I was offered less then $20,000 in a mid-size/large US city at a firm that mostly does roof replacements. Full time, no benefits. However, I am a BS Arch grad with no office experience. In this economy should I take it and just get experience, IDP or should I keep looking for something else?
just thought i'd mention that in my state, unemployment insurance payments are 405/week. over a year, that amounts to 21060. so you could theoretically take home more money while not working.
i'd say take a pass and spend a few months tending bar while looking for a real job...
At 40 hours a week, that's $9.62/hour. Hardly seems worth it. I bet you would probably end up working more than 40 hrs per week on top of it. Do you have the professional BS degree or the 4 year degree? In my state, a person without a professional degree cannot be an exempt employee. That means that you cannot be a salaried individual and have to be paid hourly. Might be worth looking into for your negotiations.
With no experience in this job market, I would shoot for $12/hr. - start at $13 cause they'll bump you down. Take the job and then immediately continue looking for your next career move. 3 months of experience is better than none. Even better if you can get paid for it, but don't let them take advantage of you. Play the game.
^agreed. I don't know what city you live in, but 20k is harsh. If you have any student loans to pay off, you might very well be unable to do that on that salary. And you'll probably be working over 40 hours a week, meaning you won't have time to earn any extra cash on the side. If you can make it work at under $15/hr, then I guess take it. But as wurdan said, aggressively look for your next gig, and play the game. 20k a year is not enough to buy your loyalty.
A lot of people are going to be using the current economy to land jobs and immediately jump ship when a better opportunity arises, and I can't say I particularly blame them.
Thanks everyone for your help. I have a 4 year BS. Im not in NY, CA, or Chicago, but 20k still seems awfully low to me. I plan on making a counter offer, but when they start at 20, your not even going to be able to talk them up to 25. While the projects are uninteresting, there is an argument for practical experience and leaning as much as I can about how a building actually goes together. I think ill have to see what happens and if I do take it, I will immediately start looking for something better. Thanks again for your insights.
if they're not offering benefits, they're not really committing to you.
when a firm doesn't offer benefits, you might as well work for them as a private contractor, at which point you can ask enough to cover your own taxes, insurance, and other costs you incur.
by offering you this position, this firm feels that they have figured out a way to get the best of both worlds: labor to whom they have very few administrative ties (like contract), but without the added compensation they'd be obligated to pay contract folks. they don't want an employee, they want a warm, productive body.
in other words, these guys are cynical jerks who are taking advantage of everyone's bad situation. i fully expect that they will also treat their employees badly and that the culture of the office will reflect this.
the only saving grace aspects are that:
- it's easier to get a job if you have a job
- learning roof replacement work is valuable for almost any firm you try next
- if you aren't collecting unemployment, it beats nothing.
it's a get-in/get-out situation. negotiate for what you can. they MUST have room to move. they'll probably bill you out at between $75 and $100 per hour.
Having no office experience does hurt your competitiveness as a candidate, but even with that in mind, their initial offer sounds like half what I'd expect to hear as a lowball offer in my home state, North Carolina. Negotiation is your friend, I've historically found it difficult to do, but if there's one thing I've heard consistently from folks at all different sizes of firms, it's to always, always, always negotiate. The company that is making the offer expects you to negotiate.
Talk to your local AIA chapter, member or not, tell them that you're an intern looking for work and want to know if they have a copy of the 2011 Compensation Report that you can examine. Attempt to find what a baseline salary should be in your area, and then take a sober assessment of your skills, strengths, and weaknesses, coming up with a 'goal' number in mind. There is a wealth of information on negotiating strategies, both from the AIA and other sources.
Bottom line: Don't take a job that's not going to pay enough for you to live on, whatever that number is.
$20k is pretty insulting, but given the state of the economy I know several that would have taken that over working at Home Depot. At least you'd be getting some experienced.
Like everyone else is saying, I'd negotiate. Even if you can't get more money, get something (like make a list of specific things you want to learn, which would give you value/education for your next job, learn specific software while on the job, etc. - get an angle that works for you, #1, and that doesn't seem like too much expense on their part).
Then keep looking. They will surely know anyone that takes that will always be looking.
Goldman says that the economy is going to "snap back faster than anyone expects"....:-)
Envelope design, construction, and rehabilitation is far more lucrative and in-demand than you would think.
