you can learn a lot in corporate environments and it wouldn't be bad to try it. you'll find that there are pretty specific ways that you will be expected to go about doing things. can help you develop certain standards of performance for yourself. and, depending on the office, you might learn some wicked and sophisticated approaches to detailing based on deep institutional knowledge - a luxury a lot of small/young offices don't have.
problems:
a certain sameness and conservatism to the work, as p2an says.
likelihood that your range of tasks will shrink from broad-ranging and comprehensive to specific and repetitive.
"you might learn some wicked and sophisticated approaches to detailing based on deep institutional knowledge - a luxury a lot of small/young offices don't have."
i have definitely found this to be true, but in corporate offices, like all offices, there are good ones and bad ones. unfortunately for most interns, unless you are very well-seasoned, it can be difficult to tell the good ones from the bad.
the bad reasons to select an office: a name (are you working there simply to put it on your resume?), work on a specific project (what happens when that project is over?), hip cool office atmosphere (after a week or two, it becomes just another office).
the good reasons: clicking with a particular architect that you get along with and who you can learn from, a salary with benefits that can fully support you, a sense that the office will respect you and help you develop as an architect.
additionally any office that does not pay an intern overtime does not respect you and your time. this is usually a very bad sign of things to come.
people don't want corporate architecture jobs for the same reason people don't want any kinds of corporate jobs. you have to show up on time, shave, comb your hair, etc...
Working as a consultant alongside architecture practices I have found that some of the more corporate-focused offices, partly through their increased size and partly through their understanding of business as business, have turned some of their resources to specialist research & development. These research positions don't exist in the small boutique-y firms unless their work is in a particular field of innovation.
If you have special talents that can keep you from the main machinations of the corporate firm, yet are valuable enough to keep you in it, they can be a very rewarding place to be, with wide contact to the industry as a whole and the resources to make a real impact.
I work at a corporate firm and I don't mind it. I am on a team that has made a little niche for itself in my division. We work on primarily small, urban infill projects varying from restaurants, commercial interiors, residential spaces, etc. We break even or have a low profit on most projects, but, we are fortunate that we have a strong financial support within my divions and other divisions of the firm.
I don't have a mandated 9-5 work week. Many days I come in at 6 or 7 (I'm a morning person) and peace out around 2. Other days I stroll in around 10 or 11 and stay until my work is complete.
I don't have the luxury of wearing jeans to work. Sometimes I wish I could wear jeans and Chuck Taylors. Yay, that would make me happy.
The only true negative I see working for this firm has nothing to do with lack of creative projects (we get plenty of interesting ones) or getting stuck doing the same thing daliy (my task vary from CA work to schematic design day-by-day). It has to do with change.
Change is tough when a firm has hundreds of employees. You can't just say 'Hey, we shouldn't have styrofoam coffee cups. We'll start ordering paper cups tomorrow.' You have to go through person after person, division head after division head, H.R. member after H.R. member, approval after approval to change something as simple as a different order number.
If you can suck up the occasional bureaucratic bullshit, I think you'll be fine. You just have to find the right corporate firm that aligns with your design goals.
i'm on my way out of a corporate firm. it ain't all that bad. though I feel way undervalued and insignificant. there's so many people who freakin slack here... myself and a hard working recent hire talk about it all the time, how can we operate with all this bs around. he's having trouble adjusting as one of the workers on his project is sinking the budget (bye bye project bonus)... and the fact is, i've become a technical guy, something i enjoy, but less broad than i'd like... i wouldn't say i'm selling my soul here, i'm on probably the two best projects in the office, but the "role" is what bothers me. too narrow. i've been asked about being a PM, and it's something i'm interested in, but all the PM's here seem to forget everything about how a project goes together as soon as they become one. they are completely hands off and only check-in once and a while to tell us we've put too many hours on a project.
so, these are my reasons to move towards a small firm that has an opportunity to draw some adventurous clients.
oh, but that's if i find the time to do my portfolio
On the issue of personal development (overly generalized but possibly still applicable):
A corporate firm has the overhead and resources for personal development so you may more freely attend seminars and training, travel for projects, pay for tests/registration, etc. more often BUT they do not have a personalized interest in your development so you have to take the initiative
A small firm will have great interest in your professional development because it will make a much larger impact in their firm (positively and in some cases to their disadvantage), but at the same time they might not have the resources
I work at a corporate firm. I don't know about a lot of other corporate firms, my firm does a good job making it feel like it's not a corporate firm. I actually like it a lot. Aside from a few people who act like assholes, it's pretty decent.
