Technology isn't the problem. However that isn't to say there isn't a problem. The biggest problem is laziness. I've been training a drafter for the past 6 months. His errors continue to astound me. I don't mind technical errors for being new to the industry, those I can live with, considering I came from the same roots. Its the drafting errors that make me pull my hair out. Leaders that point to nowhere, cross over text and symbols; lines not drawn on the correct layers and not bylayer; text not the proper height, font or lineweight; not checking over the drawings for errors before handing it to me to redline, not fixing errors I already redlined, etc, ad nauseum.

Then there is the problem of not using the tools AutoCAd provides. I'm talking about basic autocad functions that have been there since the beginning. This guy drew a whole page of Elevations and didn't turn on Ortho once. All the lines were crooked. I called him on it, and had to threaten him, before he agreed to start using Ortho. He claims he never once used Ortho in School.

He's come a long way in 6 months, but I've had to break him a lot of bad habits one by one. There are still many more to break, but he's at least more submissive now.

the latest one that just has me baffled is also a problem that has deeper roots. Whene he runs out of work, instead of trolling the office for work, he draws the same thing over and over again in different ways. When he told me that last week. I was livid. For one it pads the hours on a project which is bad, but its also a complete waste of brainpower and time. I told him that when it happens again, (and it does happen, which is the nature of the industry) to use the time to sharpen his ACAD skills. Autodesk provides a lot of tutorials, plus there are manuals, or other industry related stuff that would benefit him and the office much more than redrawing deatils over and over again.

Technology has probably helped to create the problem, but it certainly isn't the problem. The ease of CAD has changed the way the world designs, however that same ease has made it easy for sloppy and lazy people to find jobs in the industry.

Steve G.