Entry-level positions in that area in my consulting firm start at approximately $60-70k for engineers. Architects may start slightly lower ($45-55k?), but the salaries equillibrate as the employees gain experience.
For reference, our interns make approximately $18-20 an hour. We are unabashedly on the high end of the price spectrum, so scale that accordingly.
In any case, $20k a year is insulting.
Nov 16, 11 9:49 am ·
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Goldman is full of shit. The only thing that is going to snap back are their 7 figure bonuses while they continue to clandestinely rob the public coffers.
Back to the >20k post: for someone with zero experience, take the job. Get the ball rolling on your career. Give your self something to build on (i.e., the roofing experience). Otherwise you might spend years waiting for a good paying job to come along. Understand that the longer you sit on the sidelines, the less attractive you look and the harder it will be to achieve your salary goals. There's no job fairy out there that is going to magically drop $100k salary in your lap. You need to start working for that, yo!
I disagree with the above poster and would not take the job at the current offer. That is barely above minimum wage. Do they have a company store too, by any chance?
If you think it would be good experience, you need to negotiate. And do not do so blindly- prepare a list of annual expenses (e.g. rent, utilities, travel costs, your own healthcare expenses since they will not be covering it, food, debt repayment, etc.).
Try to be reasonable- you probably aren't going to live in a mansion out of school or driving a Mercedes, but depending on the city you could easily be spending $1200/mo for a room in a shared apartment. Put in your time with research.
I guarantee that you will regret being taken advantage of if you just blindly accept.
My goodness - do not except this offer. It shouldn't even be a consideration - it is at its roots an insult because it is a direct reflection of how much they value you.
Offices that are willing to sink to this level is unacceptable. "Think of the experience you may get"..."it's better than nothing"... f^ that... simply... f^ that (people have standards I hope).
Do not, ever, post a companies name in a public forum. Besides the legal consequences, they have not done anything to you, your offer is simply that. Negotiate, walk away, whatever you choose.
As for Goldman, I kinda posted it as a joke (and had just read it). That said, one thing is for certain, on one knows where things will go.
As has been pointed out to me recently by those much wiser "the only certainty is that nothing will stay the same".
Taking advantage of people in this crappy economy is fucked up in my opinion. Forget about the pay and think about the type of employer that would do this. Do you really want to work for someone like that? It is really hard to turn down work in this economy, but 20k is an insult. You should counter at 35k and say that you made 10 bucks an hour in H.S and it would be crazy to be in the same pay bracket after all your hard work.
@j.arleo: "Taking advantage of people in this crappy economy is fucked up in my opinion."
A little perspective, please. It was not that long ago - back when the economy was booming - that firms routinely encountered unbelievably outrageous salary demands when trying to hire people at any level. "Taking advantage" is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder.
The dynamics of supply and demand are complex. Both sides react to those dynamics in ways that reflect their own best interests. Since the seemingly outraged party always has the option to walk away, I find it hard to ascribe 'evil' to either side.
In situations like this, nobody can take advantage of you without your own participation.
'unbelievably outrageous salary demands '---??? when, exactly, did architects ask for these 250k-500k salaries? i must have really missed that boat...
even in the best of days, in new york city, the highest salaries i heard of barely jumped the six-figure mark for people with moderate experience. they were usually structured in such a way where the person was paid a base salary of 85-87k and the rest was paid out in bonuses that were revocable at any time. the best-paid person i know made 85k plus 1.5x overtime, so he was making 120k for working the standard architect's hours...basically working two jobs.
in new york, 85k is and was low-end pay for other kinds of professionals, or decent pay for, say, a PR person or a corporate chef. nothing 'unbelievably outrageous' about it.
My first job offered me $25k...after I graduated with a 5-yr barch...after I had already been working for them for a year...this was pre-recession...assholes.
I'd pass on this. The experience might not be worth whatever shenanigans they are planning to put you through. Offer to be a contractor only and keep looking for a permanent spot elsewhere.
Trace is right, you shouldn't post their name and it's true they haven't done anything to you.
All you have to do is walk away and find something else. You will. The economy is not as dreadful as it was in 08/09. In the city I live in firms are hiring and some of them are highly competitive wages.
