just came back from an interview at a small office and shockingly found out that it is required in the office to work 50 hrs per week, and the pay is low.
I'm just wonder is there any other profession as weird and depressing as architecture profession for young grads?not mentioning unpaid overtime, no one listening to you, etc...
I would go so far as to say 60-70% of all architects are mildly retarded and have no taste. They do however have deep rooted self image issues which they try to fix by identifying themselves with a style or brand of architecture. Your only hope is to become a principle and toy with their pathetic lives.
However, I worked in the film industry before architecture, and routinely put in 60-70 hours a week. The pay at the time was low, but the POTENTIAL pay seemed much better.
Lawyer friends of mine put in absurd hours(with good pay) Resident doctors put in absurd hours, capped federally at 80 hours a week (with bad pay, typically in the $40's) Other professions expect weird hours too, and not always for good pay. It's not only architects.
actually that job at the chicken finger processing plant was rather depressing. but they did pay overtime and you got to take home as many chicken livers as you wanted.
that gig at the plastic injecting molding factory was not very intellectually challenging when you are sitting at the plastic cap making machine, counting out 100 of them at a time and putting them in a plastic bag...but they did pay overtime and you got an extra .15 an hour on the graveyard shift.
on a positive note...i totally enjoy my job, never get bored and are rewarded both financially and with job satisfaction. it is possible! BUT you may well have to do some long hours and low pay at the beginning - but that isn't architecture where that is the case.
Truth of the matter is coming out of school what the heck do you know about putting a project together. If I could dock
your pay for everytime you made a mistake I might be able to offer you alot more money. So I was really paying you for the time it takes to get a task accomplished. We have all been there and realize were kinda in the re-educating business when it comes to greenhorns coming out of school. There are a fricking lot of things one needs to know about this profession one among them is the economics of business. You might be one of the lucky ones and get to go for a tailcoat ride in a large successful firm, but reality is you have to show your worth. Pretty Drawings just isn't enough.
Just to kick you when you're down a little more.....I have a brother who works for a bus factory, I think he started at $18 or $20/hr and I'm sure he gets 1.5xhrs for overtime, weekends, etc.
Now back to reality, half of the people on this forum appear to get paid to sit at air conditioned desks, posting on this forum all day long, how much do you actually expect to be paid for that? That isn't ment to be a jab at the general readership/users of this forum, just people complaining about low wages and long hours who seem devoid of the ability to make honest assessments of themselves.
comparisons here between entry level architectural compensation and blue collar wages almost always forget the essential difference: blue collar wages rarely, if ever, increase faster than the cost-of-living index. blue collar workers pretty much do the same job their whole career for the same inflation adjusted wage.
if this is what happens to you as an architct, you're either not any good or you're not trying.
I think archinect should make new T-shirts that say:
Architecture: weird and depressing.
anyway, 50+ hours a week goes by quickly if you are working with good people who are willing to teach you. I'd personally work long hours for lower pay if the firm had excellent professional development, mentoring, and design opportunities.
and just think, the more hours you're putting in, the sooner you'll finish your IDP and the sooner you can sit for your exams, get licensed and then make more money!!i agree with toasteroven, good mentoring and other opportunities is worth so much more to a beginning architect than just big pay.... thought ideally there'd be someplace where you could have both
i am not sure why this is a problem for architects
it shouldnt have been a surprise going in and if it was, shame on you for wasting all that time in school
to be honest, i would rather check door schedules and hardware for 50 hours a week for a couple years before working my way up than something mindless for 40 hours a week
i constantly hear people talk of their job like its just a hassle and something to get through, and i would think that architects have a little bit more job satisfaction than that
i think a lot of architects would bitch even more (if that is possible) if they had to work at different jobs, even for only 40 hours a week
marmkid - Nothing is more disheartening than hearing people complain about the mundane work when you yourself are looking for work and actually really enjoy doing drawing coordination.
