Having worked for three firms since leaving school and another firm while in school of all different shapes and sizes except "starchtect", the extremely long hours everyone always speaks of have never materialized for me. I've certainly needed to put in overtime now and again, but I haven't had to work 50-60+ hours for weeks on end.
I think anyone who does end up in such a situation should seriously question what, if any, benefits will be taken from spending so much time at the office at the expense of pursuing other needs and interests. Most people I know who do regularly put in 10 hours or more of overtime seem to do so less because their firm requires or expects them to and more as the result of one of the following four reasons, or some combination thereof: 1.) people who do not communicate with their PM or principal when they are being overworked; 2.) people who work extremely slowly and methodically; 3.) people who view working long hours as the way to more responsibilities, promotions, and raises; 4.) people who irrationally believe that long hours simply go with the territory of the architecture profession and anyone who just works 40/week is not truly dedicated to the profession.
While the people I know who put in lots of overtime generally have not been hurt from the responsibilities, promotions, and salary perspective, they have not been helped either. It seems that one would be better served both as a designer and as a human using that time to do competitions, volunteer work, or other things completely unrelated to architecture in order to keep his/her horizions as wide as possible.
A final point that further perplexes me is that architecture is not, unlike medicine or law, a profession where people's lives could be left in the balance as the result of someone's unwillingness to take on extra hours. So why do so many people keep putting up with it?
i have been at the same firm since graduation (well, not really, but almost), and i have never worked over 60 hours in a week. in the average week i work about 45 to 48.
i can see how #s 1 & 2 can lead to longer hours in the office, and i have to admit that i have been there done that. #s 3 & 4 are a common misconception. i have a good friend who manages a large firm, and she recently told me that when lower-level personnel have a lot of overtime on thier timesheets, she feels as if they are not working fast enough during the 40 hour work week.
very valid comments, but it very much depends on where you are working and for what level of firm. the higher-level "stararchitects" tend to overwork out of necessity since their billing cannot cover the design hours required for constant publication and scrutiny. also certain cities (i think new york is at the top of this list) require an immense amount more overtime than most. for whatever reason, new york firms tend to work their employeers considerably harder than other cities...probably because of the amount of competition for work, the competition for publication, and a general "mania" of the city which places a high emphasis on working long hours...
so this conversation can't take place in new york with the same result as topeka, kansas...or even los angeles (unless of course you work for one of a few offices with global starchitect ambitions)...
just a slightly different perspective...
One of my internships regularly made me work 50+ hour weeks, through the whole summer. I even started coming in an hour earlier than our "office hours" to get a jumpstart on things so that I could leave a little earlier. The problem was not any of the things above - it was that the firm needed another person, but could not afford to hire one. I wasn't getting paid well, either. I stayed because it was a down time in the market and I had had a really hard time finding the job in the first place. When I got a better offer several months later, I took it, but at the time, it was financially necessary for me to stay with that office. When you get paid hourly, finances can be a driving force in that equation too.
in general, architecture is a forty hour a week job. i do have friends however who do all-nighters at work on a relatively consistent basis (maybe once every couple weeks on average).
it isn't just star-architects that work ludicrous hours, although it isn't just architects either. most professions you will have to do an all nighter from time to time.
architecture culture especially contains an element of valorization found in this self-deprecating 'i work too hard i don't get paid enough' nonsense
This may be a Puritan work ethic speaking, but for me the rewards of longevity in the profession - better money, respect from peers, a license!, more responsibility, strong relationships with consultants - were sweeter after having put in some time in the trenches.
Architecture is a slow-moving profession. Forty-year-olds are still considered "young" architects. Life does not end at age 30, it just gets better and better. So for me working my butt off in my mid-twenties was great - I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the passion, and now I enjoy the rewards.
Granted, I did my internship mostly in a firm that was a great working environment, showed appreciation for my efforts (by saying "thank you" and other less-tangible methods, not monetarily until later). If you are putting in long hours and getting crap back, as Lena I think posted recently, then it's time to move on.
But life is also too short to not enjoy your work, and enjoying your work means actually WANTING to spend a lot of time with it. Especially before you have kids.
Just my 2 cents - don't let anyone take advantage of you, but be truly engaged in all that you do.