My first job was in 2006 (out of grad school) and it was for 44k per year. I disliked this job and wanted out after only a year and a half. I got an offer from a large corporate firm which I saw a double diigit salary increase. I worked at this firm for three years during the recession where we were relatively insulated because of our federal government and military contracts.
When federal spending was drastically reduced, many of our other projects went away. I was put on furlough for four months (was esentially asked to work for free during those four months) which I found to be categorically unacceptable. I immediately began looking elsewhere. I was able to score some interviews. I was offered a job at a large prominent firm - i took it. The pay was slightly less than what I was making but it's a far more superior firm as the quality of work is vastly superior and the culture is amazing.
So you have to keep in mind that doing shit work for bum paychecks won't cut it. Not worth it in the least.
After many years as a successful graphic / web designer making 6 figures as a Creative Director in my field, I decided to forge my way into architecture. Knowing I wanted experience at more "creative" firms I researched the offices where I would be moving to while my wife was doing her residency - I ended up in Albuquerque and found Antoine Predock's office. They had openings, but paid only $7 an hour for interns with no architecture background. I took the job anyway and was part of two competition winners and shortlisted for another which I did the while proposal document.
So, I went from $115,000 a year to $10 an hour (after convincing them that I had skills that could benefit them...and did by programming a custom flash presentation environment where Antoine could present non-linearly and the presentation would adapt on the fly).
You have to make sacrifices to get to where you want. This may not be the one to take, but there will be many that don't seem worth it, and become worth it only by the effort that you chose to put into it regardless of the money being paid. Passion is not paid for.
That said it can be a kick in the gut to come to these realizations when debt is crumbling down the mountain in your direction.
if I had savings from working at 6 figures for a few years, an alternate career to fall back on, and a spouse who was pulling in a doctor's salary - oh - and no kids and no other major expenses, I would also take a minimum wage job doing interesting work at a starchitect firm.
I gots kids - two if you are counting. I also have around 250k in debt between my better have and myseld - from getting that education (family practice, not a doctor making a killing - instead one who finds ways to keep taking medicare). Everyone has some burden they are fighting through unless they were handed something. During this time, the down economy that is, I have caught back up in web design - html 5, javascript, apps, etc...and used my grasshopper and arduino skills to make the leap easier, oop all around, thus making the scripting easier. Take the job don't take the job, the point is if you don't have a goal, a motivation, a direction, don't expect anyone, especially in this field, to have something nice and comfortable and lasting just set aside for you. That is another field.
Lastly, I taught myself all my coding while the early 90's was crap for work. I went part-time to ACC (Austin Community College) doing analog graphic studies. I also worked 2 and 3 jobs, a waiter and late night baker - I am talking pastries here. I put down a big chunk of cash at the time, $2k, for some beige box of a pc. I got cracked software, looked up what it was to make a website, to animate (Flash did not exist, it was future splash at the time and Macromedia had not bought it yet) and kept pushing myself to learn anything about the new digital medium. Within 2 years I was making a great salary with little schooling outside of two years of graphics studios and a high school education packed full of art room.
Take your life by the reins and make it happy. Getting depressed about the shit that is only reinforces it. I know it sucks but in the end, what else are you going to do?
Oh, and I had no savings...I was a .com idiot who blew it all, though I never went into debt...I did not believe in it until my wife convinced me that using it to get a quality degree is valuable...she was right, I just got the wrong degree ;) Joking aside...we are both doing what we love, for the reasons we find important to us, and money has nothing to do with either. As Joseph Campbell would say, "Follow your bliss".
chupa - thanks for sharing - your first post made you sound like you were a little out of touch... like your sacrifice was selling your mercedes and getting a honda or something...
anyway - I agree - take risks, if the risk seems like it could be worth it, go with it, but be extremely careful with offices that are only willing to pay minimum wage - because they are likely to try to take advantage in other ways as well...
personally - if the firm does awesome work and you'll get to learn a unique set of skills and play with fun toys, then there's a bit of a trade-off in pay, but if you're stuck doing roof flashing details in a windowless basement for a bipolar tyrant you're not getting paid enough. I think the latter is the place most of us are familiar with.
My view is that, even in this job market, you should, at a bare minimum, get benefits and $25k or so a year (in a low-cost city/region) and $30k in a higher cost city/region.