its like the guy in my office who is basically a head designer, doing mainly conceptual stuff and sketching all day long, yet he complains and bitches to no end
i feel most people who become architects arent doing this job because they are stuck doing it or they had no other choice or anything. its because we spent the time to go through all the schooling and chose to do this work. you should actually enjoy it, otherwise why become an architect?
is it seriously because we were so delusional in school that we expected to be designing awesome projects with no budget forever and never have to deal with anything else?
i really dont understand the bitching
become an accountant and run numbers 40 hours a week and make more money than architects. see if you like that more, i would be shocked if anyone did
i think i have it pretty good overall with my career choice
maybe toasteroven is right, but I'm hesitating a lot to make a commitment like that.
first of all, I don't know how productive i can be staying in the office 11hrs a day.
second of all, should architects have a life except working like a robot? to be a good designer, you need to read, observe, going to lectures, museums, talking to your peers...
third of all, money is not everything, but for the sake of all the yrs of education, I think I deserve a relatively good salary whichever my career stage is. I don't want to compare to computer science major who double my salary--only relatively good salary. and I think I can find places where I learn fast also treated well in terms of compensation.
it's personal choice. but I think those employers who do good design should not make such a inhumane profit on their employees, to be honest, I do look down upon those people.
if you work 11 hours a day consistently, and you are not paid well enough to your liking, you need to go somewhere else
i have never been in a situation where i was forced to work overtime with no pay, and to be honest, will never be, because that is not what i want to do. there is no reason you need to work more than 40-45 hours a week if you dont want to, and still be productive.
people "stuck" in the office like that are doing so on their own accord.
dont accept a job if the salary isnt acceptable to you, within reason of the actual market
you can have a life, just have one
you dont need to be stuck working extra hours unless you want to
usuback, good point about the 11 hours a day thing.
whenever i complain about architecture being too many hours, people tell me that if you really like architecture and love what you do then you shouldn't have a problem with working 11 hours a day...
to which i reply, there is nothing in this entire world that is interesting enough to keep me excited and motivated for more than 9 hours a day. even sex with the most beautiful person on the planet would get tedious after 9 hours. i need variation. i'm not an architecture machine, no matter how much i love doing it while i'm doing it.
later on in your career, when you get a chance to do billing, you'll realize how little profit (if any) the vast majority of firms make. Interns tend to take more time on things and make more mistakes, so you have to factor this into their salary (additionally, the hours that management needs to devote to your training instead of billable work). the issue you bring up is the need to have interns work crazy hours for little pay - something tells me that they probably don't manage their projects very well if the expectation is to work more than 40-45 hours a week on a regular basis.
also, keep in mind that salary and hours are negotiable.
anyone who says that you should have no problem working 11 hours a day is trying to scam you
you should never consistently work that many hours unless you are being well compensated for it
if you arent, you are a chump and being taken advantage of, and if it lasts for a long time, its your own fault
i can see the argument while you are in school, that since it is something you love, you should be able to put in long hours like that. but you are also paying for to be able to do that, for your education and personal fulfillment.
in the working world, if you do that and dont get paid for it, you are being used.
design is the easiest part of this profession that's why its taught in school and not after 20 years of practice.
complete bs. you never stop learning how to be a better designer. school introduces you only to some basic lessons in how to value design and be disciplined about design. when you're released into the world so many forces pull you so many different ways, that primer is necessary as an anchor.
if design were easy, we'd have very little to talk about and we'd all perfect every project. instead we can talk about infinite shades of gray in the absence of any black and white, and we make mistakes from which we learn in every project.
useasbacku and others, if you knew the pay and hours sucked from waaaay back when you were in school why did you continue with it? Honestly looking back at times in my professional life, I almost feel like I should of written a check for former employers and guides on this architectural journey.
So for the record, working 40-50 hours isn't that bad for a professional. Also the pay is pretty palatable, and is pretty standard for grads that enter the work place. I have a great friend that just left med school and covers what you consider signficant before Tuesday and is paid less that what you think is appropriate.
meta: good design is like a relationship - hard, messy, complicated, fraught with compromise, and gets better with experience - if it were easy, everyone would be a great designer (or lover).
and - a rule of thumb, if you cannot explain something to your grandma in a way that she understands, then you really do not know the subject matter well enough.