Great pay, great benefits, profit sharing, time-and-a-half overtime, good work, in a decent city, etc, etc...
"[the corporate offices] do not have a personalized interest in your development so you have to take the initiative."
i have some problems with that statement. it assumes that there aren't people within the office, that the office itself is what you are buying into. from my experience because of the diversity of people in a large office, professional development is actually easier than working in a small office. the danger of a large office, though, is if you get stuck on a bunk project team, it can be difficult to get out of it to find people that are easier to work with.
Now that I think about it "individualized interest" might work better than "personalized interest" in my post. To be more specific, in small offices, there is more crossover between personal decisions and office decisions. An employer in a smaller firm might *suggest* an opportunity to an employee that the office would not necessarily benefit financially. For example, my former employer did not want to see me leave the office, but once I told him about the other office, he agreed that I would be a better architect in the long run by switching. Corporate offices care about development too, but usually only if it is mutually beneficial. And to be realistic, it is really not always mutually beneficial.
Yeah, I have a problem with that statement as well. Virtually everyone I know who are at corporate firms are being trained and groomed into being LEED accredited and licensed.
I personally prefer larger firms. I like to have a the availability of a wide variety of people and resources, not to mention the different types of projects.
Don't get me wrong, I work in a corporate office as well, and I do enjoy the benefits of it. I've been able to travel far and for long times simply for personal development. But I think you are proving my point Archmed when you say "groomed." Its great when things work out and it is exactly want you wanted to develop, but what if it isn't? Most of the time the end result might be the same, but the intent might be different. Do corporate offices benefit from having everyone be well rounded?
i went corporate to pay off loans and because i wasn't in a good place mentally, after working for a tool.
it was really awful, the daily conversations about the latest gucci/prada/hermes bag (this was from guys as well) really bugged me. there wa little discussion of working going on outside the office with the exception of "cool details we should copy"
also, the firm pumped LEED but didn't practice what it preached.
add in the fact that the work was just lame and i was going to be spending the next 2 years on a project i wanted nothing to do with, i hightailed it outta there as fast as i could.
well, at one office i was in, there was a huge office push to become a leed accredited professional right before the exam switched over to 2.2. everyone in the office was studying, there were lunch q&a sessions, etc. 40% of the office at that time became leed ap. the office paid for the exam even if you failed and gave a generous bonus to those that passed, because they wanted to use leed as a marketing angle for the firm. in that case it was mutually beneficial for employees and office alike to work towards individual employee's development.
i think the same case can be made for licensing. an office benefits from assisting its employees pass the are and become registered architects. it's a shame that not all corporate offices have that understanding, but in general i believe most do.
There are pros and cons in working for corporate or "boutique" offices. Every couple of years I want to flip flop between them. As many others have posted already, corporate firms have resources, so you have access to more professional development resources, conferences, travel etc. The team you work closely with can be very different to the "corporate" identity. For instance, I consider the small team of people I work with and sit next to to be very design oriented, interesting and great people. Good design is something to strive for, and given the opportunity, we'd probably produced wicked buildings. I know though that the mothership corporate headquarters (in a distant, far away city) is only really interested in making money and pumping out profitable, cookie cutter projects. It gets the design oriented individuals down.
I work in a large office that has planning, landscape, architecture, interiors and graphics. They tout interdisciplinary design a lot, which attracted me there at first, but in reality it's pretty bogus because you can only get so far until it's to specific too one area that interdisciplinary collaboration is impossible.
The upside from the large office is that there are constantly presentations from outside consultants and vendors. We have a group of technical people who put on roundtable discussions that overview everything from budgets to construction/spec. processes to curtain walls to sustainability to millwork etc. It's geared more towards people who don't have lots of work experience, but it's also good as a refresher. There are lots of resources and there are lots of people to get help/info. on. I've learned a lot about detailing and CA, and I've been able to some limited design work. I've been out of school for 2 years.
The downside is that the office is so huge, you see lots of people who seem to pigeon holed. Maybe that is what they like, but it's not for me. There are the technical/detail people, the CA person, the furniture person and it seems like they are always doing that sort of stuff. The work also seems kind of generic because I suppose they have more to worry about with the company name/image. A lot of clients are rather conservative too, so the projects can sometimes be blah. Also, sometimes it seems like we are doing stupid projects not only to foster relationships, but also because they have to feed so many employees.
