YOU ARE DEAD MARINE - get off your sorry ass and find out what others need right this second or the next time you get laid off, it will be the end of your career forever - this I kid you not. when I was at SOM SF, and we had nothing to do - they laid our sorry asses off, and it took me 12 months of hell to get temp jobs.

GET MOVING OR YOU WIL BE DEAD

Usually the best thing to do is to make one pass around the office and see if anyone needs anything done or needs any help with anything they are working on. I wouldn't ask every person in the office, maybe just the people who are directly responsible for projects. If this doesn't produce any work, then find something to keep yourself occupied that looks like work. The last thing you want to do is to frequently advertise you are without work, so keep your requests minimal.

Downtime is always a good time to work on the CAD library, or in your case, work on rendering skills. I'm sure you can probably predict the rendering needs that will be upcoming and start preparing materials, lighting, etc so that when the time comes you are ready to just plug-in the file and render away.

I would also guess that if you made yourself available, the marketing department/person could probably use some help. With most offices competing for any and every job they can get, the marketing people have been some of the most overworked (IMO). Perhaps some of the older projects could use rerendering, or maybe you can use your (presumably) other graphic skills to assist with proposals, etc.

I appreciate your advice, I just want to be taken advantage off and to give the wrong idea that I can do their work for them. I worked at small office before and things are usually well organized, I didn't have to go around asking for work, they would just keep me busy. But I am new to corporate structure, and not sure if going around asking for work is a good idea, feels like a bagger :(

But I will make one pass around to see what they are working on, thanks for your advice!

^ I meant to say, "I don't want to be taken advantage off"

My experience, having worked both at large and small offices, is that smaller offices tend be a little more efficient and more aware of what their staff is working on. It's not that larger offices are disorganized, but rather there are just too many people to keep track of. That said, I also found that at the smaller office I generally needed to figure out what to do most of the time, where at the larger office I usually got a set of tasks to complete and then had to go back and get another set of tasks to do.

Again this comes down to project structure- at the smaller office I was working on a project by myself so there wasn't anyone to get tasks from; at the larger office projects can have any number of people working on them so it's usually necessary to divide tasks and assign people to work on small parts of the project. This is where you come in- usually every project/team has one person that is falling behind- either they were assigned a task that just takes longer, they are splitting their time between too many projects, or maybe they are just not as strong as the rest of the team.

I kinda doubt people are just going to dump all their work on you, especially since then they would have nothing to do and this cycle would start all over again. There are always redlines that someone would LOVE to pass onto someone else. I foresee many a door schedule in your future.

well,
There is no easy answer to your question, and going around asking people for things to do is not a good idea in the cutthroat world of corporate architecture, my only advice to you is get involved in office politics as soon as you can.

ps. usually you should be able to foresee these kinds of phases coming, sometimes it is just a good idea to move on, but in this economy cant blame you for wanting to hang on to a dead horse.

oh and good luck.

remember "office politics" do it now.

if the office is is big enough and has offices around the globe, just tap into the company job number data base and start filling out your time sheet with projects overseas so that you look 100% billable...scatter your hours across projects so as not to draw too much attention from the PM's on the projects, the more of a language barrier the less likely you will get the PM on the project looking into it. :)

I'm entirely joking of course.....

Since you are a renderer, try to do your own modeling/rendering work.

It is not uncommon at all to experience slowdowns when you are the office's visualization person. So I wouldn't sweat it too much. But it would be a good idea to make yourself busy by doing your own thing -- continue exploring the programs you are rendering with. Another thing you could do is try to engage the rest of the staff with what you're doing by setting up a "dog-and-pony" show of the renderings your're doing and demonstrating the firm's capabilities with visualization. Also try to explore new programs and plugins by keeping your boss engaged in what you need to make your job easier and the work better. Try setting up brownbag lunches for other who are interested in 3d stuff as well. All kinds of stuff you can do when you're not billable.

Other than that, if you have a background in architecture, try to remind some of the coworkers that you are also an architect too! so if they need help with CDs, SD's ect, you can do that!

Good luck.

ask who needs help and tell your boss you need more work. go through your schedules, clean out your computer, clean off your desk

instead of asking around for more work, do the work that you do have to do better. take more time, be more careful - add something indispensible to a project. don't accept adequate solutions; find the best solution.

i think early in my career i did ask around for work more often, and it was appreciated, but as i progressed as a professional, i gained the ability to create my own schedule and priorities. i think that is ultimately the goal - learn how to manage your own time efficiently and effectively to add value to your projects and avoid "downtime."

Spend your time secretly searching for other jobs/projects.I don't want to sound all doom and gloom but whenever the same thing happened to me I always got laid off soon after that.

Maybe you can diversify your work by getting into graphics and get 2D cad monkey stuff?

ask me how I became really, really good at Pac-man

I bet your co-workers were wondering why you were so excited behind the computer screen Strawbeary.

Maybe, but they couldn't see me from the barstool down the block.

reminder: that firm doesn't exist anymore. NOT a good way to handle the slow times.

You guys are awesome, a lot of good advice, just what I needed, thanks!

LOL Strawbeary, I like your way!

med. - thanks for your comment, I am kind of doing my own stuff right now, because there is nothing to do for anybody, but I think it will be a bit challenging to show them my tricks, because they all seem to be busy with CAD all day... But I really like that approach.

I think just to be the Renderer is not enough to secure a job that requires doing renderings these days... Need to be also CAD master and politician, which I both lack.

DonQuixote - what do you mean by " get involved in office politics" is it like finding out who are the main people and just having conversations with them about life or about company operations? This is one area that I have no clue what to do, I am just a bee worker...

Strawbeary, I adore you.

med. your comment is great, really helpful.

Good luck, zen maker!

I would say, find other ways to be useful to the firm. Find out if there's archiving to be done, whether the marketing team needs better images from certain projects, or if there's some redlines that need done. If you get caught doing personal work, you'll only look worse: if people find out you're trying to improve the overall work of the firm outside of your stated role, you're golden.

Thanks copper_top, that really sums it up pretty good, just be active in the firm, do whatever you can do expand your expertise and don't get stuck doing same thing that you were hired to be doing, especially in this crappy economy!

I have the same problem too, but I my office has these Bella Black Lounge Chairs from fashion4home and I get too comfortable. Sometimes I zone out for a bit, but now I am getting better at focusing on my work and being productive!

do you model in rhino? this plugin might be helpful.

zen maker

what do i mean by office politics? well, you are a person with a college education I'm pretty sure you can do it. Basically without going into great detail, smile, say hello to everyone, seem interested in everyone's work, participate in the office extracurricular activities or even better start your own, this includes being interested in even the secretary, fool or make everyone think that you are really interested, and want to do something good for the company. Talk to everyone. Good luck.

pretend or you're designing which often comes across as design since design is pretend anyway.

pretend you're designing which often comes across as design since design is pretend anyway.

pretend you're designing which often comes across as design since design is pretend anyway.

Volunteer to redline shop drawings....It is a good way to learn how a building goes together. Plus most people are always willing to pass it off to someone else.

Spend more time on Archinect, for research purposes of course.

DonQuixote - this is the skill that I don't have, like my friend says, you have to learn how to BS if you want to go up in the ladder, unfortunately, it is harder to talk bullshit for me than to render a skyscrapper with all the furnitures on every floor. I really do envy people who can just start conversation easily and pretend like they care about other people, I don't know how they do it.