I'm actually agreeing with meta on design being the easy part When I'm in school I love doing architecture, but now that I'm in the real world I'm hating most every minute of it. Having to design other people's (read: BAD CLIENTS) fucking awful design ideas is really soul sucking and disheartening, and watching my boss drive himself mad trying to please them everyday is not convincing me to stay in this field. I really have to get out of New York and into a different firm.
So you want to be entertained?
Please look away
We're not here 'cause we want to entertain
Please go away (don't go away)
Reality is the new fiction, they say
Truth is truer in these days, truth is man-made
If you're here cause you want to be entertained
Please go away
If you're heart is done, Johnny get your gun
Join the rank and file, on your TV dial
You come around looking 1984
You're such a bore, 1984
Nostalgia, you're using it like a whore
It's better than before
You come around sounding 1972
You did nothing new with 1972
Where is the fuck you?
Where's the black and blue
Hey! Look around they are lying to you
Can't you see it is just a silly ruse?
They are lying, and I am lying too.
All you want is entertainment,
Rip me open it's free
I have a friend in the vacation timeshare business (managing them, not designing them); she regularly takes conference calls in the wee hours after working an 8 hour day.
My sister the doctor does her office billing work on the weekends or at night after her kids go to bed, and is on call regularly.
My son's kindergarten teacher puts together lessons in the evenings after school, and regularly attends PTA school board etc. meetings in the evenings.
My dad often goes to the foundry at 4 in the morning to make sure the night shift isn't having technical problems, then stays on until 5 when the day shift ends.
My clients in real estate development are often wining and dining potential clients late into the night.
My point is: we architects complain a lot, but we are not the only people working more than a "standard" 40 hour week. I think it's the American condition right now to constantly be working. I don't really think this is a good thing.
my father was a financial advisor and continuously worked 50-60 hour weeks which usually included half a day on saturday
growing up, i knew i wouldnt see him on tuesday nights until 9pm, that was just his late night to work
architects a lot of time have a hero complex with how much they work, and its really untrue
and i hope we can stop with the not being paid well stuff, since that really isnt the case anymore
if you arent getting paid what you think you deserve, you either chose the wrong firm to work with or you have unrealistic expectations
It wasn't that rare before unions became so powerful (and probably still isn't) for factory workers to pull double shifts 6 days a week just to keep their families fed. Compared to that, we have it really easy as far as hours and pay are concerned.
having worked construction (so that my opinion isn't dismissed immediately) and spending a lot of time still on construction sites, i again think what we do is being belittled and oversimplified by meta.
it may not be harder than construction, but it is different and can still be frustrating, mind-bending, and exhausting work.
and, until you get to where i am (15+yrs in) you may be making less than those guys on the site.
...not that i don't ALSO agree that there is some whining that goes on. lb's parallels are appropriate and her conclusion - it's a general condition in our society right now that all us of are constantly working - is right on.
just from a personal side i've noted that the amount of time we spend with our BEST friends - much less our other friends - decreases each year. this means that our integration into a larger community is reduced, forcing us to resolve things between ourselves without access to a larger context (except people at work).
the loss of social capital (see the book 'bowling alone' of a few years ago) is a huge issue to me, putting greater strain on marriages, parenting, social services, etc and making our religious institutions (churches, temples) more one-dimensional - less sanctuaries than ideologues.
we bitch about our jobs because they've become the narrow focus of what should be much more layered/textured lives.
recently read the novel 'then we came to the end', a very funny novel about a group of spoiled characters in the contemporary workplace that, when i finished it, made me very sad. it's an excellent book: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780316016384-0
What is everyone working for? Personally, I don't need fancy clothing, cars, ipods, vacations, etc. and resent that I work in a culture who's mission it is to work work work so they can spend spend spend. I don't need that stuff, why should I be expected to want it, and expected to work my butt off to get it?