That's the work side. More good aspects are with benefits. Vacation time is no problem, there is good health coverage with dental, a 401k. A financial planner from an investment bank gives quarterly presentations and sits down one-on-one with employees to discuss their financial goals. We have a gym, barbecues, intramural teams that compete against other offices.
So to sum it up, the benefits and resources are awesome, but I feel that sometimes the work can be blah. But not always!
Look at the type of work the corporate firm does that is the tell all. I work at a corporate firm, and we do mostly institutional projects along with occasional multi million dollar home. 1. Everyone is constantly worried about profit. 2. The client designs their project we just draw what they tell us. 3. We get a bonus every quarter and a shit ton of benefits.
In summary I feel like I sold my soul because I know that I am capable of better more progressive work, but I don't leave because I like the pay, job security, and Christmas parties. Some days it is really hard though.
I have the best of both worlds, small branch office of a corporate firm that is many miles away. We are licensed in all 50 states, but there are only 8 of us in our office, well over 100 nation wide.
Upsides - don't have to answer phones, don't have to worry about accounting, support staff, IT, marketing, PR, HR, etc, can get work we wouldn't be able to otherwise - national, international, projects types we specifically haven't done but we can bluff that we have because so and so (in another office) does those types of projects, don't have to be profitable even! (subsidized by corporate), a mysterious being pays for our x-mas parties, coffee, lunch, beer, I could go on. Oh, and I could relocate to one of many other cities within the same company with no trouble.
I've spent a couple of years now in a corporate office, and I do feel a bit like a "design" commodity.
"Great resume" is a compliment I get a lot from the marketing people in the office. Um, how about the great design work? Not really interested...unless its profitable!
The benefits are awesome, the salaries are great, but...somedays you feel like you just want to run run away.
Hey thanks everybody, sorry i havent been available to check the posts and get back to u guys as the posts came in ...but i appreciate the input ..it feels good to know what else is outthere .. it seems to me that not so many people hate it as much as i thought or at least as much as everbody bitches about
i have not read this thread yet so i will just jump into my rant: you should do it just to know that it sucks. i made the jump to get to a firm where there was some standardization of procedures and production, and management support. what i found was a set of extremes: yes there are standards but one team is a bunch of cad naziis and another is a complete and unfixable mess and there is a social division between the two.
i found extreme judgmental cliquey wankers who think they are all that but dont know anything. i found same same projects - either the same trendy looking condo tower or the same retail/restaurant regurgitated again and again (and i came here b/c the design style is "cool" like dwell magizine "cool"...so overrated) and i have seen many firms like this.
the process is dehumanizing. it's assembly line architecture and no one is allowed to think for themselves. one team makes a mess for someone else and the same happens again through each phase of design. if you have ever been a line cook you know what i mean. concept design exists but only to make everyone march to the same designer's bs trope or shape that they slap on everything, and there is no diverting from that brand design - and i mean firm brand design.
i found teams that are immeasurably dysfunctional and huge problems that slip through cracks that i have to pick up like harvey keitel as the wolf in pulp fiction.
i found myself working on 6 identical projects in 6 identical malls in 6 states far away trying to get useless interns and admin staff to do their jobs but me having to do it instead. designers who dont know how to build, drafters who don't know how to draw, partners who still have not said a word to me since my first day months and months ago...i could go on and on.
i found that the (retail) pace frys your nerves and leaves you feeling like a robot.
everyone is a specialist with their head in the sand. no communication or miscommunication...endless incompetence...burned out consultants doing the same work...all the clients are architect wannabe's who jumped from corporate firms to companies that hire architects. there is no design because the clients (ex-arch job captains) do it.
even le corbusier said this kind of work is not architecture; it's construction.
ok, after reading the thread from the beginning i have to say i agree with all the positive points mentioned. and as i said, you should do it (to know that it sucks) to see how companies are run on a big scale, how projects are run, what documents and tools and forms are used that small offices dont need, etc.
i like the team i am on and we work well together but there are so many things that drive me nuts about the company and projects and pedantic corporate nature. in the end people are people and you have to work with them.
my thing is that after doing the small to big firm sampler with a wide array of projects i know what i like and i know what i dont like. i am well rounded and can do a lot and am wasted here. i am bored out of my mind...not learning...no one listens...politics rule. playground politics. ijust doesnt suit me. that's not how i roll. i am looking for my way back to a small practice that can serve as a business model for my own small practice.
can anyone talk about moving from a corporate firm to a small practice and any difficulties they have had "unlearning" some of the baggage big offices have? some small places i have worked dont use typ CA docs like RFI's, DVCR's, reports, etc. I think it would take a lot of paring down and lightening up to operate on a small scale...to pick up the phone instead of cc everyone with the cya corporate speak.
cya - ha! i learned that first day working in a corporate office. one of the senior architects pulled me aside and explained it. it does come in handy, but then again, i've been brainwashed.
