractor in limbo for more than a month.)
By Spring 2021, the looming depression became an economic rebound. The Agency revived the project.
The Contractor held their bid, we waded through a swamp of paperwork, moved the cash into the right budget account, and those kitchens disappeared!
We celebrated with a twelve pack of Dr. Peppers.
Construction is only straightforward after it’s done. Every project suffers its twists and turns.
We can plan, but only so much. When chaos hits, the universe forces us to negotiate. If we choose to collaborate, these frustrations can cultivate relationships beyond mere project roles.
June came and went this year. The twelve month warranty expired — the only part of our job without hiccups.
Wednesday morning, I returned a missed call.
His voice quivered.
Tracey passed away. I thought you should know. She really enjoyed working with you.
䷨䷆
one small project client and contractor respect notice beyond this vale greatest honor of my career
In reading classic texts, one should be wary of the context. These are invariably Imperial documents. They were written by men in power to influence men with even more power. Literacy was an ultimate privilege.
Reading them is a balancing act. Books that survived the ages must have provided great value to their readers. But we shouldn’t uncritically marinate in their archaic values.
Then again, questioning paradigms is the point of divination. This is a tool to help us surface our self-imposed unconsciousness.
So let’s ask the oracle of ancient kings concerning this day of democracy.
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19. The Approach 臨 ䷒ (earth above a lake) Success approaches by obtaining the trust of others. Be boundless in teaching. Lead by patient persuasion. Share the truth. But growth may be short-lived, calamity might be around the corner.
Changing Line 3 Complacency in the approach will result in stagnation. However, doom is not predestined. Remorse against comfort and vigilance against ignorance will protect from harm.
46. Pushing Upward 升 ䷭ (earth above the wood) Like a tree pushes upward through the earth, greatness will rise. Rooted in good character and heaping small efforts. This accumulation can climb high. Practice devotion to continual progress.
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Success is near, so is calamity. Don’t get comfortable, continual refinement. The constant pressure of little victories leads to great progress.
I wrote this last year, but like many posts, it sat in the hopper for a while. At this point my daughter has gotten her second shot and we’re just waiting for the under -5 vax to come out for our boy. Unlike other posts, I’m editing this very lightly.
I’ve been lucky.
I won the birthplace lottery and everything has played out pretty smoothly from there. As a government worker, I was slated for an early tier relative to other healthy adults. While standing in line for my second shot, I listened to the Michael Osterholm COVID-19 podcast update for the week.
The problem in America is not supply, it’s demand. That’s why so many states are opening up vaccines for all adults. The people who need it most have had plenty of opportunities to get it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world, especially the less developed nations, haven’t even started their vaccination programs. Dr. Osterholm framed the issue as both a humanitarian and strategic problem. If we don’t get the rest of the world vaccinated, we’re gonna keep getting new variants that keep working their way back to the States.
There are a plenty of internal and external issues with the American Hegemony. It is not all roses to be a citizen of this singular superpower (I’m certain an ancient Roman could relate).
Maybe “too much” is one of our problems.
That’s an awfully nice problem to have.
While we strive to form a more perfect union, we ought to occasionally pause and be grateful for the easily overlooked perks of being American.
Two years ago, our daughter went to school for the last time.
It took a year after that before I dreamt about going out without guilt.
Kind of.
I still felt shame for hanging out at the coffee shop in the morning – because I suddenly realized that I missed an 8:00-8:30 meeting with a consultant.
What kind of crazy person sets up a meeting at 8 in the morning!?
(Aside from a contractor…but that kind of proves my point).
I didn’t think about the COVID during the dream. I only thought of the pandemic when I woke up and realized that I didn’t dream about it.
In the year since I still haven’t gone out much. We’ve been waiting for the kids to get their shots. Our daughter finally got her second shot, but kids under five are still waiting.
Driving a car is an apt analogy. Compared to sitting around the house, it is a relatively dangerous activity, but it confers great benefits. We’re gonna wait another half year till our boy can get his own seatbelt.
Here’s the holiday greeting I’ll be emailing out to colleagues later today. The background comes from a partially ground concrete slab where the work was stopped under the future carpet finish.
That said, I’m fond of this alternative draft, which inadvertently happened as I was trying to pick out my font. However, as a staid representative of the State, I decided to play it safe in a mass email related to work.
Either way, I hope you are enjoying the end of this year, and all the best for the new one!
I wrote the first draft of this post a year ago, the morning after Biden had finally taken the lead in the electoral college a week after the election was held. The race wasn’t yet called by the media companies, but it had become clear that we were gonna get a new president.
I’ve been wanting to write a post about my politics in a general fashion, so this seems as good a time as any.
I believe in constitutional democracy. Rule of the majority, constrained to protect the rights of the minority. But beyond that, I’m not a philosopher. Generally, I’m pretty pragmatic. I just want competent, efficient government.
I went from being a conservative in high school to being politically apathetic in college, to joining the Democratic Party in in the early 2000’s after the twin disasters of the Second Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. I haven’t left that party, though I fear that I’ve become a raging moderate as the rest of the world has polarized to their comfortable extremes.
I am still sympathetic to the trope that less government is better government. However I diverge with many folks who espouse such a view, because I believe government has a legitimate role in society, and I am willing to pay a little extra for more a well run government.
