and/or - exactly. the safdie is a good example, as is the erma piano (renxo's office) fellowship. both at least have living wages.
i'm not interesting in trashing bill, his office, or whatever on a personal level. i am, however, astounded by their behavior as professionals in this instance. it seems that they have called this position a 'fellowship' precisely to avoid the labor laws (as someone said above, if you take it, knowing in advance what it pays, and it's not considered them 'hiring' the person....). for someone of his apparent stature within the community here, it's really perplexing to see. i just don't understand how they could be that desperate. i mean, even at 10/hr, it's still only 3,800 more over 3 months. i know people who spend that much on coffee everyday. (ok, not quite, but...)
for all of you who might be thinking about doing something like this: as an employer, i will tell you first hand that it is really hard to take on people who have just graduated or who are in school (and this is a broad based generalization. i'm sure most of you are above average in this regard...;)) because the reality is we can't bill all of the time that you spend on a project, nor can we bill all the time we need to spend with you to help 'train you up' on those projects. some, but not all- you just can't. but, i've tried to take on people in that position because i honestly believe that part of our professional responsibility is to help train the next generation. it's why i also teach as an adjunct (and let me promise you that that's no financial win-win either, especially at a state institution). not everyone shares this view. fine. but if we, who are in the positions of authority and power, don't find a way to make these situations better, then we have no one else left to blame for the continual decline in relavence of our profession or the talent drain that it continues to suffer from. period. no excuses. so, we suck it up, financially speaking, and make the investment in the people that we think both have the most to gain and who, in turn, can help us out the most as well. it was done unto me at one point, it's my turn now, and i hope those we've crossed paths with will pick up the mantle somewhere down the road. it's all about the karma. or something like that.
so, can i maybe find some empatheic understanding for why the group above are doing this stunt? maybe. it still isn't right and it still should be called out.
Something I've been wondering about along these lines that maybe someone has experience with. I know in some fields, particularly magazine publishing (and fashion as well from what I understand), that they typically offer unpaid internships (3-6 months, I think) to recent grads or people who are considering entering the field and I don't know that it's considered the horrible blight that we feel unpaid architecture internships are. I have a friend who had no experience in publishing or graphic design at all, but really wanted to work at a particular magazine (it's a non-profit, politically oriented place). She applied for an unpaid internship (at age 30) and was accepted - she was overjoyed to get the experience, lived on credit cards for 6 months and worked her ass off, then got hired at the end of the internship and is now a full-time assistant art director. In her case it was a non-profit so you might cut them some slack, but as far as I know the higher ups are paid decent salaries and they just look at it I guess as training someone with no experience and giving them an in into a very competetive field. Anyone have experiences outside the architecture world that could enter into this discussion?
I'm just curious, no real position on this...
it's pretty sad allright. why don't we all email him a polite letter espousing our view to him/them?
nice website though, and their work looks quite nice, but really, $2 an hour is horrendous. Here in the uk I was aggravated just to earn £6 ($12) an hour. But then that was for an awful practice. I went on to earn $17 an hour in Iceland at a great practice, though the high tax over there was pretty painful...
Not bad work, but nothing that I would ever sacrifice for. It's 'good', not great and not all that unique (especially the architecture).
This is a sad discussion. My sister just got a job, her first one (in web/graphic design), and is getting paid more than my friends with 7 years of arch experience. It's funny, really. She's barely out of school, and not from a good one (although she does very good work). No programming experience, just design.
These guys can afford to pay more. If they were doing experimental work that was not paid, I'd think they couldn't, but nothing suggests that it's not all client work (it's certainly not experimental - looks 'average/good' to me). That means they are getting paid for everything, and, judging by the quality, I'd say that they aren't wasting time with new things (which is fine, by the way, but acknowledge that it's for $$, not something 'new').
Could be wrong, but these guys should be doing pretty well if they need to hire someone. I'd think that they should be able to pay no less than $15-20 per hour and still make money off of their 'intern/help'.
I was paid fairly by a guy (another arch-changed-to-something, also from similar education as myself) a few years back and that opened my eyes. Now I ask for what I think I am worth, and so far, have not been questioned. Anyone I hire, and those that I sub out to, are paid respectively because that's fair and it's good business.