I tend to agree. The only real overtime (50+ hrs) I do is right at the end of CD's when deadlines are fast approaching. Sometimes I'll spend many hours working on a schematic design and probably put in a 60 hour week but that process I just love. It doesn't seem like work and I have zero complaints. Pushing out some CD's isn't my most favorite task but the long hours are infrequent. For the most part I work 45 hours/week.
Often I hear the horror stories and for the most part they come from what we'd consider "high design" offices. I'm assuming it's long hours working on competitions. The standard design process shouldn't take major OT unless an office is understaffed.
most of the overtime i have experienced has been either to my own doing [being young and unfocused] or due to poor management [managers over committing the amount of work that can be done in too short of time with too few ppl]. this overtime, of course, is outside of the big pushes at the end of a phases necessary to hit major deadlines. even then, they aren't that bad if screwing around and poor management are held at bay.
along with the above reasons, my many hours spent come from my natural obsessivenes with architecture. while i rarely go over 45 hours a week at the office, i spend lots of time off the clock reading architecture journals and books, going on architectural pilgrimmages, visiting construction sites etc. i also devote a considerable amount of time towards my career via IDP, con ed, networking off the clock. plus all the side architecture work I do to further my leadership and design skills in order to be a better architect overall that much faster. it is also my nature to not stop short ever - so if there is a way to make it better, i will go the extra mile and put the time in, i don't call it good as the clock flips from 4:59 to 5:00. i could stop short, but the project would suffer and i am too interested in it to let that happen.
when i was a student i observed that the students who pulled all nighters never came into studio till 10pm, while i was there all day and left at 2. this was a joke to me that they felt so sorry for themselves pulling all nighters. it IS a false perception that they put in more hours. 10pm to 5am is only 7 hours. 10am to 2am is 16 hours (which i did the last two weeks or so before a project was due, but I got the "why are you going home already?" when i left at 2am by the all nighters which drove me nuts.
i know i don't spend the most time at my job, my brother truly does pull 12 hour days 6 days a week as head resident in a hospital. he, if anyone, can put me in my place if I complain about working too much for too little. he makes same $ as me with these hours and lives in SF!
great post and comments. long hours on a regular basis is symptomatic of either mismanagement (or abuse) on the boss's or employee's end.
but, there is still a culture of 'slavery' at starchitect firms and some aspiring 'high-design' firms. the attitude is that until you're the master, you're the apprentice, and you should devote your whole being to your master. this may be wise if your master is Leonardo da Vinci-caliber, but foolish for anyone else.
the firm i work for consists of only 3 architects, and rarely do i spend more than 9 hours at work per day. usually work through lunch, get out by six.
its a picnic...
speaking of picnics,
Now, a minimum security prison is no picnic. I have a client in there right now. You see, the trick is, kick someone's ass the first day or become someone's bitch. Then everything will be all right.
my current employer has an 8:30-5:30 culture. everyone is in and out for the most part at those times. i usually stay till 6:30 because i feel like i need to for me to do what i want to do in a day. if necessary, maybe once a month i will have to go from 8:30-midnight or 1 (usually when there is actual design going on). no weekends unless we have a deadline, and even then it has been once every 3 months or so. that's not to say i don't take the laptop home on occasion to try some ideas out.
when i first got out of school, i was suprised by this culture, and pretty sickened by it. it took me a while to get used to being the only one in late, but the bottom line is that everyone has their priorities, wether it be family, working out, watching tv, etc. mine just happens to be architecture. it still irritates me when we have things to get done in a hurry but people drop and go at 5:30, but we get paid for overtime so i just enjoy the check when it comes.
i've since found creative outlets at home and with other friends that keep me busy during weeknights and weekends. keeps my happy to be doing what i like to do all the time.
Jun 8, 05 11:43 am ·
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The myth of long hours
Having worked for three firms since leaving school and another firm while in school of all different shapes and sizes except "starchtect", the extremely long hours everyone always speaks of have never materialized for me. I've certainly needed to put in overtime now and again, but I haven't had to work 50-60+ hours for weeks on end.
