'I am tired of "personal responsibility" zombies and the popular concept of yelling at victims.'
ditto!! mj's job could just as easily have turned out to be a shitty entry-level job that turned into a better opportunity...the fact that it just stayed shitty says much more about the place than it does about him/her.
suverk, so you weren't trolling but genuinely spitting at a fellow architect.
I understand the 'bootstrappy' mentality too well. I went through some tough times myself 2 years ago, and eventually caught a break after reconnecting with some old friends who (for whatever reason) remembered me fondly. Whoopsie me! Where's my gold medal?
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
That's a great speech to give to a sports team. Meanwhile in real life having a job that pays living expenses is now considered 'success'? Fuck me.
You have infinite number of monkeys and a finite number of typewriters. What is so hard to understand about this concept? Some monkeys are lazy? That still leaves you with infinite number of hard working monkeys.
This whole 'personal interest story/personal responsibility' mentality is creeping into all walks of life. From politics to business. And it's making us all collectively stupider.
You linked to a video of a Will Smith movie giving the cheesiest speech of all time. Perhaps you were trolling me after all.
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
right! destroy other people's careers! who gives a shit if their spouse just got laid off and they have two young children at home and an elderly parent to take care of - they're standing in the way of your own personal success - and it's their own fault for not being successful themselves because they're lazy.
I dont want everyone to think he is solely responsible. Schools have led the masses to believe that more higher education automatically leads to higher pay. In architecture, this just is not always true. He only has 80k in loans which is not too bad. Making 30k per year is a bit low.
If it didnt work out for him it may now be time for him to try his hand at something else.
At the same time architecture feels like a profession where hard work just doesn't pay off, either in salary or career advancement.
Who feels the same, and who has had a breakthrough?
career advancement through hard work alone is a myth - you need to form alliances and build up a network of connected people who are willing to vouch for you. most architects (and clients for that matter) aren't capable of looking at your work and seeing potential (even if you are a brilliant designer and/or a strong employee), so you need word of mouth - you need other people.
Sending out resumes is a complete waste of time in my humble opinion. I got laid off two weeks ago and have had two interviews already with a follow up scheduled for next week. Yes I needed to have a resume, but both of the interviews came because I saw an opportunity AND got a direct line of communication with the decision maker started. You can sit behind your machine and crank out resumes until your fingers fall off. Your time would be better spent pounding the pavement, meeting people and discovering how you can provide service or value to them, either as a contractor or employee.
As for original post, question is vague. Success needs to be defined first and that is different for everyone.
toasteroven
Nov 3, 11 8:04 am
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
Why settle for less?
Either you just accept being a victim, or you do what it takes to achieve your goals - what's wrong with that? - When you get sacked at the 50 yard line, do you just give up and whine, walk out of the game? or do you pick yourself up and keep pushing until you score?
there is no virtue in being a victim - why not just go all out? didn't you have to do that to get through architecture school?
granted I am neither the best nor brightest , clearly not sophisticated but I compensate by going the extra mile/
suverk - the game we play in real life is rigged. it's not like football where you know that you'll be penalized for breaking the rules. true you should pick yourself up and forge ahead when you have a setback, but we all should have a right to point out when people are blatantly breaking the rules.
also - justifying treating people poorly because they are "weak" is one of the criteria that parole boards use to determine if someone is a psychopath.
granted I am neither the best nor brightest , clearly not sophisticated but I compensate by going the extra mile/
congratulations, suverk. you're the first architect ever to work hard in a recession. it must feel good to continually outperform those unemployed slackers.
Competition - everyone fighting for the largest piece of pie (or the few crumbs that are left) - is highly overrated, mostly by the few who have the largest pieces of pie (and control the corporate megaphone fondly referred to as "the liberal media").
Cooperation (sharing the pie among all) is reviled by the very same people, who have far more pie than they could eat in a thousand lifetimes.
the football analogy only works to a limited degree
if most architects were asked to "leave it all on the field" and that meant a few weeks or few months or even a few years of that level of effort, they would do it without hesitation --- and most already have just to get to a good place in the field -- but no one expects the football players to play to that level every working hour of everyday for their careers just to barely subsist while sacrificing time with family and friends
suverk: "granted I am neither the best nor brightest "
Can't comment on the former, but the later rings somewhat true.
