I was laid off, twice, both times briefly, at the old place. My desire to do a decent job for the sake of the business plummeted. I continued to do a decent job, because I am professional, but stopped considering it a place to stay at. And now I've left and am trying the other side of the coin.
I was 'laid off' once because the principal made a fairly stupid mistake in front of his all-time hero, and he needed to save face / find somebody else to blame. I had the paper trail to prove I did nothing wrong, but that would have been a pointless and aggravating path.
My old boss would display some of his large collection of restored vintage German sports cars...in the office, under spot lights..in 2008 when I was being laid off, looking at his obvious trophies to himself, it was difficult to feel for him as he was telling us how bad things were...people left...but the cars stayed...the place always smelled like exhaust...
This blog post talks about what it's like to have survived mass layoffs at a corporate firm how practicing architecture seems to have changed since 2008.
It's ironic that this blog post postulates that when things are going the best that doom is around the corner. Actually, the tenure of the blog post is that doom is always around the corner. Even if it is a bit on the negative side, a good takeaway is that architects need to be aware that good time and bad times do not last.
Judging from some of the stories shared on this forum I think the blog post's gloominess can be justified to some degree. How many of the stories begin with "I was working nights and weekends to deliver a CD set on time, only to be shown the door the day after its completion..." or something similar? It's important to constantly be on the watch of what other projects are going on in the office, and which ones are on a holding pattern. It's only through experience and prudence that I've become quite cynical about projects ever coming back on line, and one should treat client's excuses with healthy skepticism. After all the client is salesman above all else, and is always trying to promote his project and how great it will be to potential tenants and financial backers. And his sales-pitch always hinges on a strong belief that this project will be built. But remember, it's just a belief and his job is to have others buy into it.
legopiece,
Sucking up, being the fastest and pulling out all-nighters for a project will benefit you to a point, since it demonstrates passionate commitment, but there is the danger that the leadership will take advantage of you and will structure project teams bearing that in mind, and will only squeeze you further. You'll get less help and will be further removed from making much of the important decisions about the project such as defining deliverables, fees, schedules, etc. In other words, the very things that determine whether you need to put in long hours or not.
I think you learned pretty much the right lessons, especially when it comes to surviving in a firm. It's saved my own job a number of times. But when it comes to advancing into the leadership roles in a firm, working harder at producing drawings/models/renderings doesn't count for much, in my view, even as those are the things that I truly find fulfilling about my job. It actually marginalizes you a bit. One needs to prove that they can bring in revenue, whether by bringing in new clients, or maintaining close relationships with repeat clients through successful project management. As the old adage goes, the higher your position in a firm, the less of the actual grunt work you are expected to do.
I was at this mega-conglomorate EA firm for a number of years - maybe like five years. It was good for a while - EVEN during the recession where we were busy with government work - especially jails and embassies in very dangerous countries. I was a PA and was kept pretty busy much of the time - my pay was pretty good - probably better than many of my colleagues working at other firms.
At the tail end of the recession, we began to experience quite a noticible lack of new government jobs coming in - like almost nothing. This was due in major part to government spending cuts and generally clumsily-run pursuits of key projects that fell squarely within our niche market. Keep in mind as opposed to other peoples' experiences at other firms, management at this office was run by a bunch of clowns and perhaps their most occasional critics. Because of the sensitive nature of many of the high-security projects the office was generally pretty closed so you would really not know what was going on in office meetings. But we knew they were going on. They did not due mass layoffs, they would just silently cut someone down and escort them out one-by-one. And this was happening for about five months - even IF someone was 100% billable. After about a two-year bout of enduring this nightmare, I was finally one of the ones whacked.
I was 100% billable on some science building project. We were slaving away on this project day and night and I thought I was doijng a good job until, others effectively stopped communicating with me and project related emails were not being sent to me. When I asked why, people would just shrug it off. But they still refused to copy me on project emails and they refused to include me in project meetings. This went on for three days. My boss who was nominally my friend and advocate would try his best to avoid me at all costs. No one looked me in the eye even. I finally talked to one of the managing directors who himself was a gigantic bucket of douche and he just dismissed me saying "oh that's architecture for you." I finally cornered my boss and asked if I was totally fucked and he just didn't know. Everyone actually knew and I spend two weeks walking around like a fucking sitting duck. Then one afternoon, I was plugging away with my REVIT model and my studio director came up to me, told me to finish what I was doing, save to central, and then log out of my computer, and come with him, I knew it. It was actually almost like a relief. I look back on it, my entire time with that firm was pretty dark and the light at the end of the tunnel was finally getting laid off. Even though I wanted to tell that old boys club to eat a cock-meat sandwich, I actually was somewhat grateful. Got a much better job within 3 weeks - I was lucky.