But if someone wants to work for free, I am all ears.....
i interned at a place that treated me awesome - took me out to pie, ice cream most every day. let me go early if there was a sale at the store. gave me gifts. i could pick and choose what to work on.
low and behold, it was not an architect's office but a structural engineer's office. i was the office princess and was treated great and was treated like a young apprentice. while i made significantly more than $2 an hour, i can compare it to the internship I have now where there is nothing luxurious about this place. i think an architecture firm CAN legitmately offer a student a fellowship - to be a sidekick, an office princess like i was - i was the boss's best friend and he took me everywhere with him. we rode around in his car and laughed at all the stupid details on the buildings by architects that didn't work. he quizzed me on the weight per cubic foot of concrete and how to estimate carpet and other things till i had it all down. he showed me how he did stuff instead of saying "you're a smart kid you figure it out". he took me out to lunch to meet the mayor, the superintendent of schools etc. he introduced me to people as a professional - as an asset to the community NOT as some kid who "thinks they can be an architect ha we'll see about that" this engineer even paid ME to volunteer at his favorite charity - i did hours of landscaping and gardening for the battered women's shelter and went there everyday to weed and water on his dollar. he didn't bill me out to the clients - he didn't make crap off of me. I was HIS charity, his aprentice if you will. and I think that's cool. I think he understood the mentoring relationship 100 times better than any older architect i've met yet. he told me that he valued young people and treated them as the future. he did not believe in "paying dues" like architects seem to. he treated me as an inexperienced person with lots of potential, and he treated me as his equal.
Are we so stubborn to think architecture interns should just make money for firms and learn the ropes by being on the side for a few years and just sorta putting it together themselves - that is my current firms philosophy. Then PMs can just come along and get the prints from the intern and then take them to the meetings and leave the intern at the office to wonder what is going on out there and what happens in the rest of the project and wonder Now who am I designing this for anyways? That's what I did here for the first year or two. It sucked ass. i hate this strict heirarchy thing we got going on here and I know this isn't the only place - those damn architects with their egos so out there, can't do more with an intern than remind them that they are just the intern and treat them like they could only WISH to be in the loop and give them that blank bored "I am too important for you" look. Think my boss ever takes me out to lunch or introduces me to the mayor or lets me sit in on a client meeting that I don't HAVE to be in on just cause it's good for my growth and experience? Think he ever takes me out to the site and says - this is what i'm looking for, this is what I do, this is how i solve problems in the field. Think he ever says "Hey kid, you've been working hard, good job, why don't you take the afternoon off and here's a brand new swiss army knife too" I don't think so. I think THAT is what is wrong with architectural internship, and I think THAT is degrading.
i CAN imagine an unpaid internship to be a very rewarding experience.
RA Rudolph- i have a friend from college who studied humanities. after graduation she moved to LA to work in film production (which she knew nothing about). she "worked" about 16 hours a day (i use quotes here bc much of her work time was spent driving scripts to mansions in LA and getting sandwiches for shannon sossamon) and was allotted a very small stipend. HOWEVER, at the end of four months she is now assistant to the head of the company and makes 40K which is more than i can say for myself and other architect friends of a similar age.
i also know plenty of people in the "humanities" and one in fashion PR who worked for magazines in unpaid internships for a summer or two during undergrad. but their starting pay and opportunties for raises are higher than for architects. and i might add here, at the risk of sounding snotty, that taking an assortment of classes on english literature, psychology, and math for non-majors may make for an interesting dinner companion but it is hardly the kind of rigorous training that architecture students receive.
i feel better now.
i think if architecture is to become more prestigious economically, it needs to become more commercial. more available (more readily sold) to mass culture. i think this is pretty obvious but i think it should be said. if we're going to blame employers for providing shitty wages, we should think about why; as g-love said, there isnt a lot of extra cash to go around. this isnt a problem in the entertainment industry where it's all about profit often at the sacrifice of integrity. it's crap that integrity and good design arent rewarded as much as cheap entertainment but it's also fact. i'd like to think there's a way around it but i'm not sure there is...of course, i'm young yet and i still have a lot of movin and shakin to do so we'll see what i can do about it personally.
g-love, you are right. the "fellowship" is intention language to avoid paying a good person a reasonable salary. it's shameful that they are playing those games.
he should be particularly embarrassed given that he is in a position of teaching our youth. yet one more person perpetuating this horrible practice. i am glad to hear that there are employers out there as good as yourself. as a small business owner, i know that no person is 100% billable. especially ppl new to an industry or profession, but none the less they are billable at times, they do get shit done, and they do help "your" business.