FYI, according to the Design Intelligence compensation report, the average starting salary in 2011 for a B.Arch is $41k.
I'm highly educated, with an M.Arch, and I'm stripping textured ceilings and ripping out carpet for $18/hr. No benies/health/vacations/time off/paid sick. i hope I've reached the bottom, though this, in fact, may not be the case. I'd take it. At least you're in a climate controlled environment where there will likely be people of some intelligence to converse with, and, who, may, in fact be moving on somewhere else. I'm certainly not.
Sign me,
stuck in deserted, suburbia hell in the foreclosed South.
Some of the views, and dreams, are great. But, I'll never live them.
Oh, did I mention that I have to climb up off my staple-encrusted knees at least four times a day to silence the ringer on my phone from the calls from the student loan collection bureaus?
I've done it at least nine times in front of the contractor, who whips me like a bitch when i do?
Welcome to the new home of America's intelligentsia. And Erskine Bowles is now telling us about the "automatic cuts" that will have to occur in our "defense spending" if the "Super Committee" doesn't approve the "Big Bold" measures we need to reduce our National debt?
Unless "WE" cut the national debt by "TRILLIONS" of dollars, "automatic cuts" from the defense budget will be enacted. A little late for the scariness of Halloween.
Why in the fuck do we need such a prodigious "defense" budget? Does Russia need one? How about Denmark? Or Nigeria?
When the only thing you value manufacturing are weapons, something is clearly WRONG.
We are not the egalitarians anymore, we are the oppressors.
trace, including the unemployed isn't the point in the average starting salary, as they haven't got a starting salary. The point is that in comparison $20k is an insult.
While there are plenty of unemployed, remember that if $41k is the average starting salary, you know that some people out there are starting with more.
Any word from the OP on what happened? counter offer? turned it down? said, "thank you sir, may I have another?"
Trace, if you're referring to the DI survey, I'm assuming that 41k doesn't somehow average in the unemployed. It's the average starting salary of somebody with no prior experience and a newly minted b.Arch, from amongst those fortunate enough to get a job.
If you're referring to my admittedly arbitrary benchmarks, this is how I'd look at it: in a free market, everybody - and every profession, as the right to set the value of their own services, and every employer of those service has a right to do the same as well. To actually hire somebody at an agreed value is a process of negotiation between the two. Unless you're one of those people who believes in perfect market efficiency (never a good thing to argue for labor markets), on balance, there will always be a bid-ask spread, with the bid lower than the ask' for any given value. so,,, If the asker always accepts the bid value, then the price agreed will ALWAYs trend downward, toward oblivion. the capitalist model only works if both sides have enough spine to stick to their guns to to a point!
there is always a bid range below which the asker (job seeker) finds it more worthwhile to change professions, continue to temp or stay home (or move back in with the parents). it seems to me that 20k, no bennies , is well below that range.. Kind of like the banksters constantly threatening us with - well, if you tax me, I'll stop working for America and move to the Caymans...hehe. The difference here being that people and society actually need architects, while the bankster's utility is, at best, questionable, and possibly more linked to corrupt manipulation of the regulatory process than to real contributions to the country.
Now ... There are always exceptions, of course, based on individual wants, Maybe Thom Mayne has enough charisma or hypnotic brainwashing capability to induce people to agree to work for him for free for 3 months and then pay them next to nothing thereafter for the right to bask in his reflected glory, but clearly working for a generic roof refit company probably isn't that exception.
>20K ??
I was offered less then $20,000 in a mid-size/large US city at a firm that mostly does roof replacements. Full time, no benefits. However, I am a BS Arch grad with no office experience. In this economy should I take it and just get experience, IDP or should I keep looking for something else?
that's ridiculous. you could manage a starbucks for $40gs
architecture salaries just piss me off...
seriously, it sounds like death.
just thought i'd mention that in my state, unemployment insurance payments are 405/week. over a year, that amounts to 21060. so you could theoretically take home more money while not working.
i'd say take a pass and spend a few months tending bar while looking for a real job...
ps--don't pass on it without trying to negotiate. make a counteroffer.
Depends on what US city it is. But you should never take any office job, administrative assistants included, for less than $25,000.
The very idea of being a "white-collar worker" on a waiter/waitress salary is ridiculous.