Layoffs and you getting laid off warning signs as sometimes you are the one leaving not others.
General lack of investment in office infrastructure furniture, lighting, dirty carpets.
Are you doing billable hours 35 out of 40 hours or more? If not it is time to start working on the resume.
Did you get an email by accident from a co worker complaining about your attitude (This actually happens)
Are there suddenly new people on the team who are now doing what you had been doing before but they have “more experience”
Your company picnic is suddenly rescheduled to a later date.
Your direct deposit for the week did not come through.
Projects you are or were working on get shelved or handed over to someone else.
I like it when they say "this is no one's fault", and "if you land a job come talk to us"
Thanks for sharing your story. I can relate with noticing how the backlog of projects would dwindle to almost nothing and that it would somehow result into layoffs, but I also remember how naïve I was at the time in thinking that nothing would happen to me. There I was sitting at the weekly Monday morning meeting reviewing all the projects in the office and noticing that the agenda seemed to have gotten pretty short. The tone of the conversation felt pretty hunky-dory as it always was, so I didn't suspect anything was really amiss. After all, our small Denver-based firm (about 15 people, which was double what it was the year before) was in the early stages of planning for an office expansion, and we had just concluded the first round of meetings with a 'strategic consultant', chatting about the firm's future goals, what our core identity was, blah blah blah. Then a few days later, I was brought into the conference room and my boss told me pretty much that I was being let go, along with another lady due to the fact we were the youngest and least experienced in the firm. I will recall one thing he said that was very true though not obvious at the time--when things got too tight at his firm, he saw it as a benefit to people who had been there for a relatively short time (I had been there 18 months) to be let go and seek other opportunities rather than to linger in his office with nothing to work on. It definitely turned out to be the case for me, a month later I was in Chicago working an awesome skyscraper project.
I would like know from principals and or HR people, what are the reasons that a principal may not be able to tell you after you are laid off why you were on the list and not kept. Obviously they have to some people due to clients and on going projects. but they do not layoff people they really want. or people that have a particular skill. So even if it nots a total surprise you were laid off it would be helpful to know what skill or characteristic was missing that would have help you keep your job.
are the reason legal, office policy, an understanding with their partners, or is it know that it causes problems afterwards?
Jul 4, 15 5:53 pm ·
·
It could be because the reason they did that could be for illegal reasons and not telling you is a legal based defensed maneuvering.
It is common in at-will employment states. So not telling the employee they terminated gives them time to make up a lawful reason but often the real reason is illegal and be grounds for wrongful termination lawsuits. For those lawsuits to be effective, the ex-employee suing has to have evidence as to why they were termination.
It could be because there simply is not enough money coming in to pay everyone. Then there's no good reason to fire you, but there's also not much option, and it could be very uncomfortable and difficult for the people to talk to you about it because they feel bad.
Jul 4, 15 7:40 pm ·
·
curtkram,
When you own your business, you are principal but I legally have the right to hire but don't enough business to hire anyone.
In which case, I'm a sole-proprietorship and what I do as a business is not that different than residential oriented architects that do light commercial.
That aside, if you lay someone off because there is not enough work, it comes done to having to lay off so many people... why hide the fact?
There has to be more substantive reason for hiding the facts.
I think I learned from a response in another post, that there may not be a substantive reason, but there are a great many lesser reasons.
The question - Working 24/7(as I did) or being absolutely indispensable while not working 24/7. If you’re not someone who is capable of this, working 24/7 may leave you with no life, burnt out beyond what you can understand, and essentially a pending or ongoing disaster (as I was). I think you (I) need to be happy with what you do (I am), and do it well enough (I do) that someone will hire you soon after being let go (they did). Also I would suggest, to myself, to stay in touch with your colleagues and profession outside your office (didn’t), which will dampen a layoff, or will allow you to switch firms before the layoff. I’ve heard of people doing this, buts it seems rare. I look forward to striving for things, and I believe I’ll be striving for this. The problem for me is I don’t believe in working solo, solo work is almost never as good as work born from collaboration. And collaboration begets team work, support, wounded pride, stress, insults, more insults, yelling, but eventually comes trust and loyalty. Then the work gets really good, the best. I cant wait to get back in it.