ppl are a firm's bigest asset. treat them well. in turn, they will stay with you, and thus you become so much more efficient [and thus profitable]. treat them like dirt, and word gets around. no one will stand by your side. turnover will be high. you will constantly have to retrain ppl. efficiency will be low and thus so will your profit. ppl will always not be as profitable when they step into a new role. this is true of a student becoming an intern and a project architect becoming a project manager. you are learning, and at most professional jobs you never stop learning.
we all should be in a position of educating those younger and/or less knowledgeable than ourselves. show them the way. show them the right way. push them. give them tasks that challenge them, and show them how they can be better. respect them. value them. do so, and they will respect and value you.
my wife works at a large graphic design firm. one of the creative directors, who is no longer there, used to thumb though books, tag pages of work that he liked and copied the work. that angered me in the same way this topic does because he was in a postion where he should know better. younger designers looked up to him, and he was teaching them something very bad. take responsibillity. as g-love said, "if we, who are in the positions of authority and power, don't find a way to make these situations better, then we have no one else left to blame for the continual decline in relavence of our profession or the talent drain that it continues to suffer from. period. no excuses. so, we suck it up...."
pazdon, you are kidding yourself if you think there isn't enough extra money to go around to pay you at lest $10 bucks an hour. no one should have to take 4 jobs to work for someone else unless you are doing it for charity or a true non-profit. all ppl who are working for free should look at their bosses and see how are they living. are they living well? if so, they can afford to pay you 10 an hour. in most cases, it's no different that the ceo of walmart pulling a fat salary while the employees can't even pay rent or get health insurance. paying your dues is bullshit. paying those who work for you is a matter of respect.
Hello, I just wanted to respond to the discussion and to ericharch about the blacklist idea since I'm the founder of InsideArch which he mentioned above.
First, my own opinion on compensation is that it is way too complex an issue for any group to come to a consensus on what is 'fair' by assigning a dollar value. Everyone has different skills and different goals. Every employer and work environment is different. While I personally don't think anyone should be forced to take a job for $2 an hour, nobody IS being forced to do so. If nobody applies for this 'fellowship' then next week there will be another ad offering $4 an hour... Is that enough? Who am I to say that no intern should ever take a job for less than $10 or $15? Maybe the office is really close to my house or some firm just got a contract to design a planetarium and I've always wanted to work on a planetarium because my grandfather was an astronomer... Maybe then it's okay for me to take a job for $9.50.
For me, in order to discuss compensation you absolutely have to take into account everything... How much will I be learning? How challenging will the work be? How interesting? How much value does the job add to my resume? And also, how close is it to my house?
In deciding how to handle the question of compensation on InsideArch, I went through a lot of different scenarios and discussions with friends and colleagues. In the end what I decided to focus on is how SATISFIED people are with their compensation. The AIA does a compensation survey and that's fine. InsideArch asks questions like 'How REWARDING is your position?' and 'Do you FEEL taken advantage of?' To me that encompasses not only your salary and benefits but also all the less tangible rewards that we take home from our jobs.
But all that being said, yeah, $2 and hour blows and I think anyone would be crazy to take a job like that.
To address the blacklist... Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I really don't think it's a good idea and it's probably illegal. Even if we put aside all the hairy logistical issues of what the criteria are for getting a firm blacklisted and who gets to decide... If I understand the law correctly, it's illegal to make false statements about a person or business that would injure their reputation or harm their business that's defamation... Basically, if you accuse someone of a crime, you better have proof or you're gonna get sued, and you'll still probably get sued even if you do have proof. And I think everyone agrees that at least in some cases, not paying someone at least minimum wage is a crime.
What you CAN do is say that in your OPINION you don’t feel as though you were compensated fairly or that you FEEL taken advantage of or that you don’t find your job to be rewarding. Your feelings and your opinions are your own business and you are free to express them until you are blue in the face. [Any lawyers out there should please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s the gist of the situation].
[Shameless Plug Below]
So I would encourage everyone to visit InsideArch and express their opinion about their firm. The Firm Reports cover a lot of ground and give a pretty good picture of how rewarding a job at a particular firm might be. Hopefully, providing interns and architects at all levels with information about a firm's work and its culture will serve to improve the efficiency of the market for architectural talent, matching employers with better employees, and interns and architects with better opportunities.
The scores that InsideArch gives to a firm can be used by interns and architects to target firms for possible employment, and can even be listed on interns and architects resumes to demonstrate to potential employers the quality of their previous experience. Firms themselves could use a high rating to attract the best candidates--once again improving the way interns and architects market themselves to potential employers and the way firms market themselves to potential employees.
