A client's offhand comment about my title block made me check my own standards

I was showing a set of house plans to a client last week, and she pointed at the revision table and said, 'So, which of these changes is the one about the window size?' I had just listed them all as 'General updates' with the date. I realized I'd been doing that for years because it was fast, but it was totally useless for anyone trying to track changes. The look on her face, just confused, was the tip-off. She needed clear info to talk to her builder, and my lazy habit was making her job harder. Now I'm going back through my last six projects to re-label every revision note with a specific description. It's a pain, but it has to be done. Has anyone else had a client call them out on a bad drafting habit you didn't even know you had?

4 comments

4 Comments

karen_sanchez492mo ago

Oh, that's a great wake-up call.

tara6422mo ago

Totally! My friend had a moment like that last month. She kept complaining about her noisy neighbors but never said anything to them. One morning at 4 AM their music was so loud it shook a picture off her wall. She finally marched over and talked to them, and guess what? They had no idea the walls were that thin! They apologized and turned it down. She said it was like a lightbulb went off, that she suffered for months over a fix that just needed a conversation.

milesk272mo ago

Honestly, it makes you wonder how many other problems are just people not knowing they're causing an issue. We're all just guessing what bothers each other.

keith9001mo ago

Well, not exactly a lightbulb going off (though I get what she meant). More like she finally realized the neighbors weren't mind readers, which is funny because most people aren't. I've had that same thing happen on jobsites - guys will stew about something for weeks, then one quick conversation fixes it. The trick is catching yourself before you've suffered through three months of 4 AM bass drops, you know?