Jul 6, 15 1:26 am ·
·
24/7 is a death sentence Jackfrost19. It is impossible to work 24/7 for significant duration.
I did that for practically 5 days with a total (meditation-rest not really sleep) for 3 hours. It is impossible to sustain that weeks after weeks because you have to sleep.
However....
Jul 6, 15 1:50 am ·
·
I have done weeks on end where even while asleep that I am brainstorming about the project. It is just impossible to consciously work 24/7 without at least letting the body rest even though the mind isn't entirely resting. The big problem is you have to cycle down every once in awhile to let yourself actually rest rest.
I was on a mission, and thought that the project and the building deserved every ounce of energy I could give, at a minimum. I didnt want to leave anything on the field. and that opinion, was shared by my coworkers and superseded what anyone else thought or what the client deserved, but typically we had very good clients usually doing good work themselves, so a good building would help them go out into the world and do good work. Therefore the potential benefits to society were very important, and unfortunately endless. and then the next project would roll in, ..........it went on for much longer than a decade. before it all crashed. boo hoo.
Ive got my eye on another envirnment that i can do that type of work again, just need to make sure i dont end up back here again.
Jul 6, 15 2:19 am ·
·
Yep, exactly. I know. Alot of times, I am that way. It is because when you have the work, you work long hours and frankly projects often just stay in the mind and you keep thinking about the project regardless of the setting. Perhaps we are culturally OCD to some degree. However, it isn't necessarily OCD but perfectionist which is because we are visual thinkers and when we see something visually not quite right or off... we want to solve that and have it working.
What are some warning signs that your office is about to lay people off
I was 'laid off' once because the principal made a fairly stupid mistake in front of his all-time hero, and he needed to save face / find somebody else to blame. I had the paper trail to prove I did nothing wrong, but that would have been a pointless and aggravating path.
Good times.
My old boss would display some of his large collection of restored vintage German sports cars...in the office, under spot lights..in 2008 when I was being laid off, looking at his obvious trophies to himself, it was difficult to feel for him as he was telling us how bad things were...people left...but the cars stayed...the place always smelled like exhaust...
Geez - some of you people have worked for some real turkeys !
I was laid off and rehired back by the same principal in the same firm 3 weeks later with a nice raise. So, sometimes it works out!
This blog post talks about what it's like to have survived mass layoffs at a corporate firm how practicing architecture seems to have changed since 2008.
http://architectureandmorality.blogspot.com/2013/10/five-years-later-being-architect-under.html
One sign that layoffs are underway: project teams get too big and a bit too loud (too much chatting, not much work getting done at the desk).
thats a good blog h d j,
thanks for all the comments everyone.
"Suck up, be the fastest,the first one in and the last one out - be there on weekends too"
been there done that Xenakis, didn't work. its all water under the bridge.
It's ironic that this blog post postulates that when things are going the best that doom is around the corner. Actually, the tenure of the blog post is that doom is always around the corner. Even if it is a bit on the negative side, a good takeaway is that architects need to be aware that good time and bad times do not last.
Gruen,
Judging from some of the stories shared on this forum I think the blog post's gloominess can be justified to some degree. How many of the stories begin with "I was working nights and weekends to deliver a CD set on time, only to be shown the door the day after its completion..." or something similar? It's important to constantly be on the watch of what other projects are going on in the office, and which ones are on a holding pattern. It's only through experience and prudence that I've become quite cynical about projects ever coming back on line, and one should treat client's excuses with healthy skepticism. After all the client is salesman above all else, and is always trying to promote his project and how great it will be to potential tenants and financial backers. And his sales-pitch always hinges on a strong belief that this project will be built. But remember, it's just a belief and his job is to have others buy into it.
legopiece,
Sucking up, being the fastest and pulling out all-nighters for a project will benefit you to a point, since it demonstrates passionate commitment, but there is the danger that the leadership will take advantage of you and will structure project teams bearing that in mind, and will only squeeze you further. You'll get less help and will be further removed from making much of the important decisions about the project such as defining deliverables, fees, schedules, etc. In other words, the very things that determine whether you need to put in long hours or not.
legopiece
"Suck up, be the fastest,the first one in and the last one out - be there on weekends too"
I did all that except the sucking up part and still got laid off. -
Sucking up and working long hours aren't necessary or even sufficient. Being indispensible is.