But yeah, football analogies!! Wooo! It's totally exactly like that, except there is no field, you are standing in a detention room (you designed 5 years ago), while 20 angry nazis are beating you with cactuses, and instead of the ball you are holding your own head. As you fall forward to the ground, you gain 2 yards. Woooo! Touchdown zone is still behind a 10 foot thick wall covered in electrical barb wire, but if you hit the wall with your head HARD and enough times, you're going to get four superbows.
i graduated at the turn of the century, and i am on my THIRD recession (or at least what architects refer to as recessions, if not official economist-defined ones). When I was in my last undergrad year, things were booming. by the time i graduated, the dot-com bubble had burst, big time. then came 9/11 shortly thereafter, and as a relatively new employee, i was told not to expect raises or job security for the first 2-3 years. in '05 i went to grad school and heard tales of great strides out in the field, which i was able to enjoy for all of 18 months before the big ole crash. so...when is architecture NOT in a recession? at this point, recessions account for 2/3-3/4 of my working life.
throughout all this, i ALWAYS had a job. I never took a pay cut, and my salary continued to increase. even still, i can only say i was happy and/or fulfilled with the work i was doing for six months to a year out of the 10-11 years i've spent in this profession.
nmj--i worked at a large firm for 5-6 years with many good experiences. i felt my work was valued, pay was decent, hours were good for the first 2-3 yrs. i designed a competition winner that kept a lot of people busy for a few years. all was well until i got transferred to a new team. lead architect decided i had to eat shit or pay my dues or just plain didn't like me...who knows. i was basically designated as a model maker/production drone on his project, working under people more junior and with far less experience than me. which i sucked up for a while, thinking i would look for something else in the meantime. problem was, without giving away too many details, my new set of responsibilities included working in conditions that were plain-old unsanitary, filthy, unventilated, and probably illegal if anybody knew about them. i had no idea this part of the office existed and was shocked to see that people were working long hours there without protection and without complaint. i worried about future health problems and guess i was 'elitist' enough to think that professionals deserved to not work in the salt mines, so i complained. the straw that broke my back was when someone on a completely different team demanded that i come in at midnight to do salt-mine work for them for a deadline, unpaid of course, on the grounds that 'i didn't live that far away'. somehow i had become the office shit-worker, overnight. a bunch of guys stood around my desk in front of everybody, being passively-aggressively coercive in that corporate-guy sort of way. so i told them it wasn't any of their business where i lived, their request was beyond unreasonable, gave them two weeks and started packing up my desk. i've done a lot of interesting things since then, not always profitable but always more rewarding. i've never for a second regretted walking away. but, there went a six-year investment in my professional career...
ps--of course i burned all my bridges, wrecked any chance of getting a good reference, and walked away with no severance and ineligible for unemployment insurance. and--i'm not dead yet.
one point of contention elinor, just because you walk away from a job, it doesn't mean you can't apply for unemployment. The burden is for the employer to prove that you walked away (or were fired for incompetence). Unsafe working conditions is a valid reason to walk away. I would love to see certain offices try to argue their way out of a toilet.
i applied...they didn't buy it. after i complained, they gave me a tyvek moon suit and a dust mask to wear...apparently this is considered adequate employee protection by the authorities. i thought of complaining to OSHA but decided against it out of what i felt at the time was 'respect' for one partner at the firm. in retrospect, this was really stupid.
the room was in the basement and had zero ventilation of any kind. the dust and crap would get up your nose, in your teeth, and the 3d printer stuff would harden in your nostrils. it would also get all over your clothes, which the product MSDS claimed was toxic (hence the moon suit). they claimed the stuff was safe to inhale in small quantities w/adequate ventilation, but it was everywhere...and that's what they said about asbestos way back in the 70s...didn't want to end up on the wrong end of that gamble.
they claimed it was a 'temporary' condition and that plans for renovation were stalled by the recession. it had been that way for a couple of years and for some time afterward (maybe still is...haven't asked in a while) oh, and the firm appeared on this list of 10 most profitable firms in 2010 not long afterward:
I do know of someone, age 28 who is very successful. She graduated from Berkeley with B.arch, then got M.Arch from CCA in San Francisco, went to work for a major firm, moving from Junior designer to production lead, then associate when she became licensed - passed every A.R.E. test in one year flat - first time, no repeats. She has incredible self confidence, and does what it takes irregardless of the sacrifice.- real Marine
I think what Gregory Walker was saying is the advice I was looking for. The discussions about low pay are all over the place, and that's not what I was looking for. It's more about the feeling that I'm just not being treated like a professional. Good pay is one thing, but feeling like you are being respected in a challenging field, and having the opportunity for advancement is what I look for.
But what Gregory said that I found important was stating that you need to find another path in architecture. And to be honest, it's what I'm looking into. I guess following the rules of pure architecture will get you no where. Some architects go into development, which I know has also been discussed, and its something I've been looking into.
Such a thing as a successful young architect?
'I am tired of "personal responsibility" zombies and the popular concept of yelling at victims.'
ditto!! mj's job could just as easily have turned out to be a shitty entry-level job that turned into a better opportunity...the fact that it just stayed shitty says much more about the place than it does about him/her.
suverk, so you weren't trolling but genuinely spitting at a fellow architect.