I really have to get out of New York and into a different firm.
- Apurimac
It's like this, or worse, everywhere. At least where you are, you don't have the looming terror of a client saying "have you ever designed a Tuscan villa?"
(Actual conversation from earlier in the week. The answer: "No." The next question: "Could you?")
It's like this, or worse, everywhere. At least where you are, you don't have the looming terror of a client saying "have you ever designed a Tuscan villa?"
Are you shitting me farwest? Have you ever done high-end interior residential on the upper-east side? Those people have the worst taste in the world. I've seen McMansions with more tasteful decor than some of these apartments we wind up renovating.
Not to mention the Patrick Bateman caliber asshole we were doing a renovation in Soho for. This guy nicked countless good design ideas my boss had so he could have 48" subzero and and a $17k plasma T.V., custom toto bathtub he could fit 4 people into, a toto toilet that would wipe his ass for him and myriad other bullshit frivolites.
Seriously, the client base up here for high-end interiors live on a completely different plane of existence. Its amazing what really large amounts of money and power does to people.
So about being so belligerent, but I don't like this city and I have very good reason to.
I had a client in the City who used her bathroom as her Studio Space for painting. She is one of those Rich People on The East Coast and
painting is a hobby not a vocation.
Sep 14, 08 10:11 am ·
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how wierd architecture profession is...
just came back from an interview at a small office and shockingly found out that it is required in the office to work 50 hrs per week, and the pay is low.
I'm just wonder is there any other profession as weird and depressing as architecture profession for young grads?not mentioning unpaid overtime, no one listening to you, etc...
sorry I'm so negative...
no. There is no profession as weird and depressing. Except maybe working at a hog farm.
I would go so far as to say 60-70% of all architects are mildly retarded and have no taste. They do however have deep rooted self image issues which they try to fix by identifying themselves with a style or brand of architecture. Your only hope is to become a principle and toy with their pathetic lives.
However, I worked in the film industry before architecture, and routinely put in 60-70 hours a week. The pay at the time was low, but the POTENTIAL pay seemed much better.
Lawyer friends of mine put in absurd hours(with good pay) Resident doctors put in absurd hours, capped federally at 80 hours a week (with bad pay, typically in the $40's) Other professions expect weird hours too, and not always for good pay. It's not only architects.
actually that job at the chicken finger processing plant was rather depressing. but they did pay overtime and you got to take home as many chicken livers as you wanted.
that gig at the plastic injecting molding factory was not very intellectually challenging when you are sitting at the plastic cap making machine, counting out 100 of them at a time and putting them in a plastic bag...but they did pay overtime and you got an extra .15 an hour on the graveyard shift.
positive platypus and puppet master!
come on. do you need to study 5 yrs plus 2yrs with endless sleepless night before deadline in school to deal with plastic injecting?
seriously, if I'll be paid 40000 to work 50+ per week, that'll be $16/hr. nurse's aid are paid 15/hr (no skills/experience required)
well if you want to clean up other people's shit, than by all means be an archi... er i mean nurses' aide...
actually you do need skills and experience to be an architect er i mean nurse.
on a positive note...i totally enjoy my job, never get bored and are rewarded both financially and with job satisfaction. it is possible! BUT you may well have to do some long hours and low pay at the beginning - but that isn't architecture where that is the case.
useasbacku
Truth of the matter is coming out of school what the heck do you know about putting a project together. If I could dock
your pay for everytime you made a mistake I might be able to offer you alot more money. So I was really paying you for the time it takes to get a task accomplished. We have all been there and realize were kinda in the re-educating business when it comes to greenhorns coming out of school. There are a fricking lot of things one needs to know about this profession one among them is the economics of business. You might be one of the lucky ones and get to go for a tailcoat ride in a large successful firm, but reality is you have to show your worth. Pretty Drawings just isn't enough.