Beyond competence, I believe in the twin goals in our pledge of allegiance: Justice and Liberty for all.
And when our leaders fail, I hold hope in our democratic process. This system of government gives us a voice every couple years so we can enact a course correction.
This is why it has been particularly distressing to watch one party morph into an embrace of authoritarianism over the past four years. Their continued defense of January 6th has been terrifying. To a lesser extent, I have also been dismayed about vocal extremists of the left and their stifling influence of upon our (non-elected) cultural institutions.
Government is a balancing act. Too much one way or the other is a certain path to disaster.
Let’s hope we rediscover our equilibrium.
Interestingly, this past year has been a marked continuing evolution towards becoming a hardened centrist. I’ve become increasingly concerned with the excesses of the vocal left, and I’ve become amenable to the idea of lessening the the power of the Federal government in favor of the States. Things are so heated, I’m hoping that giving States more autonomy may defang the viciousness of national politics.
Frankly, I’ve also lost interest in what whackadoodle policies might be instituted thousands of miles away; if someone out there doesn’t like it, let them fight it or leave. Maybe my next upgrade in my political evolution will be avoiding the news altogether. After all, the whole point of living in a representative republic is to be free from politics outside of the elections held every even numbered year.
Autumn has finally hit Las Vegas, I think we’ll finally shut down the AC for the rest of the year.
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Swerve to go Straight
Nicholas Nassim Taleeb’s Anti-fragile recounted a story of a science demonstration with a vibrating table covered with bouncy balls. When the tabletop was activated at a purely regular rhythm, the balls would bounce around chaotically on their own. However, the balls would fall in sync after random noise was inserted into the vibration pattern.
I often think about this story while pulling my boy in the wagon. My in-law’s backyard has a tight side yard where it is easy to pull in. However, there isn’t any room to turn around, making it’s a challenge to push back out of it.
Like the science demonstration, I’ve found that adding a little swerve to the push gives me control over the direction of the wagon. Jamming the wagon straight requires a perfect line; any lean will compound into crashing with the fence or house. Adding a slight serpentine undulation allows me to fine-tune the trajectory as I push the wagon and avoid hitting the edges.
I suspect this lesson could also apply to the office. We live in a world of optimization and standard operating procedures. I have a hunch that we should occasionally mix it up, even if we think we’ve locked in a best practice. Little experiments will keep things fresh and explore the parameters that constrict us.
On paper, testing suboptimal processes is inefficient. Most of the time, we’ll rediscover that the tried and true is best. But occasionally, we’ll discover that a good process is keeping us from finding a better innovation.
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A Question
What accepted wisdom should you challenge?
Hit reply and let’s chat!
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A Link
One idea that haunts me is the concept of a Local Optimum. Is this solution truly the best? Or have we settled into something that is good relative in its immediate context? Have we artificially constrained ourselves to the settling into a least-worst solution? Is there a more optimal solution out there?
… and a photo.
Sail Wagon, Brooklyn, Bain News Service, ca. 1910-1915
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Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!
Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting! Justus Pang, RA
The start of the new school year reminds me of distance learning last year. My daughter’s school posted a video every morning with news and a recitation of the pledge of allegiance.
This daily practice was a powerful mantra, sinking into my subconscious of a government worker.
This letter collects mottos from key institutions in my life, starting from the federal government down to mottos I’ve chosen for myself.
I highly recommend going through such an similar exercise for yourself. It doesn’t take long and it is powerful to regularly contemplate the sayings that were important for our predecessors.
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A Few Mottos to Start your Mornings
United States of America
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
State Nickname on our flag (Most folks think this is our official Motto)
“Home” means Nevada, “Home” means the hills, “Home” means the sage and the pines. Out by the Truckee’s silvery rills, Out where the sun always shines, There is a land that I love the best, Fairer than all I can see. Right in the heart of the golden west “Home” means Nevada to me.
Mission To serve Nevadans and help our customers by providing efficient and effective solutions.
Priorities Be responsive to customer needs. Continually improve leadership and promote teamwork within the Department. Support customer goals through innovative solutions and strategies. Improve efficiency through continual review, automation, and improved transparency. Support agency performance through workforce development.
Mantras are great. Who would disagree with “liberty and justice for all”?
So why are the pledge and the flag such contentious symbols? Because our aspirations also remind us of our current failures, and partisans have exploited these gaps to create divisive chasms of identity.
But we shouldn’t abandon a mantra due our shortcomings. Instead, lets use these regular reminders of our shared destination to fuel our efforts in closing the gap between ideal and reality.
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One Question
Is there an awesome motto that I’ve missed? If so I’d love to hear it!
Hit reply and let’s chat!
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Three Links
Cal Newport neatly summarizes Quentin Tarantino’s writing routine, which rolls a daily rhythm, eschewing raw frenzy.
How Mimi Dixon navigated our fraught culture to launch the Colors of the World crayons with Crayola.
Yumi Janairo Roth has a cheeky installation project with professional sign spinners working Sol Lewitt quotes. It reminds me of the Marquesse Scott video that introduced me to this niche.
… and a photo.
“…by the rocket’s red flare…”, Mount Charleston, July 2021
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Thanks for reading this OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!
Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting! Justus Pang, RA
