So I am an architectural draftsman for a rather big architecture firm, and work under a lot of senior designers.
This week I was very stressed out because I had to help some people on deadlines. I had two managers competing for my help.
I had to help this crazy woman in a manager position who has no background in architecture draw some plans and wanted them done right away that she wouldn't allow me to work on any other project or deadline in the office.
The problem was I had to make as-builts, which basically means we transfer the information such as the dimensions of the building onto our programs. She wanted 8 to be done in a matter of a week.
But all the reference photos and old drawings were blurry, not flat, not scanned, and mostly illegible. I asked for things like if she can take photos again or if she has the physical copies. She doesn't and she was the one who took the photos.
But another manager came to me asking me to draw another set of plans. They were relatively small, could maybe take me 2 hours or so, but because of my other manager, I wasn't able to work on them.
It waa the end of my shift and I wasn't going to be able to finish them. I asked my other manager when this needed to be done and the he scolds me, saying that it was due yesterday, but he was only able to get it to me today, but that it is very simple and fast for someone of my level of experience. Which I agree with, but I wished this person would communicate the urgency of when an item needed to be done right away, so I can let them know if I have time or not.
I told them I was going to finish it and send it to them by tonight. I stayed in the office 3 hours late, did not put in OT.
So it's Friday, and I have to finish the last 2 out of 8 as builts, still with blurry photos. I ask the my manager if she can help me understand what I am reading with the blurry photos, and she gets annoyed with me and tells me what each are but that it's rather obvious. I tell her that I am not familiar with the project like she is and she's still very much annoyed.
Eventually I was able to finish the as builts, but she was disappointed that I wasn't able to get all the dimensioning right and that there were spots that she thought were off.
A third manager CCs me and my other manager and tells me to fix something with a drawing that's for their deadline, and my other manager tells me that he would like to do it for me, even though I have time left to help them out now. But my manager was giving me the impression that he trust my ability to do it because of how swamped I was that week.
I wanted to yell at these people for not giving me the tools I needed to finish their individual deadlines and yelling at me. It's just poor management and poor communication. I did tell my other manager to please inform me of when things need to be done, because I might be on an urgent deadline.