Just to kick you when you're down a little more.....I have a brother who works for a bus factory, I think he started at $18 or $20/hr and I'm sure he gets 1.5xhrs for overtime, weekends, etc.
Now back to reality, half of the people on this forum appear to get paid to sit at air conditioned desks, posting on this forum all day long, how much do you actually expect to be paid for that? That isn't ment to be a jab at the general readership/users of this forum, just people complaining about low wages and long hours who seem devoid of the ability to make honest assessments of themselves.
comparisons here between entry level architectural compensation and blue collar wages almost always forget the essential difference: blue collar wages rarely, if ever, increase faster than the cost-of-living index. blue collar workers pretty much do the same job their whole career for the same inflation adjusted wage.
if this is what happens to you as an architct, you're either not any good or you're not trying.
you gotta take the long view on these things.
I think archinect should make new T-shirts that say:
Architecture: weird and depressing.
anyway, 50+ hours a week goes by quickly if you are working with good people who are willing to teach you. I'd personally work long hours for lower pay if the firm had excellent professional development, mentoring, and design opportunities.
toasteroven
I am sure the kids silkscreening those new Archinect Ts are making more $$$ than us architects
vado
i am listening to some GBV in your honor...you, my friend, are my Bob Pollard
and just think, the more hours you're putting in, the sooner you'll finish your IDP and the sooner you can sit for your exams, get licensed and then make more money!!i agree with toasteroven, good mentoring and other opportunities is worth so much more to a beginning architect than just big pay.... thought ideally there'd be someplace where you could have both
Comes with game - thats the way it is. "you hear me marine?"
yea, but are you still interested in it?
i am not sure why this is a problem for architects
it shouldnt have been a surprise going in and if it was, shame on you for wasting all that time in school
to be honest, i would rather check door schedules and hardware for 50 hours a week for a couple years before working my way up than something mindless for 40 hours a week
i constantly hear people talk of their job like its just a hassle and something to get through, and i would think that architects have a little bit more job satisfaction than that
i think a lot of architects would bitch even more (if that is possible) if they had to work at different jobs, even for only 40 hours a week
marmkid - Nothing is more disheartening than hearing people complain about the mundane work when you yourself are looking for work and actually really enjoy doing drawing coordination.
yeah i agree completely toasteroven
its like the guy in my office who is basically a head designer, doing mainly conceptual stuff and sketching all day long, yet he complains and bitches to no end
i feel most people who become architects arent doing this job because they are stuck doing it or they had no other choice or anything. its because we spent the time to go through all the schooling and chose to do this work. you should actually enjoy it, otherwise why become an architect?
is it seriously because we were so delusional in school that we expected to be designing awesome projects with no budget forever and never have to deal with anything else?
i really dont understand the bitching
become an accountant and run numbers 40 hours a week and make more money than architects. see if you like that more, i would be shocked if anyone did
i think i have it pretty good overall with my career choice
maybe toasteroven is right, but I'm hesitating a lot to make a commitment like that.
first of all, I don't know how productive i can be staying in the office 11hrs a day.
second of all, should architects have a life except working like a robot? to be a good designer, you need to read, observe, going to lectures, museums, talking to your peers...
third of all, money is not everything, but for the sake of all the yrs of education, I think I deserve a relatively good salary whichever my career stage is. I don't want to compare to computer science major who double my salary--only relatively good salary. and I think I can find places where I learn fast also treated well in terms of compensation.
it's personal choice. but I think those employers who do good design should not make such a inhumane profit on their employees, to be honest, I do look down upon those people.
if you work 11 hours a day consistently, and you are not paid well enough to your liking, you need to go somewhere else
i have never been in a situation where i was forced to work overtime with no pay, and to be honest, will never be, because that is not what i want to do. there is no reason you need to work more than 40-45 hours a week if you dont want to, and still be productive.
people "stuck" in the office like that are doing so on their own accord.
dont accept a job if the salary isnt acceptable to you, within reason of the actual market
you can have a life, just have one
you dont need to be stuck working extra hours unless you want to
usuback, good point about the 11 hours a day thing.