At 40 hours a week, that's $9.62/hour. Hardly seems worth it. I bet you would probably end up working more than 40 hrs per week on top of it. Do you have the professional BS degree or the 4 year degree? In my state, a person without a professional degree cannot be an exempt employee. That means that you cannot be a salaried individual and have to be paid hourly. Might be worth looking into for your negotiations.
With no experience in this job market, I would shoot for $12/hr. - start at $13 cause they'll bump you down. Take the job and then immediately continue looking for your next career move. 3 months of experience is better than none. Even better if you can get paid for it, but don't let them take advantage of you. Play the game.
^agreed. I don't know what city you live in, but 20k is harsh. If you have any student loans to pay off, you might very well be unable to do that on that salary. And you'll probably be working over 40 hours a week, meaning you won't have time to earn any extra cash on the side. If you can make it work at under $15/hr, then I guess take it. But as wurdan said, aggressively look for your next gig, and play the game. 20k a year is not enough to buy your loyalty.
A lot of people are going to be using the current economy to land jobs and immediately jump ship when a better opportunity arises, and I can't say I particularly blame them.
You'd make more as a laborer on the roofing crew. A lot more.
Thanks everyone for your help. I have a 4 year BS. Im not in NY, CA, or Chicago, but 20k still seems awfully low to me. I plan on making a counter offer, but when they start at 20, your not even going to be able to talk them up to 25. While the projects are uninteresting, there is an argument for practical experience and leaning as much as I can about how a building actually goes together. I think ill have to see what happens and if I do take it, I will immediately start looking for something better. Thanks again for your insights.
offer to start at 50k.
at least.
if they're not offering benefits, they're not really committing to you.
when a firm doesn't offer benefits, you might as well work for them as a private contractor, at which point you can ask enough to cover your own taxes, insurance, and other costs you incur.
by offering you this position, this firm feels that they have figured out a way to get the best of both worlds: labor to whom they have very few administrative ties (like contract), but without the added compensation they'd be obligated to pay contract folks. they don't want an employee, they want a warm, productive body.
in other words, these guys are cynical jerks who are taking advantage of everyone's bad situation. i fully expect that they will also treat their employees badly and that the culture of the office will reflect this.
the only saving grace aspects are that:
- it's easier to get a job if you have a job
- learning roof replacement work is valuable for almost any firm you try next
- if you aren't collecting unemployment, it beats nothing.
it's a get-in/get-out situation. negotiate for what you can. they MUST have room to move. they'll probably bill you out at between $75 and $100 per hour.
Having no office experience does hurt your competitiveness as a candidate, but even with that in mind, their initial offer sounds like half what I'd expect to hear as a lowball offer in my home state, North Carolina. Negotiation is your friend, I've historically found it difficult to do, but if there's one thing I've heard consistently from folks at all different sizes of firms, it's to always, always, always negotiate. The company that is making the offer expects you to negotiate.
Talk to your local AIA chapter, member or not, tell them that you're an intern looking for work and want to know if they have a copy of the 2011 Compensation Report that you can examine. Attempt to find what a baseline salary should be in your area, and then take a sober assessment of your skills, strengths, and weaknesses, coming up with a 'goal' number in mind. There is a wealth of information on negotiating strategies, both from the AIA and other sources.
Bottom line: Don't take a job that's not going to pay enough for you to live on, whatever that number is.
Good luck, and Godspeed.
$20k is pretty insulting, but given the state of the economy I know several that would have taken that over working at Home Depot. At least you'd be getting some experienced.
Like everyone else is saying, I'd negotiate. Even if you can't get more money, get something (like make a list of specific things you want to learn, which would give you value/education for your next job, learn specific software while on the job, etc. - get an angle that works for you, #1, and that doesn't seem like too much expense on their part).
Then keep looking. They will surely know anyone that takes that will always be looking.
Goldman says that the economy is going to "snap back faster than anyone expects"....:-)
Envelope design, construction, and rehabilitation is far more lucrative and in-demand than you would think.
Entry-level positions in that area in my consulting firm start at approximately $60-70k for engineers. Architects may start slightly lower ($45-55k?), but the salaries equillibrate as the employees gain experience.
For reference, our interns make approximately $18-20 an hour. We are unabashedly on the high end of the price spectrum, so scale that accordingly.