Finally, I would love to hear any comments that anyone has about InsideArch, please feel free to email me directly at ‘ssimon at InsideArch dot org’.
stephen,
I actually posted a review of a firm I had just the WORST experience with. I did not mention any person specifically in my review, I was not nearly as cruel to them as they were to me, and every word I said was true. But my review of that office has been removed. I LOVE the goals of insidearch, but can y'all come up with a way to not get anything that prospective employees of the firm REALLY, REALLY need to hear taken down?
Please email me with more info if you're comfortable with that... We don't edit what people say except under extremely narrow circumstances... I'd like to investigate further.
but anyways, on unpaid internships... a year or two ago when I was sending out resumes and such, I got a response from a respected firm in the area. It basically said, "we're really interested in talking to you- please read the attached file describing our internship program, and get back to us if you're still interested". In the first paragraph of the attached file, it declared that since interns often spent most of their time on competition entries and other unbillable tasks, the firm would only be paying a stipend of $100/week. I was really surprised at this, because the firm has a great reputation. I wish I had saved the email so that I could post the description of their internship, but I deleted it in disgust.
100 bucks a week is pretty sweet in somalia dude. was the firm located in somalia? the fact is even the going rate for newbies in this field for what i will call "real" firms that do buildings that get put up, meet payroll, have insurance coverage and retirement plans etc. is sickeningly low. and i don't blame them. these firms need people who can be productive and know something about how buildings actually go together, knowledge of codes and how to produce a competent set of cd's. and thats not what the schools are giving them. so they are forced to train people in methods that the universities are opting out of. and its getting worse and worse for them. and the firms that do use the computer technologists and theorists from the schools use them as well because mr starchitect has a stack of resumes up to his round glasses from all the groupies who will work for him for a pittance. and for at least the fifth time of this site i will say this... if schools taught what the profession wanted/needed most architecture students would switch majors overnight. peace out.
stephen - thanks for taking the time with your comments. i completely agree that, legally, there is nothing wrong with testing the waters to see what will hold and that there are many factors that weigh in a decision like that. and, if someone takes up the fellowship challenge above, you nor i have no power to stop them (we both recognize and agree).
what intrigues me the most is the assumption that we cannot assign a dollar threshold, solely because of those other, less tangible factors. in absolutely every individual circumstance, of course that would hold true. legally, so long as it meets the (forever frozen) minimum wage standard, same deal. but ethically, i cannot accept that we, as a profession, should be allowed to tolerate such actions. they are unjust, ultimately do more harm than good, and perpetuate behavior that we should aspire to rise above. and if this kind of thing is tacitly condoned, ignored (as is most often the case), or otherwise tolerated, it will just continue. (and this is doubly worse because we allow so many that we look up to to commit the most egregious behavior).
in the end, i have to take care of myself and my employees. how we treat ourselves is how we would like others to treat us. (wasn't that a bible class saying?). my only hope is that the karma comes back around on people like those above to bite them the ass. hard.
Erratum:
Bill Carpenter teaches at Southern Polytechnic State University, not Savannah College of Arts and Design as I previously mentioned.
And for all the young and restless hearts willing to work for nothing but practical experience and/or fame, you are promoting the false idea of the architecture practice as an artful, glamorous, elitist knowledge.
Architecture is a business, and any work should be rewarded accordingly.
and/or - good points. It's too often, esp. at the high profile schools, sold as a dream machine. You see the stars and you want it, so you do whatever to learn from them and be close to the hoopla.
Thankfully, I saw a different light. I saw the ass kissing, the political bs, the power plays, and the egos. I NEVER saw an instance where talent alone made a difference (this was UCLA, lotsa celebs hangin' out there, juries were more about a rendezvous for the elite than it was about a crit). This pushed me out of architecture and I came back to realizing it is a business, and, like any, there are those that are really lucky AND wealthy AND talented. The famous don't make it to the top without all three.
I have always hoped that when I give a lecture I can bring these points up, because I NEVER heard them from anyone.
I can't tell if it's a scam or not. On the one hand, it looks like you'd be working on interesting projects directly with Bruce Mau, which would be a great opportunity. On the other, you're basically paying $16,000 to work in his office for a year.
It's also associated with a college, but there doesn't seem to be any degree or even a certificate coming out of it.