whenever i complain about architecture being too many hours, people tell me that if you really like architecture and love what you do then you shouldn't have a problem with working 11 hours a day...
to which i reply, there is nothing in this entire world that is interesting enough to keep me excited and motivated for more than 9 hours a day. even sex with the most beautiful person on the planet would get tedious after 9 hours. i need variation. i'm not an architecture machine, no matter how much i love doing it while i'm doing it.
useasbacku-
later on in your career, when you get a chance to do billing, you'll realize how little profit (if any) the vast majority of firms make. Interns tend to take more time on things and make more mistakes, so you have to factor this into their salary (additionally, the hours that management needs to devote to your training instead of billable work). the issue you bring up is the need to have interns work crazy hours for little pay - something tells me that they probably don't manage their projects very well if the expectation is to work more than 40-45 hours a week on a regular basis.
also, keep in mind that salary and hours are negotiable.
anyone who says that you should have no problem working 11 hours a day is trying to scam you
you should never consistently work that many hours unless you are being well compensated for it
if you arent, you are a chump and being taken advantage of, and if it lasts for a long time, its your own fault
i can see the argument while you are in school, that since it is something you love, you should be able to put in long hours like that. but you are also paying for to be able to do that, for your education and personal fulfillment.
in the working world, if you do that and dont get paid for it, you are being used.
mdler you must be a ScIeNtIsT!
thank you
complete bs. you never stop learning how to be a better designer. school introduces you only to some basic lessons in how to value design and be disciplined about design. when you're released into the world so many forces pull you so many different ways, that primer is necessary as an anchor.
if design were easy, we'd have very little to talk about and we'd all perfect every project. instead we can talk about infinite shades of gray in the absence of any black and white, and we make mistakes from which we learn in every project.
gray...i learned about that in school...
useasbacku and others, if you knew the pay and hours sucked from waaaay back when you were in school why did you continue with it? Honestly looking back at times in my professional life, I almost feel like I should of written a check for former employers and guides on this architectural journey.
So for the record, working 40-50 hours isn't that bad for a professional. Also the pay is pretty palatable, and is pretty standard for grads that enter the work place. I have a great friend that just left med school and covers what you consider signficant before Tuesday and is paid less that what you think is appropriate.
my $0.02
meta: good design is like a relationship - hard, messy, complicated, fraught with compromise, and gets better with experience - if it were easy, everyone would be a great designer (or lover).
and - a rule of thumb, if you cannot explain something to your grandma in a way that she understands, then you really do not know the subject matter well enough.
I'm actually agreeing with meta on design being the easy part When I'm in school I love doing architecture, but now that I'm in the real world I'm hating most every minute of it. Having to design other people's (read: BAD CLIENTS) fucking awful design ideas is really soul sucking and disheartening, and watching my boss drive himself mad trying to please them everyday is not convincing me to stay in this field. I really have to get out of New York and into a different firm.
yeah its not so much getting out of the field, just find a different place to work Apurimac
though i dont know where you can go where you dont need to please clients
that kind of goes with the job
but you should be able to find a place with clients who give the architect a little more room to actually design
Please look away
We're not here 'cause we want to entertain
Please go away (don't go away)
Reality is the new fiction, they say
Truth is truer in these days, truth is man-made
If you're here cause you want to be entertained
Please go away
If you're heart is done, Johnny get your gun
Join the rank and file, on your TV dial
You come around looking 1984
You're such a bore, 1984
Nostalgia, you're using it like a whore
It's better than before
You come around sounding 1972
You did nothing new with 1972
Where is the fuck you?
Where's the black and blue
Hey! Look around they are lying to you
Can't you see it is just a silly ruse?
They are lying, and I am lying too.
All you want is entertainment,
Rip me open it's free
I have a friend in the vacation timeshare business (managing them, not designing them); she regularly takes conference calls in the wee hours after working an 8 hour day.
My sister the doctor does her office billing work on the weekends or at night after her kids go to bed, and is on call regularly.
