Think their will a B I G shuffle when things open up. Don Q may be correct about a new fresh face untainted by office politics and unaware of the sharks lurking. (See what I mean..very cynical aren't I) It was happening in our office before the layoffs. The leadership was soooo toxic that HR was sending in counselors to try to strighten things out. One of the leadership strategies was to bring in a new design director that hadn't been exposd to the toxins and was coached to "put these issues behind adn let's look forward". He's still there I'm not.
HOWEVER, I just interviewed for a position (30 years experience) and they want the senior guy in place before they bring in the remainder of the team, so there is some hope for us unemployed AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, VP's. Let's hope this nightmare is coming to an end.
i could see the bitterness thing being a huge problem. as things hit the fan in '08/'09, i remember colleagues (and myself) being told all sorts of things right up until the axe, things about not being let go or being brought back first that turned out not to be true.
totally agree with you inTexas, there will have to be a Big shuffle when things open up. To make a metaphor, about the possible situation in a typical office. In the military when a person is promoted to say a leadership position specifically officer position, he is transferred right out to a different location, you know why? because none of his current co workers or comrades, will take him seriously, because they know him too well.
Well the same thing is going to happen with architecture offices, imagine getting re hired, and then being told that a person 15 years younger is your new PA, do you folks see the Awkwardness forming?
Offices are going to be forced to re think their hierarchy once things start looking up. If I was a person who is currently working, I would be dreading the day that the real pros come back to town.
ps. another small thought, do you guys think that there will be a mind set of US vs. Them? when we get back to work? considering that half of us are unemployed. This could be a positive boost to the profession, re invigorating all the older or the younger more experienced people (who were let go)to really shine.
In addition to the politics shuffling the offices, I think there will also be a lot of job hopping as people who either got hired at low salaries or people who have kept their jobs at reduced wages and long hours look for better opportunities as they come available. I feel like there is a growing number of offices that have gotten used to making their employees work 80+ hours a week at reduced wages and may not adjust when they get new employees or jobs.
DQ, I think I would be hopeful that innovative new firms will emerge out of this mess. People must be frustrated and as work starts picking up, I would guess that many experienced people who went through the frustration of unemployment might just find it more rewarding to their own thing rather than go crawling back to the people who treated them so badly in bad times. This is the optimistic view, but hopefully it'll happen.
Why do i get the feeling that urbanist doesn't like something that was said. I was not just referring to people getting hired back by their old firms, I Include professionals getting hired by different firms. Why you ask? well because everyone who's worked in this profession knows that it is relatively speaking a small community and everyone knows everyone. How do you think we find out what firms are good to work for and what firms to run away from? or what firms do good work? or what firms treat their people good? Urbanist, not trying to offend you but anyone with more than a few years in this profession knows this.
But, feelings aside the professionals that get hired back into the industry, will be just that professional about their role, after all they are veterans, and a lot of us got fired because we refused to play along with office politics, as was pointed by someone in an earlier comment.
We know how to play office politics, and unlike the past, people better get ready, because we are going to school a lot of people on office politics when we start to work again, and this is not a threat it is just what I think will happen, if people who are employed feel this is a threat well I don't blame them. After all can you imagine all those veteran architects who always refused to play office politics, because they thought it was silly, turning around and playing office politics? We humans still have a hunter gatherer mentality, just look at all the archinectors scrambling to collect masters degrees, its a defensive mechanism.
Yes, you can bet your bottom dollar that opening up my own office is my goal, and I am optimistic that this will hopefully be most peoples goal too. I'm just going to work for someone else long enough to save up a little more, then we'll see what happens.
I am hopeful that most of us will be civilized about it, but their will be an element of bitterness, we are only human after all, personally I'm still going to be nice and professional, but I don't expect that all my fellow architects will be.
Having been given my walking papers not once, not twice, but three times since April of 2008, the reasons can vary.
Who can say with absolute certainty why one gets the boot while another seemingly less-qualified person gets to stay? Why do some get hired when others who seem to match a job description to the letter don't get offered a position?
