If you are web designer today with a few years under your belt (it is 19 for me!) then you’ve probably read this before. Where did this come from?
If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers
Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and >forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final >decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.
Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies >that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).
As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like >aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)
Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most >up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.
To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law >will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.
Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.
Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: Get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is >not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.
Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once >I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.
While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal >to a wide variety of potential buyers.
Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to >run up and look at my neighbor’s house that he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, >particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.
Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised,> however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.
You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your >designs is something that can’t happen very often.
Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.
PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve >these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another >architect.
PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.
There are so many of these floating around. I guess I won’t comment on the self importance displayed, or lack of customer respect, or even that it doesn’t make a ton of sense here in 2019. My copy is dated 2006, and it is a word file that I know I had in different forms for a couple of years. It was in my email FOR SURE, which is why I made it into a document. So I could read it forever and ever and ever and know how much smarter I am than the people who hired me to do things for them..
sigh.
Anyways, here is some googling I tried to located the earliest copy.
- 2004-10-29 a spooky copy here. bealers.com
- 2004-10-18 but referenced from here a few days before. twasink.net
- 2002-01-01 (a suspicious date) scottmanning.com
- 1997-12-26 a bored xmas vacation gave us paws.kettering.edu
- Searching in books, even published authors can’t dig up an good origin. books.google.com
- also books.google.com
But I guess the one I found at www.smart-jokes.org had the answer. It claimed a copyright for Leo Trotzki.
So even a major philosopher and marxists theorists had rough days doing layout for indecisive customers.