Xenakis,
I think you learned pretty much the right lessons, especially when it comes to surviving in a firm. It's saved my own job a number of times. But when it comes to advancing into the leadership roles in a firm, working harder at producing drawings/models/renderings doesn't count for much, in my view, even as those are the things that I truly find fulfilling about my job. It actually marginalizes you a bit. One needs to prove that they can bring in revenue, whether by bringing in new clients, or maintaining close relationships with repeat clients through successful project management. As the old adage goes, the higher your position in a firm, the less of the actual grunt work you are expected to do.
I have to say this has been a very enjoyable, informative, and pleasureable threat to read.
Thank you all for the perspectives!
I'll speak from personal experience.
I was at this mega-conglomorate EA firm for a number of years - maybe like five years. It was good for a while - EVEN during the recession where we were busy with government work - especially jails and embassies in very dangerous countries. I was a PA and was kept pretty busy much of the time - my pay was pretty good - probably better than many of my colleagues working at other firms.
At the tail end of the recession, we began to experience quite a noticible lack of new government jobs coming in - like almost nothing. This was due in major part to government spending cuts and generally clumsily-run pursuits of key projects that fell squarely within our niche market. Keep in mind as opposed to other peoples' experiences at other firms, management at this office was run by a bunch of clowns and perhaps their most occasional critics. Because of the sensitive nature of many of the high-security projects the office was generally pretty closed so you would really not know what was going on in office meetings. But we knew they were going on. They did not due mass layoffs, they would just silently cut someone down and escort them out one-by-one. And this was happening for about five months - even IF someone was 100% billable. After about a two-year bout of enduring this nightmare, I was finally one of the ones whacked.
I was 100% billable on some science building project. We were slaving away on this project day and night and I thought I was doijng a good job until, others effectively stopped communicating with me and project related emails were not being sent to me. When I asked why, people would just shrug it off. But they still refused to copy me on project emails and they refused to include me in project meetings. This went on for three days. My boss who was nominally my friend and advocate would try his best to avoid me at all costs. No one looked me in the eye even. I finally talked to one of the managing directors who himself was a gigantic bucket of douche and he just dismissed me saying "oh that's architecture for you." I finally cornered my boss and asked if I was totally fucked and he just didn't know. Everyone actually knew and I spend two weeks walking around like a fucking sitting duck. Then one afternoon, I was plugging away with my REVIT model and my studio director came up to me, told me to finish what I was doing, save to central, and then log out of my computer, and come with him, I knew it. It was actually almost like a relief. I look back on it, my entire time with that firm was pretty dark and the light at the end of the tunnel was finally getting laid off. Even though I wanted to tell that old boys club to eat a cock-meat sandwich, I actually was somewhat grateful. Got a much better job within 3 weeks - I was lucky.
Layoffs and you getting laid off warning signs as sometimes you are the one leaving not others.
General lack of investment in office infrastructure furniture, lighting, dirty carpets.
Are you doing billable hours 35 out of 40 hours or more? If not it is time to start working on the resume.
Did you get an email by accident from a co worker complaining about your attitude (This actually happens)
Are there suddenly new people on the team who are now doing what you had been doing before but they have “more experience”
Your company picnic is suddenly rescheduled to a later date.
Your direct deposit for the week did not come through.
Projects you are or were working on get shelved or handed over to someone else.
I like it when they say "this is no one's fault", and "if you land a job come talk to us"
Always be ready for a career change.
Peter N
med.
Thanks for sharing your story. I can relate with noticing how the backlog of projects would dwindle to almost nothing and that it would somehow result into layoffs, but I also remember how naïve I was at the time in thinking that nothing would happen to me. There I was sitting at the weekly Monday morning meeting reviewing all the projects in the office and noticing that the agenda seemed to have gotten pretty short. The tone of the conversation felt pretty hunky-dory as it always was, so I didn't suspect anything was really amiss. After all, our small Denver-based firm (about 15 people, which was double what it was the year before) was in the early stages of planning for an office expansion, and we had just concluded the first round of meetings with a 'strategic consultant', chatting about the firm's future goals, what our core identity was, blah blah blah. Then a few days later, I was brought into the conference room and my boss told me pretty much that I was being let go, along with another lady due to the fact we were the youngest and least experienced in the firm. I will recall one thing he said that was very true though not obvious at the time--when things got too tight at his firm, he saw it as a benefit to people who had been there for a relatively short time (I had been there 18 months) to be let go and seek other opportunities rather than to linger in his office with nothing to work on. It definitely turned out to be the case for me, a month later I was in Chicago working an awesome skyscraper project.