I understand the 'bootstrappy' mentality too well. I went through some tough times myself 2 years ago, and eventually caught a break after reconnecting with some old friends who (for whatever reason) remembered me fondly. Whoopsie me! Where's my gold medal?
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
That's a great speech to give to a sports team. Meanwhile in real life having a job that pays living expenses is now considered 'success'? Fuck me.
You have infinite number of monkeys and a finite number of typewriters. What is so hard to understand about this concept? Some monkeys are lazy? That still leaves you with infinite number of hard working monkeys.
This whole 'personal interest story/personal responsibility' mentality is creeping into all walks of life. From politics to business. And it's making us all collectively stupider.
You linked to a video of a Will Smith movie giving the cheesiest speech of all time. Perhaps you were trolling me after all.
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
right! destroy other people's careers! who gives a shit if their spouse just got laid off and they have two young children at home and an elderly parent to take care of - they're standing in the way of your own personal success - and it's their own fault for not being successful themselves because they're lazy.
I dont want everyone to think he is solely responsible. Schools have led the masses to believe that more higher education automatically leads to higher pay. In architecture, this just is not always true. He only has 80k in loans which is not too bad. Making 30k per year is a bit low. If it didnt work out for him it may now be time for him to try his hand at something else.
uh, $80k in loans on a $30k income is epic fail. OP is certainly talented enough to get a better and higher-paying job - keep hunting!
At the same time architecture feels like a profession where hard work just doesn't pay off, either in salary or career advancement.
Who feels the same, and who has had a breakthrough?
career advancement through hard work alone is a myth - you need to form alliances and build up a network of connected people who are willing to vouch for you. most architects (and clients for that matter) aren't capable of looking at your work and seeing potential (even if you are a brilliant designer and/or a strong employee), so you need word of mouth - you need other people.
this is how everyone gets ahead.
Sending out resumes is a complete waste of time in my humble opinion. I got laid off two weeks ago and have had two interviews already with a follow up scheduled for next week. Yes I needed to have a resume, but both of the interviews came because I saw an opportunity AND got a direct line of communication with the decision maker started. You can sit behind your machine and crank out resumes until your fingers fall off. Your time would be better spent pounding the pavement, meeting people and discovering how you can provide service or value to them, either as a contractor or employee.
As for original post, question is vague. Success needs to be defined first and that is different for everyone.
toasteroven
Nov 3, 11 8:04 am
"one should do whatever it takes to succeed - anything less is a waste"
Why settle for less?
Either you just accept being a victim, or you do what it takes to achieve your goals - what's wrong with that? - When you get sacked at the 50 yard line, do you just give up and whine, walk out of the game? or do you pick yourself up and keep pushing until you score?
there is no virtue in being a victim - why not just go all out? didn't you have to do that to get through architecture school?
granted I am neither the best nor brightest , clearly not sophisticated but I compensate by going the extra mile/
suverk - the game we play in real life is rigged. it's not like football where you know that you'll be penalized for breaking the rules. true you should pick yourself up and forge ahead when you have a setback, but we all should have a right to point out when people are blatantly breaking the rules.
also - justifying treating people poorly because they are "weak" is one of the criteria that parole boards use to determine if someone is a psychopath.
granted I am neither the best nor brightest , clearly not sophisticated but I compensate by going the extra mile/
congratulations, suverk. you're the first architect ever to work hard in a recession. it must feel good to continually outperform those unemployed slackers.
Competition - everyone fighting for the largest piece of pie (or the few crumbs that are left) - is highly overrated, mostly by the few who have the largest pieces of pie (and control the corporate megaphone fondly referred to as "the liberal media").
Cooperation (sharing the pie among all) is reviled by the very same people, who have far more pie than they could eat in a thousand lifetimes.
the football analogy only works to a limited degree
if most architects were asked to "leave it all on the field" and that meant a few weeks or few months or even a few years of that level of effort, they would do it without hesitation --- and most already have just to get to a good place in the field -- but no one expects the football players to play to that level every working hour of everyday for their careers just to barely subsist while sacrificing time with family and friends
suverk: "granted I am neither the best nor brightest "
Can't comment on the former, but the later rings somewhat true.
But yeah, football analogies!! Wooo! It's totally exactly like that, except there is no field, you are standing in a detention room (you designed 5 years ago), while 20 angry nazis are beating you with cactuses, and instead of the ball you are holding your own head. As you fall forward to the ground, you gain 2 yards. Woooo! Touchdown zone is still behind a 10 foot thick wall covered in electrical barb wire, but if you hit the wall with your head HARD and enough times, you're going to get four superbows.