I like the need for me at the large place because i have a niche and they know it and it helps push the mainstream in my direction
so the best thing about the corporate is the influence on direction you can have i say
but small was nice to learn the fundamentals and work ethic
especially since the 3 man firm was 100% green design built architecture
my next step i want to take is either 1 man firm by myself with a beautiful assistant or a international firm outside the states.
has anybody made a international transition to Europe and how do they receive the license transfer, beyond NCARB because i didn't go threw them to get my license and i do notice some may require
'traditional' education witch i also do not have
I went from my first corporate job to small design office. I don't think there was much unlearning to do (well, I had left a pretty nice plain vanilla corporate office). In the first week of being in the small office, I asked who did the mail. I got blank stares, as everyone does everything. There are few systems in place, per se (You make your own coffee, you tidy the library, you do your own filing). The small firm I worked in did everything, CD, DD, CDs, CA. It was a good training.
Definitely empathized with your current corporate situation. I'm pretty bored with my job, and while its nice that I get labelled "the designer", its like being in a straightjacket. I didn't figure on spending my career educating a conservative office culture in design. I want to be out there designing!
Not too much options for me...except going out on my own.
Corporate
Ive heard of people complaining about there corporate job on here and saying they fell like there selling there soul.
I work in a relatively small firm that does decent sized project and im thinking of switching.
What is it about Corporate firms that make you dislike your job?
i have never worked in corporate, but i can tell you why - mostly the projects are just plain dull.
you can learn a lot in corporate environments and it wouldn't be bad to try it. you'll find that there are pretty specific ways that you will be expected to go about doing things. can help you develop certain standards of performance for yourself. and, depending on the office, you might learn some wicked and sophisticated approaches to detailing based on deep institutional knowledge - a luxury a lot of small/young offices don't have.
problems:
a certain sameness and conservatism to the work, as p2an says.
likelihood that your range of tasks will shrink from broad-ranging and comprehensive to specific and repetitive.
"you might learn some wicked and sophisticated approaches to detailing based on deep institutional knowledge - a luxury a lot of small/young offices don't have."
i have definitely found this to be true, but in corporate offices, like all offices, there are good ones and bad ones. unfortunately for most interns, unless you are very well-seasoned, it can be difficult to tell the good ones from the bad.
the bad reasons to select an office: a name (are you working there simply to put it on your resume?), work on a specific project (what happens when that project is over?), hip cool office atmosphere (after a week or two, it becomes just another office).
the good reasons: clicking with a particular architect that you get along with and who you can learn from, a salary with benefits that can fully support you, a sense that the office will respect you and help you develop as an architect.
additionally any office that does not pay an intern overtime does not respect you and your time. this is usually a very bad sign of things to come.
people don't want corporate architecture jobs for the same reason people don't want any kinds of corporate jobs. you have to show up on time, shave, comb your hair, etc...
Working as a consultant alongside architecture practices I have found that some of the more corporate-focused offices, partly through their increased size and partly through their understanding of business as business, have turned some of their resources to specialist research & development. These research positions don't exist in the small boutique-y firms unless their work is in a particular field of innovation.
If you have special talents that can keep you from the main machinations of the corporate firm, yet are valuable enough to keep you in it, they can be a very rewarding place to be, with wide contact to the industry as a whole and the resources to make a real impact.
I work at a corporate firm and I don't mind it. I am on a team that has made a little niche for itself in my division. We work on primarily small, urban infill projects varying from restaurants, commercial interiors, residential spaces, etc. We break even or have a low profit on most projects, but, we are fortunate that we have a strong financial support within my divions and other divisions of the firm.
I don't have a mandated 9-5 work week. Many days I come in at 6 or 7 (I'm a morning person) and peace out around 2. Other days I stroll in around 10 or 11 and stay until my work is complete.
I don't have the luxury of wearing jeans to work. Sometimes I wish I could wear jeans and Chuck Taylors. Yay, that would make me happy.