I think it's actually pretty common to take an unpaid internship if you go to a school that gives you course credit for it- it's looked at as another class. Is this correct?
paid internships and other fairy tales
and/or - exactly. the safdie is a good example, as is the erma piano (renxo's office) fellowship. both at least have living wages.
i'm not interesting in trashing bill, his office, or whatever on a personal level. i am, however, astounded by their behavior as professionals in this instance. it seems that they have called this position a 'fellowship' precisely to avoid the labor laws (as someone said above, if you take it, knowing in advance what it pays, and it's not considered them 'hiring' the person....). for someone of his apparent stature within the community here, it's really perplexing to see. i just don't understand how they could be that desperate. i mean, even at 10/hr, it's still only 3,800 more over 3 months. i know people who spend that much on coffee everyday. (ok, not quite, but...)
it's ultimately just sad. dumb and sad...
"renZo's office" (*^%%^it).
for all of you who might be thinking about doing something like this: as an employer, i will tell you first hand that it is really hard to take on people who have just graduated or who are in school (and this is a broad based generalization. i'm sure most of you are above average in this regard...;)) because the reality is we can't bill all of the time that you spend on a project, nor can we bill all the time we need to spend with you to help 'train you up' on those projects. some, but not all- you just can't. but, i've tried to take on people in that position because i honestly believe that part of our professional responsibility is to help train the next generation. it's why i also teach as an adjunct (and let me promise you that that's no financial win-win either, especially at a state institution). not everyone shares this view. fine. but if we, who are in the positions of authority and power, don't find a way to make these situations better, then we have no one else left to blame for the continual decline in relavence of our profession or the talent drain that it continues to suffer from. period. no excuses. so, we suck it up, financially speaking, and make the investment in the people that we think both have the most to gain and who, in turn, can help us out the most as well. it was done unto me at one point, it's my turn now, and i hope those we've crossed paths with will pick up the mantle somewhere down the road. it's all about the karma. or something like that.
so, can i maybe find some empatheic understanding for why the group above are doing this stunt? maybe. it still isn't right and it still should be called out.
Something I've been wondering about along these lines that maybe someone has experience with. I know in some fields, particularly magazine publishing (and fashion as well from what I understand), that they typically offer unpaid internships (3-6 months, I think) to recent grads or people who are considering entering the field and I don't know that it's considered the horrible blight that we feel unpaid architecture internships are. I have a friend who had no experience in publishing or graphic design at all, but really wanted to work at a particular magazine (it's a non-profit, politically oriented place). She applied for an unpaid internship (at age 30) and was accepted - she was overjoyed to get the experience, lived on credit cards for 6 months and worked her ass off, then got hired at the end of the internship and is now a full-time assistant art director. In her case it was a non-profit so you might cut them some slack, but as far as I know the higher ups are paid decent salaries and they just look at it I guess as training someone with no experience and giving them an in into a very competetive field. Anyone have experiences outside the architecture world that could enter into this discussion?
I'm just curious, no real position on this...
canned? or caned?
it's pretty sad allright. why don't we all email him a polite letter espousing our view to him/them?
nice website though, and their work looks quite nice, but really, $2 an hour is horrendous. Here in the uk I was aggravated just to earn £6 ($12) an hour. But then that was for an awful practice. I went on to earn $17 an hour in Iceland at a great practice, though the high tax over there was pretty painful...
Not bad work, but nothing that I would ever sacrifice for. It's 'good', not great and not all that unique (especially the architecture).
This is a sad discussion. My sister just got a job, her first one (in web/graphic design), and is getting paid more than my friends with 7 years of arch experience. It's funny, really. She's barely out of school, and not from a good one (although she does very good work). No programming experience, just design.
These guys can afford to pay more. If they were doing experimental work that was not paid, I'd think they couldn't, but nothing suggests that it's not all client work (it's certainly not experimental - looks 'average/good' to me). That means they are getting paid for everything, and, judging by the quality, I'd say that they aren't wasting time with new things (which is fine, by the way, but acknowledge that it's for $$, not something 'new').
Could be wrong, but these guys should be doing pretty well if they need to hire someone. I'd think that they should be able to pay no less than $15-20 per hour and still make money off of their 'intern/help'.
I was paid fairly by a guy (another arch-changed-to-something, also from similar education as myself) a few years back and that opened my eyes. Now I ask for what I think I am worth, and so far, have not been questioned. Anyone I hire, and those that I sub out to, are paid respectively because that's fair and it's good business.