In any case, $20k a year is insulting.
Goldman is full of shit. The only thing that is going to snap back are their 7 figure bonuses while they continue to clandestinely rob the public coffers.
Back to the >20k post: for someone with zero experience, take the job. Get the ball rolling on your career. Give your self something to build on (i.e., the roofing experience). Otherwise you might spend years waiting for a good paying job to come along. Understand that the longer you sit on the sidelines, the less attractive you look and the harder it will be to achieve your salary goals. There's no job fairy out there that is going to magically drop $100k salary in your lap. You need to start working for that, yo!
I disagree with the above poster and would not take the job at the current offer. That is barely above minimum wage. Do they have a company store too, by any chance?
If you think it would be good experience, you need to negotiate. And do not do so blindly- prepare a list of annual expenses (e.g. rent, utilities, travel costs, your own healthcare expenses since they will not be covering it, food, debt repayment, etc.).
Try to be reasonable- you probably aren't going to live in a mansion out of school or driving a Mercedes, but depending on the city you could easily be spending $1200/mo for a room in a shared apartment. Put in your time with research.
I guarantee that you will regret being taken advantage of if you just blindly accept.
if someone is offering a job for minimum wage and no benefits it's like saying someone without a HS degree and zero skills could do this job.
20k a year? haha, crazy... You can make more than that bartending part-time during school.
If you are unemployed, and no unemployment $$ then take it and keep looking for something else.
A job for some money is worth more than no job. jmho.
Tumbles is alive and well....How is the Cheese Business?
If you take this job you are going to fuck things up for everyone
They will use your desperation as a way to undermine our profession.
@trace -- Goldman says that the economy is going to "snap back faster than anyone expects"....
Translation: the economy is going to "snap faster than anyone expects"
You'd probably learn more about how a building goes together getting a job as a roofing laborer and as Miles said, make more money that way too.
You could be an unskilled illegal immigrant and make more than that.
My goodness - do not except this offer. It shouldn't even be a consideration - it is at its roots an insult because it is a direct reflection of how much they value you.
Offices that are willing to sink to this level is unacceptable. "Think of the experience you may get"..."it's better than nothing"... f^ that... simply... f^ that (people have standards I hope).
After you turn this offer down, feel free to post the companies name and address. It's the least you could do after such an unwarranted insult.
Do not, ever, post a companies name in a public forum. Besides the legal consequences, they have not done anything to you, your offer is simply that. Negotiate, walk away, whatever you choose.
As for Goldman, I kinda posted it as a joke (and had just read it). That said, one thing is for certain, on one knows where things will go.
As has been pointed out to me recently by those much wiser "the only certainty is that nothing will stay the same".
Taking advantage of people in this crappy economy is fucked up in my opinion. Forget about the pay and think about the type of employer that would do this. Do you really want to work for someone like that? It is really hard to turn down work in this economy, but 20k is an insult. You should counter at 35k and say that you made 10 bucks an hour in H.S and it would be crazy to be in the same pay bracket after all your hard work.
@j.arleo: "Taking advantage of people in this crappy economy is fucked up in my opinion." A little perspective, please. It was not that long ago - back when the economy was booming - that firms routinely encountered unbelievably outrageous salary demands when trying to hire people at any level. "Taking advantage" is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. The dynamics of supply and demand are complex. Both sides react to those dynamics in ways that reflect their own best interests. Since the seemingly outraged party always has the option to walk away, I find it hard to ascribe 'evil' to either side. In situations like this, nobody can take advantage of you without your own participation.
'unbelievably outrageous salary demands '---??? when, exactly, did architects ask for these 250k-500k salaries? i must have really missed that boat...
even in the best of days, in new york city, the highest salaries i heard of barely jumped the six-figure mark for people with moderate experience. they were usually structured in such a way where the person was paid a base salary of 85-87k and the rest was paid out in bonuses that were revocable at any time. the best-paid person i know made 85k plus 1.5x overtime, so he was making 120k for working the standard architect's hours...basically working two jobs.
in new york, 85k is and was low-end pay for other kinds of professionals, or decent pay for, say, a PR person or a corporate chef. nothing 'unbelievably outrageous' about it.
That salary is insulting and shouldn't even be considered.