My son's kindergarten teacher puts together lessons in the evenings after school, and regularly attends PTA school board etc. meetings in the evenings.
My dad often goes to the foundry at 4 in the morning to make sure the night shift isn't having technical problems, then stays on until 5 when the day shift ends.
My clients in real estate development are often wining and dining potential clients late into the night.
My point is: we architects complain a lot, but we are not the only people working more than a "standard" 40 hour week. I think it's the American condition right now to constantly be working. I don't really think this is a good thing.
those are great examples LB
my father was a financial advisor and continuously worked 50-60 hour weeks which usually included half a day on saturday
growing up, i knew i wouldnt see him on tuesday nights until 9pm, that was just his late night to work
architects a lot of time have a hero complex with how much they work, and its really untrue
and i hope we can stop with the not being paid well stuff, since that really isnt the case anymore
if you arent getting paid what you think you deserve, you either chose the wrong firm to work with or you have unrealistic expectations
It wasn't that rare before unions became so powerful (and probably still isn't) for factory workers to pull double shifts 6 days a week just to keep their families fed. Compared to that, we have it really easy as far as hours and pay are concerned.
having worked construction (so that my opinion isn't dismissed immediately) and spending a lot of time still on construction sites, i again think what we do is being belittled and oversimplified by meta.
it may not be harder than construction, but it is different and can still be frustrating, mind-bending, and exhausting work.
and, until you get to where i am (15+yrs in) you may be making less than those guys on the site.
...not that i don't ALSO agree that there is some whining that goes on. lb's parallels are appropriate and her conclusion - it's a general condition in our society right now that all us of are constantly working - is right on.
just from a personal side i've noted that the amount of time we spend with our BEST friends - much less our other friends - decreases each year. this means that our integration into a larger community is reduced, forcing us to resolve things between ourselves without access to a larger context (except people at work).
the loss of social capital (see the book 'bowling alone' of a few years ago) is a huge issue to me, putting greater strain on marriages, parenting, social services, etc and making our religious institutions (churches, temples) more one-dimensional - less sanctuaries than ideologues.
we bitch about our jobs because they've become the narrow focus of what should be much more layered/textured lives.
recently read the novel 'then we came to the end', a very funny novel about a group of spoiled characters in the contemporary workplace that, when i finished it, made me very sad. it's an excellent book: http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780316016384-0
What is everyone working for? Personally, I don't need fancy clothing, cars, ipods, vacations, etc. and resent that I work in a culture who's mission it is to work work work so they can spend spend spend. I don't need that stuff, why should I be expected to want it, and expected to work my butt off to get it?
i'm not sure if you should resent it so much as you should be happy that you arent trapped by that like a lot of people in our society are
who expects you to want it?
you then shouldnt feel the pressure to work work work just to get those things
thats a great position to be in
- Apurimac
It's like this, or worse, everywhere. At least where you are, you don't have the looming terror of a client saying "have you ever designed a Tuscan villa?"
(Actual conversation from earlier in the week. The answer: "No." The next question: "Could you?")
was your next answer: yes
SW - that book sounds like my last job... Now I'm going to have to read it.
Are you shitting me farwest? Have you ever done high-end interior residential on the upper-east side? Those people have the worst taste in the world. I've seen McMansions with more tasteful decor than some of these apartments we wind up renovating.
Not to mention the Patrick Bateman caliber asshole we were doing a renovation in Soho for. This guy nicked countless good design ideas my boss had so he could have 48" subzero and and a $17k plasma T.V., custom toto bathtub he could fit 4 people into, a toto toilet that would wipe his ass for him and myriad other bullshit frivolites.
Seriously, the client base up here for high-end interiors live on a completely different plane of existence. Its amazing what really large amounts of money and power does to people.
So about being so belligerent, but I don't like this city and I have very good reason to.
I had a client in the City who used her bathroom as her Studio Space for painting. She is one of those Rich People on The East Coast and
painting is a hobby not a vocation.
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