I think anyone who does end up in such a situation should seriously question what, if any, benefits will be taken from spending so much time at the office at the expense of pursuing other needs and interests. Most people I know who do regularly put in 10 hours or more of overtime seem to do so less because their firm requires or expects them to and more as the result of one of the following four reasons, or some combination thereof: 1.) people who do not communicate with their PM or principal when they are being overworked; 2.) people who work extremely slowly and methodically; 3.) people who view working long hours as the way to more responsibilities, promotions, and raises; 4.) people who irrationally believe that long hours simply go with the territory of the architecture profession and anyone who just works 40/week is not truly dedicated to the profession.
While the people I know who put in lots of overtime generally have not been hurt from the responsibilities, promotions, and salary perspective, they have not been helped either. It seems that one would be better served both as a designer and as a human using that time to do competitions, volunteer work, or other things completely unrelated to architecture in order to keep his/her horizions as wide as possible.
A final point that further perplexes me is that architecture is not, unlike medicine or law, a profession where people's lives could be left in the balance as the result of someone's unwillingness to take on extra hours. So why do so many people keep putting up with it?
i have been at the same firm since graduation (well, not really, but almost), and i have never worked over 60 hours in a week. in the average week i work about 45 to 48.
i can see how #s 1 & 2 can lead to longer hours in the office, and i have to admit that i have been there done that. #s 3 & 4 are a common misconception. i have a good friend who manages a large firm, and she recently told me that when lower-level personnel have a lot of overtime on thier timesheets, she feels as if they are not working fast enough during the 40 hour work week.
very valid comments, but it very much depends on where you are working and for what level of firm. the higher-level "stararchitects" tend to overwork out of necessity since their billing cannot cover the design hours required for constant publication and scrutiny. also certain cities (i think new york is at the top of this list) require an immense amount more overtime than most. for whatever reason, new york firms tend to work their employeers considerably harder than other cities...probably because of the amount of competition for work, the competition for publication, and a general "mania" of the city which places a high emphasis on working long hours...
so this conversation can't take place in new york with the same result as topeka, kansas...or even los angeles (unless of course you work for one of a few offices with global starchitect ambitions)...
just a slightly different perspective...
i agree with bryan4arch.
if you set a precedence and LET them walk all over you, you may be doing plenty of extra work. or if you suck, basically.
stand up for yourself kids, grow a backbone, just say no. get your peers in the office to do the same.
you're better off honing your skills so you can draw CAD faster. i've seen lots of people who draw soooo damn slow. there is no sense of urgency.
One of my internships regularly made me work 50+ hour weeks, through the whole summer. I even started coming in an hour earlier than our "office hours" to get a jumpstart on things so that I could leave a little earlier. The problem was not any of the things above - it was that the firm needed another person, but could not afford to hire one. I wasn't getting paid well, either. I stayed because it was a down time in the market and I had had a really hard time finding the job in the first place. When I got a better offer several months later, I took it, but at the time, it was financially necessary for me to stay with that office. When you get paid hourly, finances can be a driving force in that equation too.
in general, architecture is a forty hour a week job. i do have friends however who do all-nighters at work on a relatively consistent basis (maybe once every couple weeks on average).
it isn't just star-architects that work ludicrous hours, although it isn't just architects either. most professions you will have to do an all nighter from time to time.
architecture culture especially contains an element of valorization found in this self-deprecating 'i work too hard i don't get paid enough' nonsense
A counter:
This may be a Puritan work ethic speaking, but for me the rewards of longevity in the profession - better money, respect from peers, a license!, more responsibility, strong relationships with consultants - were sweeter after having put in some time in the trenches.
Architecture is a slow-moving profession. Forty-year-olds are still considered "young" architects. Life does not end at age 30, it just gets better and better. So for me working my butt off in my mid-twenties was great - I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the passion, and now I enjoy the rewards.
Granted, I did my internship mostly in a firm that was a great working environment, showed appreciation for my efforts (by saying "thank you" and other less-tangible methods, not monetarily until later). If you are putting in long hours and getting crap back, as Lena I think posted recently, then it's time to move on.
But life is also too short to not enjoy your work, and enjoying your work means actually WANTING to spend a lot of time with it. Especially before you have kids.
Just my 2 cents - don't let anyone take advantage of you, but be truly engaged in all that you do.
I tend to agree. The only real overtime (50+ hrs) I do is right at the end of CD's when deadlines are fast approaching. Sometimes I'll spend many hours working on a schematic design and probably put in a 60 hour week but that process I just love. It doesn't seem like work and I have zero complaints. Pushing out some CD's isn't my most favorite task but the long hours are infrequent. For the most part I work 45 hours/week.