The only true negative I see working for this firm has nothing to do with lack of creative projects (we get plenty of interesting ones) or getting stuck doing the same thing daliy (my task vary from CA work to schematic design day-by-day). It has to do with change.
Change is tough when a firm has hundreds of employees. You can't just say 'Hey, we shouldn't have styrofoam coffee cups. We'll start ordering paper cups tomorrow.' You have to go through person after person, division head after division head, H.R. member after H.R. member, approval after approval to change something as simple as a different order number.
If you can suck up the occasional bureaucratic bullshit, I think you'll be fine. You just have to find the right corporate firm that aligns with your design goals.
do you wear your argyle sweater vest??????
I have before.
There is nothing that can get in the way of me and my argyle sweater vest.
It's love.
the last 3 senior ppl that have left our office have all 'gone corporate' - why?
the money!
i'm on my way out of a corporate firm. it ain't all that bad. though I feel way undervalued and insignificant. there's so many people who freakin slack here... myself and a hard working recent hire talk about it all the time, how can we operate with all this bs around. he's having trouble adjusting as one of the workers on his project is sinking the budget (bye bye project bonus)... and the fact is, i've become a technical guy, something i enjoy, but less broad than i'd like... i wouldn't say i'm selling my soul here, i'm on probably the two best projects in the office, but the "role" is what bothers me. too narrow. i've been asked about being a PM, and it's something i'm interested in, but all the PM's here seem to forget everything about how a project goes together as soon as they become one. they are completely hands off and only check-in once and a while to tell us we've put too many hours on a project.
so, these are my reasons to move towards a small firm that has an opportunity to draw some adventurous clients.
oh, but that's if i find the time to do my portfolio
i miss racking up the frequent flyer miles and having my e*trade realtime data scrren up during the day while drawing.
On the issue of personal development (overly generalized but possibly still applicable):
A corporate firm has the overhead and resources for personal development so you may more freely attend seminars and training, travel for projects, pay for tests/registration, etc. more often BUT they do not have a personalized interest in your development so you have to take the initiative
A small firm will have great interest in your professional development because it will make a much larger impact in their firm (positively and in some cases to their disadvantage), but at the same time they might not have the resources
I work at a corporate firm. I don't know about a lot of other corporate firms, my firm does a good job making it feel like it's not a corporate firm. I actually like it a lot. Aside from a few people who act like assholes, it's pretty decent.
Great pay, great benefits, profit sharing, time-and-a-half overtime, good work, in a decent city, etc, etc...
"[the corporate offices] do not have a personalized interest in your development so you have to take the initiative."
i have some problems with that statement. it assumes that there aren't people within the office, that the office itself is what you are buying into. from my experience because of the diversity of people in a large office, professional development is actually easier than working in a small office. the danger of a large office, though, is if you get stuck on a bunk project team, it can be difficult to get out of it to find people that are easier to work with.
Now that I think about it "individualized interest" might work better than "personalized interest" in my post. To be more specific, in small offices, there is more crossover between personal decisions and office decisions. An employer in a smaller firm might *suggest* an opportunity to an employee that the office would not necessarily benefit financially. For example, my former employer did not want to see me leave the office, but once I told him about the other office, he agreed that I would be a better architect in the long run by switching. Corporate offices care about development too, but usually only if it is mutually beneficial. And to be realistic, it is really not always mutually beneficial.
Yeah, I have a problem with that statement as well. Virtually everyone I know who are at corporate firms are being trained and groomed into being LEED accredited and licensed.
I personally prefer larger firms. I like to have a the availability of a wide variety of people and resources, not to mention the different types of projects.
Don't get me wrong, I work in a corporate office as well, and I do enjoy the benefits of it. I've been able to travel far and for long times simply for personal development. But I think you are proving my point Archmed when you say "groomed." Its great when things work out and it is exactly want you wanted to develop, but what if it isn't? Most of the time the end result might be the same, but the intent might be different. Do corporate offices benefit from having everyone be well rounded?
i went corporate to pay off loans and because i wasn't in a good place mentally, after working for a tool.
it was really awful, the daily conversations about the latest gucci/prada/hermes bag (this was from guys as well) really bugged me. there wa little discussion of working going on outside the office with the exception of "cool details we should copy"
also, the firm pumped LEED but didn't practice what it preached.
add in the fact that the work was just lame and i was going to be spending the next 2 years on a project i wanted nothing to do with, i hightailed it outta there as fast as i could.