You can make more doing anything else.
You should name the firm.
My first job offered me $25k...after I graduated with a 5-yr barch...after I had already been working for them for a year...this was pre-recession...assholes.
I'd pass on this. The experience might not be worth whatever shenanigans they are planning to put you through. Offer to be a contractor only and keep looking for a permanent spot elsewhere.
At any rate 20k is total shit.
Trace is right, you shouldn't post their name and it's true they haven't done anything to you.
All you have to do is walk away and find something else. You will. The economy is not as dreadful as it was in 08/09. In the city I live in firms are hiring and some of them are highly competitive wages.
My first job was in 2006 (out of grad school) and it was for 44k per year. I disliked this job and wanted out after only a year and a half. I got an offer from a large corporate firm which I saw a double diigit salary increase. I worked at this firm for three years during the recession where we were relatively insulated because of our federal government and military contracts.
When federal spending was drastically reduced, many of our other projects went away. I was put on furlough for four months (was esentially asked to work for free during those four months) which I found to be categorically unacceptable. I immediately began looking elsewhere. I was able to score some interviews. I was offered a job at a large prominent firm - i took it. The pay was slightly less than what I was making but it's a far more superior firm as the quality of work is vastly superior and the culture is amazing.
So you have to keep in mind that doing shit work for bum paychecks won't cut it. Not worth it in the least.
After many years as a successful graphic / web designer making 6 figures as a Creative Director in my field, I decided to forge my way into architecture. Knowing I wanted experience at more "creative" firms I researched the offices where I would be moving to while my wife was doing her residency - I ended up in Albuquerque and found Antoine Predock's office. They had openings, but paid only $7 an hour for interns with no architecture background. I took the job anyway and was part of two competition winners and shortlisted for another which I did the while proposal document.
So, I went from $115,000 a year to $10 an hour (after convincing them that I had skills that could benefit them...and did by programming a custom flash presentation environment where Antoine could present non-linearly and the presentation would adapt on the fly).
You have to make sacrifices to get to where you want. This may not be the one to take, but there will be many that don't seem worth it, and become worth it only by the effort that you chose to put into it regardless of the money being paid. Passion is not paid for.
That said it can be a kick in the gut to come to these realizations when debt is crumbling down the mountain in your direction.
if I had savings from working at 6 figures for a few years, an alternate career to fall back on, and a spouse who was pulling in a doctor's salary - oh - and no kids and no other major expenses, I would also take a minimum wage job doing interesting work at a starchitect firm.
I gots kids - two if you are counting. I also have around 250k in debt between my better have and myseld - from getting that education (family practice, not a doctor making a killing - instead one who finds ways to keep taking medicare). Everyone has some burden they are fighting through unless they were handed something. During this time, the down economy that is, I have caught back up in web design - html 5, javascript, apps, etc...and used my grasshopper and arduino skills to make the leap easier, oop all around, thus making the scripting easier. Take the job don't take the job, the point is if you don't have a goal, a motivation, a direction, don't expect anyone, especially in this field, to have something nice and comfortable and lasting just set aside for you. That is another field.
Lastly, I taught myself all my coding while the early 90's was crap for work. I went part-time to ACC (Austin Community College) doing analog graphic studies. I also worked 2 and 3 jobs, a waiter and late night baker - I am talking pastries here. I put down a big chunk of cash at the time, $2k, for some beige box of a pc. I got cracked software, looked up what it was to make a website, to animate (Flash did not exist, it was future splash at the time and Macromedia had not bought it yet) and kept pushing myself to learn anything about the new digital medium. Within 2 years I was making a great salary with little schooling outside of two years of graphics studios and a high school education packed full of art room.
Take your life by the reins and make it happy. Getting depressed about the shit that is only reinforces it. I know it sucks but in the end, what else are you going to do?
Oh, and I had no savings...I was a .com idiot who blew it all, though I never went into debt...I did not believe in it until my wife convinced me that using it to get a quality degree is valuable...she was right, I just got the wrong degree ;) Joking aside...we are both doing what we love, for the reasons we find important to us, and money has nothing to do with either. As Joseph Campbell would say, "Follow your bliss".
If you take it, You bring us all down.