Often I hear the horror stories and for the most part they come from what we'd consider "high design" offices. I'm assuming it's long hours working on competitions. The standard design process shouldn't take major OT unless an office is understaffed.
I want the work I'm doing at the office to warrant overtime. If the work is worth 80 hour weeks, I'm just stoked.
most of the overtime i have experienced has been either to my own doing [being young and unfocused] or due to poor management [managers over committing the amount of work that can be done in too short of time with too few ppl]. this overtime, of course, is outside of the big pushes at the end of a phases necessary to hit major deadlines. even then, they aren't that bad if screwing around and poor management are held at bay.
along with the above reasons, my many hours spent come from my natural obsessivenes with architecture. while i rarely go over 45 hours a week at the office, i spend lots of time off the clock reading architecture journals and books, going on architectural pilgrimmages, visiting construction sites etc. i also devote a considerable amount of time towards my career via IDP, con ed, networking off the clock. plus all the side architecture work I do to further my leadership and design skills in order to be a better architect overall that much faster. it is also my nature to not stop short ever - so if there is a way to make it better, i will go the extra mile and put the time in, i don't call it good as the clock flips from 4:59 to 5:00. i could stop short, but the project would suffer and i am too interested in it to let that happen.
when i was a student i observed that the students who pulled all nighters never came into studio till 10pm, while i was there all day and left at 2. this was a joke to me that they felt so sorry for themselves pulling all nighters. it IS a false perception that they put in more hours. 10pm to 5am is only 7 hours. 10am to 2am is 16 hours (which i did the last two weeks or so before a project was due, but I got the "why are you going home already?" when i left at 2am by the all nighters which drove me nuts.
i know i don't spend the most time at my job, my brother truly does pull 12 hour days 6 days a week as head resident in a hospital. he, if anyone, can put me in my place if I complain about working too much for too little. he makes same $ as me with these hours and lives in SF!
great post and comments. long hours on a regular basis is symptomatic of either mismanagement (or abuse) on the boss's or employee's end.
but, there is still a culture of 'slavery' at starchitect firms and some aspiring 'high-design' firms. the attitude is that until you're the master, you're the apprentice, and you should devote your whole being to your master. this may be wise if your master is Leonardo da Vinci-caliber, but foolish for anyone else.
i didnt even get 40 in last week. we are slooooow right now. might have to take a vacation early.
whats happening,oh yeah i almost forgot im gonna need you to come in on sunday too,thaanks
SO IF YOU COULD JUST COME IN AT 8 AM THAT WOULD BE GREAT............THANKS A BUNCH
Could you stay an extra 3 hours tonight, that would be greeeeeeat..
Ummm Yeaaahhh.......
ah...yes. i believe you have my stapler.
Michael Bolton? Like the singer???
Guys, stop with the Office Space quotes, its off topic...
Fuckin A....
the firm i work for consists of only 3 architects, and rarely do i spend more than 9 hours at work per day. usually work through lunch, get out by six.
its a picnic...
speaking of picnics,
Now, a minimum security prison is no picnic. I have a client in there right now. You see, the trick is, kick someone's ass the first day or become someone's bitch. Then everything will be all right.
i have people skills. i am good with dealing with dealing with poeple! cant you understand that? what the hell is wrong with you people!!
my current employer has an 8:30-5:30 culture. everyone is in and out for the most part at those times. i usually stay till 6:30 because i feel like i need to for me to do what i want to do in a day. if necessary, maybe once a month i will have to go from 8:30-midnight or 1 (usually when there is actual design going on). no weekends unless we have a deadline, and even then it has been once every 3 months or so. that's not to say i don't take the laptop home on occasion to try some ideas out.
when i first got out of school, i was suprised by this culture, and pretty sickened by it. it took me a while to get used to being the only one in late, but the bottom line is that everyone has their priorities, wether it be family, working out, watching tv, etc. mine just happens to be architecture. it still irritates me when we have things to get done in a hurry but people drop and go at 5:30, but we get paid for overtime so i just enjoy the check when it comes.
i've since found creative outlets at home and with other friends that keep me busy during weeknights and weekends. keeps my happy to be doing what i like to do all the time.
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