What to Expect Now That You’re Hired
So you just completed a post-secondary course that taught the ins and outs of a particular Autodesk product, and now you are one of the lucky few to be hired in a challenging economy.
Not to sound like an over-protective parent, but do you have any idea what you have gotten yourself into?
Hopefully, this article will address just that. If you are a young beginner in a world of professional CAD users, we will look at what you can expect in a professional office environment, and what you can do to navigate safely through potentially unknown waters.
Employers understand that you are young and new to this game, and generally they try to be patient and accommodate your needs to get you acclimatized in the office environment as quickly and stress- free as possible. But always keep in mind their expectations of you may still be high, so here are a number of tips that may help.
Know Your Software!
This should go without saying, but there are a lot of things you will discover on the job that are simply not taught in a classroom environment. In a high-pressure office situation where “time is money,” your new employer may expect quick turnarounds, not “on-the-job-training.” To ensure that you work quickly and efficiently, you should get to know your software’s commands and tricks as much as possible to help make your creating/editing time more efficient.
For example, you are probably aware of the MLEADER command in AutoCAD® that allows you to create a dynamic leader attached to a piece of MText for robust note creating, but you may be unaware of the MLEADERALIGN command. This command helps you to manipulate the arrangement of several MLeader objects at once so you don’t waste several minutes “eyeballing” the position of every MLeader object individually. My suggestion is to purchase a Command Reference book and learn as many commands (along with their settings, sub-options, and tricks) as possible. Once you become more familiar with the capabilities of the software, you will find yourself busier for more than one designer and will possibly guarantee your stay past your probationary period.
Learn Actual Drafting Techniques
If your post-secondary education was a technician or technologist course, or “just” an Autodesk-related software course, there is a chance you did not get proper drafting instructions. You may know the software and you may have been taught how to design, but unless you know how to properly lay out a drawing, your skills will get critiqued—hard! Even though your company may have pre-defined templates established to eliminate all the up-front work, they won’t do the actual drafting for you.
Take the time (and yes, this will be on YOUR time) to find help online, or check out a book from your library on how to do proper drafting. Even if that book may not pertain to your particular discipline, the fundamentals will still apply (i.e., layout of objects and details and placement of notes, etc.). One trick is to get a set of drawings from within your company to see how they do drafting as well as talk to the “old school” drafters who have been with the company for a long time. One thing to keep in mind is that even though your company may follow traditional drafting conventions, it may still have a particular style that makes your company stand out against other companies, so prepare yourself for things that may seem unconventional.
Get to Know the Designer
One of the biggest challenges every beginner will face in an office environment is to understand the psyche of the person they are working under. In every office, regardless of the profession, there are people whose personalities are polar opposites of one other. You may be working for a designer who is very relaxed with an easy-going personality, or you may work for a designer who always seems under pressure with a high-octane personality. Keep in mind this is true regardless of their age, gender, and/or experience.
At the end of the day, every designer expects the same thing from you—a high-quality product provided with a quick turnaround time. But exactly how you get there is the challenge you will face. It is virtually impossible to explain in this article how to work with the personalities of your designers, but the best piece of advice you may take from this is to not take things personally if your designer seems disappointed in your work. Even with established company drafting and CAD standards, every designer wants something a little different on their drawings. The trick is to listen carefully to understand what they want, and if necessary, read between the lines. Sometimes what a designer sees in his or her head or what they scribble on a drawing may not get translated verbally. Over time, and maybe even after some potential verbal abuse, you will finally give them the product they were expecting. From that, patterns will reveal themselves, and that is when you will learn what your designer wants. In the long run (the “silver lining,” if you will), you will start anticipating the designer’s needs, and when you start giving the designer the product he or she is expecting in shorter turnaround times, you will finally earn that designer’s trust and respect, and you may soon become a “favorite” and maybe even a friend of your designer.
Get to Know the “Go-to” CAD Guy/Gal
In nearly every office, either officially or unofficially, there is one person who appears to have all the answers to everyone’s CAD questions. This person is commonly referred to as the “go-to guy” (or gal!), or the “AutoCAD guru.” These are the people that other CAD operators, designers, managers, tend to trust the most with regard to anything related to CAD, and are generally very approachable when it comes to troubleshooting your problems. Not to generalize, but the go-to guys usually love to “geek out” with CAD software and are always trying to discover new secrets or solve new problems that arise within the software. It is very rare you will meet a go-to guy who feels obligated or burdened to be in that position and who is not approachable. No matter if your questions or issues may seem amateurish or not worthy of his or her time, the go-to person is usually more than happy to help and share knowledge. At the end of the day, the go-to guy wants everyone to be efficient with the software and is generally more than happy to help you get there—even if you find yourself asking the same question[s] over and over again.
Stay in Touch with Former Classmates
No matter what size city you live in or what size company you work for, the CAD community tends to be small and tight with one another. Having said that, I suggest you keep close ties with the former classmates that you knew back in school, and in this age of communication technology and social media, it is a lot easier to maintain close ties than it was for those of us “back-in-the-day.” Since your classmates are also getting into the industry at the same level as you, their stories and perspective can help you gauge how well—or not so well—you are doing by comparison. However, when hearing their stories, keep in mind that your former classmates’ personalities may affect their opinion, so take everything they say with a grain of salt. One clue to listen for in their stories is how good the company is to work for overall rather than just how “bad” things are for your classmate. Assuming their stories are objective, they can help you avoid certain pitfalls.
In closing, I hope these suggestions will help you have a long and prosperous career using CAD software.