But if someone wants to work for free, I am all ears.....
i interned at a place that treated me awesome - took me out to pie, ice cream most every day. let me go early if there was a sale at the store. gave me gifts. i could pick and choose what to work on.
low and behold, it was not an architect's office but a structural engineer's office. i was the office princess and was treated great and was treated like a young apprentice. while i made significantly more than $2 an hour, i can compare it to the internship I have now where there is nothing luxurious about this place. i think an architecture firm CAN legitmately offer a student a fellowship - to be a sidekick, an office princess like i was - i was the boss's best friend and he took me everywhere with him. we rode around in his car and laughed at all the stupid details on the buildings by architects that didn't work. he quizzed me on the weight per cubic foot of concrete and how to estimate carpet and other things till i had it all down. he showed me how he did stuff instead of saying "you're a smart kid you figure it out". he took me out to lunch to meet the mayor, the superintendent of schools etc. he introduced me to people as a professional - as an asset to the community NOT as some kid who "thinks they can be an architect ha we'll see about that" this engineer even paid ME to volunteer at his favorite charity - i did hours of landscaping and gardening for the battered women's shelter and went there everyday to weed and water on his dollar. he didn't bill me out to the clients - he didn't make crap off of me. I was HIS charity, his aprentice if you will. and I think that's cool. I think he understood the mentoring relationship 100 times better than any older architect i've met yet. he told me that he valued young people and treated them as the future. he did not believe in "paying dues" like architects seem to. he treated me as an inexperienced person with lots of potential, and he treated me as his equal.
Are we so stubborn to think architecture interns should just make money for firms and learn the ropes by being on the side for a few years and just sorta putting it together themselves - that is my current firms philosophy. Then PMs can just come along and get the prints from the intern and then take them to the meetings and leave the intern at the office to wonder what is going on out there and what happens in the rest of the project and wonder Now who am I designing this for anyways? That's what I did here for the first year or two. It sucked ass. i hate this strict heirarchy thing we got going on here and I know this isn't the only place - those damn architects with their egos so out there, can't do more with an intern than remind them that they are just the intern and treat them like they could only WISH to be in the loop and give them that blank bored "I am too important for you" look. Think my boss ever takes me out to lunch or introduces me to the mayor or lets me sit in on a client meeting that I don't HAVE to be in on just cause it's good for my growth and experience? Think he ever takes me out to the site and says - this is what i'm looking for, this is what I do, this is how i solve problems in the field. Think he ever says "Hey kid, you've been working hard, good job, why don't you take the afternoon off and here's a brand new swiss army knife too" I don't think so. I think THAT is what is wrong with architectural internship, and I think THAT is degrading.
i CAN imagine an unpaid internship to be a very rewarding experience.
RA Rudolph- i have a friend from college who studied humanities. after graduation she moved to LA to work in film production (which she knew nothing about). she "worked" about 16 hours a day (i use quotes here bc much of her work time was spent driving scripts to mansions in LA and getting sandwiches for shannon sossamon) and was allotted a very small stipend. HOWEVER, at the end of four months she is now assistant to the head of the company and makes 40K which is more than i can say for myself and other architect friends of a similar age.
i also know plenty of people in the "humanities" and one in fashion PR who worked for magazines in unpaid internships for a summer or two during undergrad. but their starting pay and opportunties for raises are higher than for architects. and i might add here, at the risk of sounding snotty, that taking an assortment of classes on english literature, psychology, and math for non-majors may make for an interesting dinner companion but it is hardly the kind of rigorous training that architecture students receive.
i feel better now.
i think if architecture is to become more prestigious economically, it needs to become more commercial. more available (more readily sold) to mass culture. i think this is pretty obvious but i think it should be said. if we're going to blame employers for providing shitty wages, we should think about why; as g-love said, there isnt a lot of extra cash to go around. this isnt a problem in the entertainment industry where it's all about profit often at the sacrifice of integrity. it's crap that integrity and good design arent rewarded as much as cheap entertainment but it's also fact. i'd like to think there's a way around it but i'm not sure there is...of course, i'm young yet and i still have a lot of movin and shakin to do so we'll see what i can do about it personally.
g-love, you are right. the "fellowship" is intention language to avoid paying a good person a reasonable salary. it's shameful that they are playing those games.
he should be particularly embarrassed given that he is in a position of teaching our youth. yet one more person perpetuating this horrible practice. i am glad to hear that there are employers out there as good as yourself. as a small business owner, i know that no person is 100% billable. especially ppl new to an industry or profession, but none the less they are billable at times, they do get shit done, and they do help "your" business.
ppl are a firm's bigest asset. treat them well. in turn, they will stay with you, and thus you become so much more efficient [and thus profitable]. treat them like dirt, and word gets around. no one will stand by your side. turnover will be high. you will constantly have to retrain ppl. efficiency will be low and thus so will your profit. ppl will always not be as profitable when they step into a new role. this is true of a student becoming an intern and a project architect becoming a project manager. you are learning, and at most professional jobs you never stop learning.