Your just lowing our average.
chupa - thanks for sharing - your first post made you sound like you were a little out of touch... like your sacrifice was selling your mercedes and getting a honda or something...
anyway - I agree - take risks, if the risk seems like it could be worth it, go with it, but be extremely careful with offices that are only willing to pay minimum wage - because they are likely to try to take advantage in other ways as well...
personally - if the firm does awesome work and you'll get to learn a unique set of skills and play with fun toys, then there's a bit of a trade-off in pay, but if you're stuck doing roof flashing details in a windowless basement for a bipolar tyrant you're not getting paid enough. I think the latter is the place most of us are familiar with.
Lamp,
My view is that, even in this job market, you should, at a bare minimum, get benefits and $25k or so a year (in a low-cost city/region) and $30k in a higher cost city/region.
FYI, according to the Design Intelligence compensation report, the average starting salary in 2011 for a B.Arch is $41k.
I'm highly educated, with an M.Arch, and I'm stripping textured ceilings and ripping out carpet for $18/hr. No benies/health/vacations/time off/paid sick. i hope I've reached the bottom, though this, in fact, may not be the case. I'd take it. At least you're in a climate controlled environment where there will likely be people of some intelligence to converse with, and, who, may, in fact be moving on somewhere else. I'm certainly not.
Sign me,
stuck in deserted, suburbia hell in the foreclosed South.
Some of the views, and dreams, are great. But, I'll never live them.
Oh, did I mention that I have to climb up off my staple-encrusted knees at least four times a day to silence the ringer on my phone from the calls from the student loan collection bureaus?
I've done it at least nine times in front of the contractor, who whips me like a bitch when i do?
Welcome to the new home of America's intelligentsia. And Erskine Bowles is now telling us about the "automatic cuts" that will have to occur in our "defense spending" if the "Super Committee" doesn't approve the "Big Bold" measures we need to reduce our National debt?
Unless "WE" cut the national debt by "TRILLIONS" of dollars, "automatic cuts" from the defense budget will be enacted. A little late for the scariness of Halloween.
Why in the fuck do we need such a prodigious "defense" budget? Does Russia need one? How about Denmark? Or Nigeria?
When the only thing you value manufacturing are weapons, something is clearly WRONG.
We are not the egalitarians anymore, we are the oppressors.
Urbanist - does that take into account all of the people that couldn't get a job? Seems intuitively pretty high, given the market.
trace, including the unemployed isn't the point in the average starting salary, as they haven't got a starting salary. The point is that in comparison $20k is an insult.
While there are plenty of unemployed, remember that if $41k is the average starting salary, you know that some people out there are starting with more.
Any word from the OP on what happened? counter offer? turned it down? said, "thank you sir, may I have another?"
Trace, if you're referring to the DI survey, I'm assuming that 41k doesn't somehow average in the unemployed. It's the average starting salary of somebody with no prior experience and a newly minted b.Arch, from amongst those fortunate enough to get a job.
If you're referring to my admittedly arbitrary benchmarks, this is how I'd look at it: in a free market, everybody - and every profession, as the right to set the value of their own services, and every employer of those service has a right to do the same as well. To actually hire somebody at an agreed value is a process of negotiation between the two. Unless you're one of those people who believes in perfect market efficiency (never a good thing to argue for labor markets), on balance, there will always be a bid-ask spread, with the bid lower than the ask' for any given value. so,,, If the asker always accepts the bid value, then the price agreed will ALWAYs trend downward, toward oblivion. the capitalist model only works if both sides have enough spine to stick to their guns to to a point!
there is always a bid range below which the asker (job seeker) finds it more worthwhile to change professions, continue to temp or stay home (or move back in with the parents). it seems to me that 20k, no bennies , is well below that range.. Kind of like the banksters constantly threatening us with - well, if you tax me, I'll stop working for America and move to the Caymans...hehe. The difference here being that people and society actually need architects, while the bankster's utility is, at best, questionable, and possibly more linked to corrupt manipulation of the regulatory process than to real contributions to the country.
Now ... There are always exceptions, of course, based on individual wants, Maybe Thom Mayne has enough charisma or hypnotic brainwashing capability to induce people to agree to work for him for free for 3 months and then pay them next to nothing thereafter for the right to bask in his reflected glory, but clearly working for a generic roof refit company probably isn't that exception.
hi tumbles
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