I've had four interviews since early August and three of the employers have opted to go with someone else or have changed their minds about hiring anyone altogether. A blow to the ego? You bet. I won't even include the measly five interviews I had in all of 2009 and how the job that I actually did get was through the proverbial friend of a friend. They canned me in late July of this year, so it's a moot point.
Office politics do in fact play a monumental role in one's survivability in a firm. Don't kid yourself that it's all about skill, abilities and being the star of the company softball team. Admittedly, I can be a bit of a lone wolf when I have a mountain of work to do. I tend to keep to myself and put the pedal to the metal, to quote a 70's CB trucker phrase. Perhaps my lack of schmoozing at the company lunch table and not participating in the Friday afternoon beer and chips get-togethers didn't help either.
This is not to say I'm anti-social. Hardly. It's just that my work ethic may lead people to think that Jack doesn't mind being a dull boy. It doesn't pay off in the end, trust me. Your work doesn't speak for itself; you do. Perhaps your mileage has varied. This has been my experience, however. Do you know how deep that knife cuts you when your boss's boss in essence says, "You have no advocates in this office." Wow. You pour your heart and soul into your work and in the end, it's all about who likes you, not how you dragged a set of God-awful drawings out of the sewer and made them surgically-sterile.
CADalackey. It's iimportant to have connections I agree, need to work on that or open your own office, B U T at my last position we were having national HR people come into our office to try to remedy the toxic environment that was existing created by 3 people that were NAMED. During a cumbaya session, the HR person referenced one of the problems was lack of leadership and mentorship, and that if the leaders needed someone to learn how that should be done, she said tehy need look no furthur than yours truly as an example. SO what, well in my case I guess it meant that trying to relate to all the staff and create an inclusive supprtive environment was threat. SO don't blame yourself too much and don't self analyze too much, unfortunately the assholes are winning.
jobs going to people with jobs
I prefer my office hierarchies to be shaped like nonconvex great rhombicuboctahedrons.
Think their will a B I G shuffle when things open up. Don Q may be correct about a new fresh face untainted by office politics and unaware of the sharks lurking. (See what I mean..very cynical aren't I) It was happening in our office before the layoffs. The leadership was soooo toxic that HR was sending in counselors to try to strighten things out. One of the leadership strategies was to bring in a new design director that hadn't been exposd to the toxins and was coached to "put these issues behind adn let's look forward". He's still there I'm not.
HOWEVER, I just interviewed for a position (30 years experience) and they want the senior guy in place before they bring in the remainder of the team, so there is some hope for us unemployed AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, VP's. Let's hope this nightmare is coming to an end.
UG, what a great hierarchy
i could see the bitterness thing being a huge problem. as things hit the fan in '08/'09, i remember colleagues (and myself) being told all sorts of things right up until the axe, things about not being let go or being brought back first that turned out not to be true.
totally agree with you inTexas, there will have to be a Big shuffle when things open up. To make a metaphor, about the possible situation in a typical office. In the military when a person is promoted to say a leadership position specifically officer position, he is transferred right out to a different location, you know why? because none of his current co workers or comrades, will take him seriously, because they know him too well.
Well the same thing is going to happen with architecture offices, imagine getting re hired, and then being told that a person 15 years younger is your new PA, do you folks see the Awkwardness forming?
Offices are going to be forced to re think their hierarchy once things start looking up. If I was a person who is currently working, I would be dreading the day that the real pros come back to town.
ps. another small thought, do you guys think that there will be a mind set of US vs. Them? when we get back to work? considering that half of us are unemployed. This could be a positive boost to the profession, re invigorating all the older or the younger more experienced people (who were let go)to really shine.
In addition to the politics shuffling the offices, I think there will also be a lot of job hopping as people who either got hired at low salaries or people who have kept their jobs at reduced wages and long hours look for better opportunities as they come available. I feel like there is a growing number of offices that have gotten used to making their employees work 80+ hours a week at reduced wages and may not adjust when they get new employees or jobs.