we all should be in a position of educating those younger and/or less knowledgeable than ourselves. show them the way. show them the right way. push them. give them tasks that challenge them, and show them how they can be better. respect them. value them. do so, and they will respect and value you.
my wife works at a large graphic design firm. one of the creative directors, who is no longer there, used to thumb though books, tag pages of work that he liked and copied the work. that angered me in the same way this topic does because he was in a postion where he should know better. younger designers looked up to him, and he was teaching them something very bad. take responsibillity. as g-love said, "if we, who are in the positions of authority and power, don't find a way to make these situations better, then we have no one else left to blame for the continual decline in relavence of our profession or the talent drain that it continues to suffer from. period. no excuses. so, we suck it up...."
i say ice cream for everyone.
pazdon, you are kidding yourself if you think there isn't enough extra money to go around to pay you at lest $10 bucks an hour. no one should have to take 4 jobs to work for someone else unless you are doing it for charity or a true non-profit. all ppl who are working for free should look at their bosses and see how are they living. are they living well? if so, they can afford to pay you 10 an hour. in most cases, it's no different that the ceo of walmart pulling a fat salary while the employees can't even pay rent or get health insurance. paying your dues is bullshit. paying those who work for you is a matter of respect.
Hello, I just wanted to respond to the discussion and to ericharch about the blacklist idea since I'm the founder of InsideArch which he mentioned above.
First, my own opinion on compensation is that it is way too complex an issue for any group to come to a consensus on what is 'fair' by assigning a dollar value. Everyone has different skills and different goals. Every employer and work environment is different. While I personally don't think anyone should be forced to take a job for $2 an hour, nobody IS being forced to do so. If nobody applies for this 'fellowship' then next week there will be another ad offering $4 an hour... Is that enough? Who am I to say that no intern should ever take a job for less than $10 or $15? Maybe the office is really close to my house or some firm just got a contract to design a planetarium and I've always wanted to work on a planetarium because my grandfather was an astronomer... Maybe then it's okay for me to take a job for $9.50.
For me, in order to discuss compensation you absolutely have to take into account everything... How much will I be learning? How challenging will the work be? How interesting? How much value does the job add to my resume? And also, how close is it to my house?
In deciding how to handle the question of compensation on InsideArch, I went through a lot of different scenarios and discussions with friends and colleagues. In the end what I decided to focus on is how SATISFIED people are with their compensation. The AIA does a compensation survey and that's fine. InsideArch asks questions like 'How REWARDING is your position?' and 'Do you FEEL taken advantage of?' To me that encompasses not only your salary and benefits but also all the less tangible rewards that we take home from our jobs.
But all that being said, yeah, $2 and hour blows and I think anyone would be crazy to take a job like that.
To address the blacklist... Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I really don't think it's a good idea and it's probably illegal. Even if we put aside all the hairy logistical issues of what the criteria are for getting a firm blacklisted and who gets to decide... If I understand the law correctly, it's illegal to make false statements about a person or business that would injure their reputation or harm their business that's defamation... Basically, if you accuse someone of a crime, you better have proof or you're gonna get sued, and you'll still probably get sued even if you do have proof. And I think everyone agrees that at least in some cases, not paying someone at least minimum wage is a crime.
What you CAN do is say that in your OPINION you don’t feel as though you were compensated fairly or that you FEEL taken advantage of or that you don’t find your job to be rewarding. Your feelings and your opinions are your own business and you are free to express them until you are blue in the face. [Any lawyers out there should please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s the gist of the situation].
[Shameless Plug Below]
So I would encourage everyone to visit InsideArch and express their opinion about their firm. The Firm Reports cover a lot of ground and give a pretty good picture of how rewarding a job at a particular firm might be. Hopefully, providing interns and architects at all levels with information about a firm's work and its culture will serve to improve the efficiency of the market for architectural talent, matching employers with better employees, and interns and architects with better opportunities.
The scores that InsideArch gives to a firm can be used by interns and architects to target firms for possible employment, and can even be listed on interns and architects resumes to demonstrate to potential employers the quality of their previous experience. Firms themselves could use a high rating to attract the best candidates--once again improving the way interns and architects market themselves to potential employers and the way firms market themselves to potential employees.
Finally, I would love to hear any comments that anyone has about InsideArch, please feel free to email me directly at ‘ssimon at InsideArch dot org’.