if you're going to go corporate, shoot for BCJ.
well, at one office i was in, there was a huge office push to become a leed accredited professional right before the exam switched over to 2.2. everyone in the office was studying, there were lunch q&a sessions, etc. 40% of the office at that time became leed ap. the office paid for the exam even if you failed and gave a generous bonus to those that passed, because they wanted to use leed as a marketing angle for the firm. in that case it was mutually beneficial for employees and office alike to work towards individual employee's development.
i think the same case can be made for licensing. an office benefits from assisting its employees pass the are and become registered architects. it's a shame that not all corporate offices have that understanding, but in general i believe most do.
There are pros and cons in working for corporate or "boutique" offices. Every couple of years I want to flip flop between them. As many others have posted already, corporate firms have resources, so you have access to more professional development resources, conferences, travel etc. The team you work closely with can be very different to the "corporate" identity. For instance, I consider the small team of people I work with and sit next to to be very design oriented, interesting and great people. Good design is something to strive for, and given the opportunity, we'd probably produced wicked buildings. I know though that the mothership corporate headquarters (in a distant, far away city) is only really interested in making money and pumping out profitable, cookie cutter projects. It gets the design oriented individuals down.
I work in a large office that has planning, landscape, architecture, interiors and graphics. They tout interdisciplinary design a lot, which attracted me there at first, but in reality it's pretty bogus because you can only get so far until it's to specific too one area that interdisciplinary collaboration is impossible.
The upside from the large office is that there are constantly presentations from outside consultants and vendors. We have a group of technical people who put on roundtable discussions that overview everything from budgets to construction/spec. processes to curtain walls to sustainability to millwork etc. It's geared more towards people who don't have lots of work experience, but it's also good as a refresher. There are lots of resources and there are lots of people to get help/info. on. I've learned a lot about detailing and CA, and I've been able to some limited design work. I've been out of school for 2 years.
The downside is that the office is so huge, you see lots of people who seem to pigeon holed. Maybe that is what they like, but it's not for me. There are the technical/detail people, the CA person, the furniture person and it seems like they are always doing that sort of stuff. The work also seems kind of generic because I suppose they have more to worry about with the company name/image. A lot of clients are rather conservative too, so the projects can sometimes be blah. Also, sometimes it seems like we are doing stupid projects not only to foster relationships, but also because they have to feed so many employees.
That's the work side. More good aspects are with benefits. Vacation time is no problem, there is good health coverage with dental, a 401k. A financial planner from an investment bank gives quarterly presentations and sits down one-on-one with employees to discuss their financial goals. We have a gym, barbecues, intramural teams that compete against other offices.
So to sum it up, the benefits and resources are awesome, but I feel that sometimes the work can be blah. But not always!
Look at the type of work the corporate firm does that is the tell all. I work at a corporate firm, and we do mostly institutional projects along with occasional multi million dollar home. 1. Everyone is constantly worried about profit. 2. The client designs their project we just draw what they tell us. 3. We get a bonus every quarter and a shit ton of benefits.
In summary I feel like I sold my soul because I know that I am capable of better more progressive work, but I don't leave because I like the pay, job security, and Christmas parties. Some days it is really hard though.
I have the best of both worlds, small branch office of a corporate firm that is many miles away. We are licensed in all 50 states, but there are only 8 of us in our office, well over 100 nation wide.
Upsides - don't have to answer phones, don't have to worry about accounting, support staff, IT, marketing, PR, HR, etc, can get work we wouldn't be able to otherwise - national, international, projects types we specifically haven't done but we can bluff that we have because so and so (in another office) does those types of projects, don't have to be profitable even! (subsidized by corporate), a mysterious being pays for our x-mas parties, coffee, lunch, beer, I could go on. Oh, and I could relocate to one of many other cities within the same company with no trouble.
Downsides - Corporate owns us.
I've spent a couple of years now in a corporate office, and I do feel a bit like a "design" commodity.
"Great resume" is a compliment I get a lot from the marketing people in the office. Um, how about the great design work? Not really interested...unless its profitable!
The benefits are awesome, the salaries are great, but...somedays you feel like you just want to run run away.