Greetings,
I would like know from principals and or HR people, what are the reasons that a principal may not be able to tell you after you are laid off why you were on the list and not kept. Obviously they have to some people due to clients and on going projects. but they do not layoff people they really want. or people that have a particular skill. So even if it nots a total surprise you were laid off it would be helpful to know what skill or characteristic was missing that would have help you keep your job.
are the reason legal, office policy, an understanding with their partners, or is it know that it causes problems afterwards?
It could be because the reason they did that could be for illegal reasons and not telling you is a legal based defensed maneuvering.
It is common in at-will employment states. So not telling the employee they terminated gives them time to make up a lawful reason but often the real reason is illegal and be grounds for wrongful termination lawsuits. For those lawsuits to be effective, the ex-employee suing has to have evidence as to why they were termination.
By not telling a person is a defense practice.
R.b. is not really principal or HR. Neither am I.
It could be because there simply is not enough money coming in to pay everyone. Then there's no good reason to fire you, but there's also not much option, and it could be very uncomfortable and difficult for the people to talk to you about it because they feel bad.
curtkram,
When you own your business, you are principal but I legally have the right to hire but don't enough business to hire anyone.
In which case, I'm a sole-proprietorship and what I do as a business is not that different than residential oriented architects that do light commercial.
That aside, if you lay someone off because there is not enough work, it comes done to having to lay off so many people... why hide the fact?
There has to be more substantive reason for hiding the facts.
I think I learned from a response in another post, that there may not be a substantive reason, but there are a great many lesser reasons.
The question - Working 24/7(as I did) or being absolutely indispensable while not working 24/7. If you’re not someone who is capable of this, working 24/7 may leave you with no life, burnt out beyond what you can understand, and essentially a pending or ongoing disaster (as I was). I think you (I) need to be happy with what you do (I am), and do it well enough (I do) that someone will hire you soon after being let go (they did). Also I would suggest, to myself, to stay in touch with your colleagues and profession outside your office (didn’t), which will dampen a layoff, or will allow you to switch firms before the layoff. I’ve heard of people doing this, buts it seems rare. I look forward to striving for things, and I believe I’ll be striving for this. The problem for me is I don’t believe in working solo, solo work is almost never as good as work born from collaboration. And collaboration begets team work, support, wounded pride, stress, insults, more insults, yelling, but eventually comes trust and loyalty. Then the work gets really good, the best. I cant wait to get back in it.
24/7 is a death sentence Jackfrost19. It is impossible to work 24/7 for significant duration.
I did that for practically 5 days with a total (meditation-rest not really sleep) for 3 hours. It is impossible to sustain that weeks after weeks because you have to sleep.
However....
I have done weeks on end where even while asleep that I am brainstorming about the project. It is just impossible to consciously work 24/7 without at least letting the body rest even though the mind isn't entirely resting. The big problem is you have to cycle down every once in awhile to let yourself actually rest rest.
I was on a mission, and thought that the project and the building deserved every ounce of energy I could give, at a minimum. I didnt want to leave anything on the field. and that opinion, was shared by my coworkers and superseded what anyone else thought or what the client deserved, but typically we had very good clients usually doing good work themselves, so a good building would help them go out into the world and do good work. Therefore the potential benefits to society were very important, and unfortunately endless. and then the next project would roll in, ..........it went on for much longer than a decade. before it all crashed. boo hoo.
Ive got my eye on another envirnment that i can do that type of work again, just need to make sure i dont end up back here again.
Yep, exactly. I know. Alot of times, I am that way. It is because when you have the work, you work long hours and frankly projects often just stay in the mind and you keep thinking about the project regardless of the setting. Perhaps we are culturally OCD to some degree. However, it isn't necessarily OCD but perfectionist which is because we are visual thinkers and when we see something visually not quite right or off... we want to solve that and have it working.
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