Stephen.
stephen,
I actually posted a review of a firm I had just the WORST experience with. I did not mention any person specifically in my review, I was not nearly as cruel to them as they were to me, and every word I said was true. But my review of that office has been removed. I LOVE the goals of insidearch, but can y'all come up with a way to not get anything that prospective employees of the firm REALLY, REALLY need to hear taken down?
Rationalist,
Please email me with more info if you're comfortable with that... We don't edit what people say except under extremely narrow circumstances... I'd like to investigate further.
Stephen.
but anyways, on unpaid internships... a year or two ago when I was sending out resumes and such, I got a response from a respected firm in the area. It basically said, "we're really interested in talking to you- please read the attached file describing our internship program, and get back to us if you're still interested". In the first paragraph of the attached file, it declared that since interns often spent most of their time on competition entries and other unbillable tasks, the firm would only be paying a stipend of $100/week. I was really surprised at this, because the firm has a great reputation. I wish I had saved the email so that I could post the description of their internship, but I deleted it in disgust.
100 bucks a week is pretty sweet in somalia dude. was the firm located in somalia? the fact is even the going rate for newbies in this field for what i will call "real" firms that do buildings that get put up, meet payroll, have insurance coverage and retirement plans etc. is sickeningly low. and i don't blame them. these firms need people who can be productive and know something about how buildings actually go together, knowledge of codes and how to produce a competent set of cd's. and thats not what the schools are giving them. so they are forced to train people in methods that the universities are opting out of. and its getting worse and worse for them. and the firms that do use the computer technologists and theorists from the schools use them as well because mr starchitect has a stack of resumes up to his round glasses from all the groupies who will work for him for a pittance. and for at least the fifth time of this site i will say this... if schools taught what the profession wanted/needed most architecture students would switch majors overnight. peace out.
vado - so true...so true...
stephen - thanks for taking the time with your comments. i completely agree that, legally, there is nothing wrong with testing the waters to see what will hold and that there are many factors that weigh in a decision like that. and, if someone takes up the fellowship challenge above, you nor i have no power to stop them (we both recognize and agree).
what intrigues me the most is the assumption that we cannot assign a dollar threshold, solely because of those other, less tangible factors. in absolutely every individual circumstance, of course that would hold true. legally, so long as it meets the (forever frozen) minimum wage standard, same deal. but ethically, i cannot accept that we, as a profession, should be allowed to tolerate such actions. they are unjust, ultimately do more harm than good, and perpetuate behavior that we should aspire to rise above. and if this kind of thing is tacitly condoned, ignored (as is most often the case), or otherwise tolerated, it will just continue. (and this is doubly worse because we allow so many that we look up to to commit the most egregious behavior).
in the end, i have to take care of myself and my employees. how we treat ourselves is how we would like others to treat us. (wasn't that a bible class saying?). my only hope is that the karma comes back around on people like those above to bite them the ass. hard.
Erratum:
Bill Carpenter teaches at Southern Polytechnic State University, not Savannah College of Arts and Design as I previously mentioned.
And for all the young and restless hearts willing to work for nothing but practical experience and/or fame, you are promoting the false idea of the architecture practice as an artful, glamorous, elitist knowledge.
Architecture is a business, and any work should be rewarded accordingly.
and/or - good points. It's too often, esp. at the high profile schools, sold as a dream machine. You see the stars and you want it, so you do whatever to learn from them and be close to the hoopla.
Thankfully, I saw a different light. I saw the ass kissing, the political bs, the power plays, and the egos. I NEVER saw an instance where talent alone made a difference (this was UCLA, lotsa celebs hangin' out there, juries were more about a rendezvous for the elite than it was about a crit). This pushed me out of architecture and I came back to realizing it is a business, and, like any, there are those that are really lucky AND wealthy AND talented. The famous don't make it to the top without all three.
I have always hoped that when I give a lecture I can bring these points up, because I NEVER heard them from anyone.
This thread reminded me of something I came across recently:
http://www.institutewithoutboundaries.com/whatif.html
I can't tell if it's a scam or not. On the one hand, it looks like you'd be working on interesting projects directly with Bruce Mau, which would be a great opportunity. On the other, you're basically paying $16,000 to work in his office for a year.
It's also associated with a college, but there doesn't seem to be any degree or even a certificate coming out of it.
I'm curious to see how others read this.
I think it's actually pretty common to take an unpaid internship if you go to a school that gives you course credit for it- it's looked at as another class. Is this correct?
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