Can we do some car analogies next?
i graduated at the turn of the century, and i am on my THIRD recession (or at least what architects refer to as recessions, if not official economist-defined ones). When I was in my last undergrad year, things were booming. by the time i graduated, the dot-com bubble had burst, big time. then came 9/11 shortly thereafter, and as a relatively new employee, i was told not to expect raises or job security for the first 2-3 years. in '05 i went to grad school and heard tales of great strides out in the field, which i was able to enjoy for all of 18 months before the big ole crash. so...when is architecture NOT in a recession? at this point, recessions account for 2/3-3/4 of my working life.
throughout all this, i ALWAYS had a job. I never took a pay cut, and my salary continued to increase. even still, i can only say i was happy and/or fulfilled with the work i was doing for six months to a year out of the 10-11 years i've spent in this profession.
i agree, elinor, that the last decade had several ups and downs
between '02 and '08 i survived 5 layoffs, which was stressful, but I also saw my salary climb about 60% during that time, in a few short bursts
this does seem to be a normal part of the profession --- it is a tough business
still, what has happened since '08 is on another scale, and the negative impact on career prospects is real
nmj--i worked at a large firm for 5-6 years with many good experiences. i felt my work was valued, pay was decent, hours were good for the first 2-3 yrs. i designed a competition winner that kept a lot of people busy for a few years. all was well until i got transferred to a new team. lead architect decided i had to eat shit or pay my dues or just plain didn't like me...who knows. i was basically designated as a model maker/production drone on his project, working under people more junior and with far less experience than me. which i sucked up for a while, thinking i would look for something else in the meantime. problem was, without giving away too many details, my new set of responsibilities included working in conditions that were plain-old unsanitary, filthy, unventilated, and probably illegal if anybody knew about them. i had no idea this part of the office existed and was shocked to see that people were working long hours there without protection and without complaint. i worried about future health problems and guess i was 'elitist' enough to think that professionals deserved to not work in the salt mines, so i complained. the straw that broke my back was when someone on a completely different team demanded that i come in at midnight to do salt-mine work for them for a deadline, unpaid of course, on the grounds that 'i didn't live that far away'. somehow i had become the office shit-worker, overnight. a bunch of guys stood around my desk in front of everybody, being passively-aggressively coercive in that corporate-guy sort of way. so i told them it wasn't any of their business where i lived, their request was beyond unreasonable, gave them two weeks and started packing up my desk. i've done a lot of interesting things since then, not always profitable but always more rewarding. i've never for a second regretted walking away. but, there went a six-year investment in my professional career...
ps--of course i burned all my bridges, wrecked any chance of getting a good reference, and walked away with no severance and ineligible for unemployment insurance. and--i'm not dead yet.
'i've never for a second regretted walking away'
not strictly true--sometimes, when it's really hot in the summertime, i remember how awesome their air conditioning was...:)
one point of contention elinor, just because you walk away from a job, it doesn't mean you can't apply for unemployment. The burden is for the employer to prove that you walked away (or were fired for incompetence). Unsafe working conditions is a valid reason to walk away. I would love to see certain offices try to argue their way out of a toilet.
i applied...they didn't buy it. after i complained, they gave me a tyvek moon suit and a dust mask to wear...apparently this is considered adequate employee protection by the authorities. i thought of complaining to OSHA but decided against it out of what i felt at the time was 'respect' for one partner at the firm. in retrospect, this was really stupid.
the room was in the basement and had zero ventilation of any kind. the dust and crap would get up your nose, in your teeth, and the 3d printer stuff would harden in your nostrils. it would also get all over your clothes, which the product MSDS claimed was toxic (hence the moon suit). they claimed the stuff was safe to inhale in small quantities w/adequate ventilation, but it was everywhere...and that's what they said about asbestos way back in the 70s...didn't want to end up on the wrong end of that gamble.
they claimed it was a 'temporary' condition and that plans for renovation were stalled by the recession. it had been that way for a couple of years and for some time afterward (maybe still is...haven't asked in a while) oh, and the firm appeared on this list of 10 most profitable firms in 2010 not long afterward:
http://www.architectmagazine.com/architects/architect-50-top-tens.aspx?page=2
elinor
back to your original question
I do know of someone, age 28 who is very successful. She graduated from Berkeley with B.arch, then got M.Arch from CCA in San Francisco, went to work for a major firm, moving from Junior designer to production lead, then associate when she became licensed - passed every A.R.E. test in one year flat - first time, no repeats. She has incredible self confidence, and does what it takes irregardless of the sacrifice.- real Marine
I think what Gregory Walker was saying is the advice I was looking for. The discussions about low pay are all over the place, and that's not what I was looking for. It's more about the feeling that I'm just not being treated like a professional. Good pay is one thing, but feeling like you are being respected in a challenging field, and having the opportunity for advancement is what I look for.
But what Gregory said that I found important was stating that you need to find another path in architecture. And to be honest, it's what I'm looking into. I guess following the rules of pure architecture will get you no where. Some architects go into development, which I know has also been discussed, and its something I've been looking into.
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