DQ, I think I would be hopeful that innovative new firms will emerge out of this mess. People must be frustrated and as work starts picking up, I would guess that many experienced people who went through the frustration of unemployment might just find it more rewarding to their own thing rather than go crawling back to the people who treated them so badly in bad times. This is the optimistic view, but hopefully it'll happen.
Why do i get the feeling that urbanist doesn't like something that was said. I was not just referring to people getting hired back by their old firms, I Include professionals getting hired by different firms. Why you ask? well because everyone who's worked in this profession knows that it is relatively speaking a small community and everyone knows everyone. How do you think we find out what firms are good to work for and what firms to run away from? or what firms do good work? or what firms treat their people good? Urbanist, not trying to offend you but anyone with more than a few years in this profession knows this.
But, feelings aside the professionals that get hired back into the industry, will be just that professional about their role, after all they are veterans, and a lot of us got fired because we refused to play along with office politics, as was pointed by someone in an earlier comment.
We know how to play office politics, and unlike the past, people better get ready, because we are going to school a lot of people on office politics when we start to work again, and this is not a threat it is just what I think will happen, if people who are employed feel this is a threat well I don't blame them. After all can you imagine all those veteran architects who always refused to play office politics, because they thought it was silly, turning around and playing office politics? We humans still have a hunter gatherer mentality, just look at all the archinectors scrambling to collect masters degrees, its a defensive mechanism.
Yes, you can bet your bottom dollar that opening up my own office is my goal, and I am optimistic that this will hopefully be most peoples goal too. I'm just going to work for someone else long enough to save up a little more, then we'll see what happens.
I am hopeful that most of us will be civilized about it, but their will be an element of bitterness, we are only human after all, personally I'm still going to be nice and professional, but I don't expect that all my fellow architects will be.
Having been given my walking papers not once, not twice, but three times since April of 2008, the reasons can vary.
Who can say with absolute certainty why one gets the boot while another seemingly less-qualified person gets to stay? Why do some get hired when others who seem to match a job description to the letter don't get offered a position?
I've had four interviews since early August and three of the employers have opted to go with someone else or have changed their minds about hiring anyone altogether. A blow to the ego? You bet. I won't even include the measly five interviews I had in all of 2009 and how the job that I actually did get was through the proverbial friend of a friend. They canned me in late July of this year, so it's a moot point.
Office politics do in fact play a monumental role in one's survivability in a firm. Don't kid yourself that it's all about skill, abilities and being the star of the company softball team. Admittedly, I can be a bit of a lone wolf when I have a mountain of work to do. I tend to keep to myself and put the pedal to the metal, to quote a 70's CB trucker phrase. Perhaps my lack of schmoozing at the company lunch table and not participating in the Friday afternoon beer and chips get-togethers didn't help either.
This is not to say I'm anti-social. Hardly. It's just that my work ethic may lead people to think that Jack doesn't mind being a dull boy. It doesn't pay off in the end, trust me. Your work doesn't speak for itself; you do. Perhaps your mileage has varied. This has been my experience, however. Do you know how deep that knife cuts you when your boss's boss in essence says, "You have no advocates in this office." Wow. You pour your heart and soul into your work and in the end, it's all about who likes you, not how you dragged a set of God-awful drawings out of the sewer and made them surgically-sterile.
Sorry for the novel.
CADalackey. It's iimportant to have connections I agree, need to work on that or open your own office, B U T at my last position we were having national HR people come into our office to try to remedy the toxic environment that was existing created by 3 people that were NAMED. During a cumbaya session, the HR person referenced one of the problems was lack of leadership and mentorship, and that if the leaders needed someone to learn how that should be done, she said tehy need look no furthur than yours truly as an example. SO what, well in my case I guess it meant that trying to relate to all the staff and create an inclusive supprtive environment was threat. SO don't blame yourself too much and don't self analyze too much, unfortunately the assholes are winning.
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