Hey thanks everybody, sorry i havent been available to check the posts and get back to u guys as the posts came in ...but i appreciate the input ..it feels good to know what else is outthere .. it seems to me that not so many people hate it as much as i thought or at least as much as everbody bitches about
i have not read this thread yet so i will just jump into my rant: you should do it just to know that it sucks. i made the jump to get to a firm where there was some standardization of procedures and production, and management support. what i found was a set of extremes: yes there are standards but one team is a bunch of cad naziis and another is a complete and unfixable mess and there is a social division between the two.
i found extreme judgmental cliquey wankers who think they are all that but dont know anything. i found same same projects - either the same trendy looking condo tower or the same retail/restaurant regurgitated again and again (and i came here b/c the design style is "cool" like dwell magizine "cool"...so overrated) and i have seen many firms like this.
the process is dehumanizing. it's assembly line architecture and no one is allowed to think for themselves. one team makes a mess for someone else and the same happens again through each phase of design. if you have ever been a line cook you know what i mean. concept design exists but only to make everyone march to the same designer's bs trope or shape that they slap on everything, and there is no diverting from that brand design - and i mean firm brand design.
i found teams that are immeasurably dysfunctional and huge problems that slip through cracks that i have to pick up like harvey keitel as the wolf in pulp fiction.
i found myself working on 6 identical projects in 6 identical malls in 6 states far away trying to get useless interns and admin staff to do their jobs but me having to do it instead. designers who dont know how to build, drafters who don't know how to draw, partners who still have not said a word to me since my first day months and months ago...i could go on and on.
i found that the (retail) pace frys your nerves and leaves you feeling like a robot.
everyone is a specialist with their head in the sand. no communication or miscommunication...endless incompetence...burned out consultants doing the same work...all the clients are architect wannabe's who jumped from corporate firms to companies that hire architects. there is no design because the clients (ex-arch job captains) do it.
even le corbusier said this kind of work is not architecture; it's construction.
whew! i needed to get that out. thanks
are you hiring?
ok, after reading the thread from the beginning i have to say i agree with all the positive points mentioned. and as i said, you should do it (to know that it sucks) to see how companies are run on a big scale, how projects are run, what documents and tools and forms are used that small offices dont need, etc.
i like the team i am on and we work well together but there are so many things that drive me nuts about the company and projects and pedantic corporate nature. in the end people are people and you have to work with them.
my thing is that after doing the small to big firm sampler with a wide array of projects i know what i like and i know what i dont like. i am well rounded and can do a lot and am wasted here. i am bored out of my mind...not learning...no one listens...politics rule. playground politics. ijust doesnt suit me. that's not how i roll. i am looking for my way back to a small practice that can serve as a business model for my own small practice.
can anyone talk about moving from a corporate firm to a small practice and any difficulties they have had "unlearning" some of the baggage big offices have? some small places i have worked dont use typ CA docs like RFI's, DVCR's, reports, etc. I think it would take a lot of paring down and lightening up to operate on a small scale...to pick up the phone instead of cc everyone with the cya corporate speak.
cya - ha! i learned that first day working in a corporate office. one of the senior architects pulled me aside and explained it. it does come in handy, but then again, i've been brainwashed.
i went from a 25 to a 3 to a 3000 person one.
I like the need for me at the large place because i have a niche and they know it and it helps push the mainstream in my direction
so the best thing about the corporate is the influence on direction you can have i say
but small was nice to learn the fundamentals and work ethic
especially since the 3 man firm was 100% green design built architecture
my next step i want to take is either 1 man firm by myself with a beautiful assistant or a international firm outside the states.
has anybody made a international transition to Europe and how do they receive the license transfer, beyond NCARB because i didn't go threw them to get my license and i do notice some may require
'traditional' education witch i also do not have
funkA...
I went from my first corporate job to small design office. I don't think there was much unlearning to do (well, I had left a pretty nice plain vanilla corporate office). In the first week of being in the small office, I asked who did the mail. I got blank stares, as everyone does everything. There are few systems in place, per se (You make your own coffee, you tidy the library, you do your own filing). The small firm I worked in did everything, CD, DD, CDs, CA. It was a good training.
Definitely empathized with your current corporate situation. I'm pretty bored with my job, and while its nice that I get labelled "the designer", its like being in a straightjacket. I didn't figure on spending my career educating a conservative office culture in design. I want to be out there designing!
Not too much options for me...except going out on my own.
antipodean, thanks for the response and the empathy.
i think my option is down to going out there on my own too. but it's baby steps to get there...
salary + benefits = comfortable
radiohead has some good lyrics about corporate jobs:
"a job that slowly kills you..."
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