TOO MANY OVERTIME ?
WORK ON SAT/SUN?
WORK ON HOLIDAYS?
WORK TILL MORNING?
PAY CUT?
CHEAP BONUSES?
BAD CO-WORKERS?
BAD SUPERVISORS?
LEARN NOTHING?
FEEL BEING CHEATED?
Don't be polite and let bro and sis at Archinect to share your pain(s).
seriously, what do you hope to gain by this thread? i've had one or two less than stellar workplaces, but there's no way i'm dishing about them on this kind of forum.
our profession is very, very interconnected. be careful for what may come back around on this.
(and by the way, why didn't you start with an experience of your own?)
Isn't there something to be learned from every office?
Working for an office where the experience might be sub-par at the very least teaches you to have more discretion when you look for the next job. And is any job really perfect? Every job will likely have any number of the above mentioned items that frankly you have to learn how to deal with.
It's like an apartment - the first one you live in will likely suck and have roommates from hell. You move somewhere else with the knowledge that it's important to make sure your landlord is not a coke dealer. For example.
And honestly why should young grads get some yellow brick road to job satisfaction paved for them? They should be capable of doing the research, asking the questions and making the decisions just like anyone else in the workforce.
And as outed says, the profession is very interconnected and word travels fast so it's general best to avoid this type of conversation on an open and public forum.
jojo ... if you want to improve the lot of interns, start a thread that looks for good examples of firms that support the career development of your professionals.
if you want to improve the lot of interns, start a thread that looks for good examples of firms that support the career development of your professionals.
1/2 CD package was scheduled to due in the middle of January. Around three weeks before Christmas, senior partner in charge at SOM Chicago ordered the team NO Christmas vacation except 12/25 and 1/1 required public holidays.
firm has policy to reimburse expenses associated with preparing for and passing the ARE - young intern architect passes ARE - firm throws party to celebrate the accomplishment - young architect submits expense report for his ARE expenses - the day after receiving his reimbursement check, same young architect submits resignation to firm - firm gets screwed
small potatoes, babs ;-) you wanna talk real selfishness go to wall street type companies. i know person who waited for multi-million bonus, the size of which was fought over for some time. then when said person got desired bonus said person quit. was key player. did not help stock of company when said person left.
BUT that was considered appropriate behaviour by all involved. no one thought it was nice, but they all understood.
a few hundreds for ARE? barely a blip, barely a blip. chump-change really.
i have no complaints about interns or mentors, nor offices. if you got complaints take them to the people you are pissed off at and man up.
totally bad karma all round to be talking shit about other people. unless there is criminal things going on, in which case you should be talking to police or lawyer or reporter. or all of the above.
now if you wanna share how to make an office work better by exploring issues without axe to grind, or if you have examples that work real well, then am all for it. otherwise what is the point?
I think businesses are being too "businessy" and fail to face reality when it comes to things like that.
Personal example: The only two "real" interviews I've had in the last year asked me what my future in the position was. The jobs were to assist in master planning development as entry level planners. I honestly replied to them that my interest in the positions was for a few years. I told them that I would make a minimum commitment of 2 years and a maximum commitment of 3-4 years.
When asked why, I responded by saying that developing a master plan would take far less than two years and that it would be unnecessary and unfair to stakeholders for me to be there any longer than what was necessary to create the plan, show the plan and get the plan going. I also hinted that planning takes different experiences and different positions to fully grasp the profession and that holding one job for a long time limits the ability to grow as a planner.
That's when the interviews promptly ended.
I think working in a private firm would be much different since there's different projects in different places. But as a public slash contract employee, that's not the case.
Honesty is suppose to be the best policy. I was honest. Kill me. I wanted my two years to get a better job some place else.
I honestly think that being upfront with "using" an employer could make the relationship easier to manage if they know I'm leaving far down the road. The experience I learn from taking another job elsewhere might mean that I could be more valuable to the organization if I come back or if there is a place for me to come back to.
there was this guy in my previous office who had spent 20 or so years working for the same owner. anyway, he had a heartattack in the office, was hospitalized and then passed away.
concur with jump. considering the ancient organizational structure and business models so many architect's offices are stuck with, the really interesting discussion imo is how an office structure can be better suited to the complexity of managing the architectural project and deal with the world of today. also, how can middle- and upper management open up to newer (more "google-like" if you will) ideas of time resourcing, personal development and so on rather than staying fixed on the idea that you need to be at your desk from 9 am to 6 pm, an hour spent training is an hour lost drafting etc? now that i think is more worth talking about.
Looking at organizational structure I know one of the reasons we founded DSC was to build a better mouse trap. We have flexible hours, encourage personal and professional development, until you are licensed you get time and 1/2 ot.
That said, for our work the times I need people in the office depend on their projects. We tend to get calls from the contractors at 7:0AM. am on a regular basis. and for others calls at 5:15 PM.
I am not a big fan of telecommuting b/c our projects tend to be small and during the day it is possible to be involve in two project meetings of separate projects. For the most part it is just not practical.
I am getting a bit pissed at excessive time spent on personal e mail during the business day. If you are there 8 hours and spend an hour on personal e mail / projects, you should only log 7 on a time sheet.
babs - google famously requires employees to spend something like 20% of their time pursuing personal research interests, many of which feed back into the company and become some of their best ideas. now i have no idea what it is precisely that you mean by "businessey" but to me this seems to make perfect sense both from a personal development point as well as a financial one.
dsc_arch - if someone in an office works faster than someone else doing the same thing, should they get paid for less hours?
and that's not to say btw that i think spending company time on personal things without prior agreement should be universally accepted, however i do think it should mater whether you get done what you're suposed to anyway or not. if you spend time writing personal emails on office time and end up delaying a submission because of it, then yes that's an issue. if you're simply quicker than the next person and spend the remaining time doing whatever thrills you, i don't see why that should be a big deal..?
I am not doing my job if i have scheduled them to work eight hours and they are getting their daily work done in 7.
The person who is consistently more efficient / effective will gain more opportunity for advancement as well as be given higher pay than those who don't .
Ergo there is no one doing the same job at the same pay.
lol. i personally believe if you are faster than your mates it doesn't mean more play time. if you work for money in an office you are there for the company not (only) for yourself. when you finish early the correct thing to do is get going on the next bit of work, not spend an hour burning the clock.
from what i have read the google idea is to spend time thinking up new stuff for the company, not to spend time texting friends. it is about freedom to direct your career not to get paid for pissing around.
not that work shouldn't be fun, but i can't understand an an attitude which turns an above average achiever into a liability for the office. why would anyone want to do that?
ok ok i might have been taken a bit literally here (and i admit this is probably my own fault):
i have worked in more than one place where efficiency and/or achievement are measured by the number of mouse clicks that can be heard from your desk and by the number of hours you spend in the office. within the mutual trust and respect and all that which should be at the base of a sound work relationship, i just don't think these necessarily are the best ways of gauging a person's overall work performance. it has nothing to do with advocating play time, pissing around or texting your mates and certainly not with aiming to become a liability, sorry if it came across that way.
as for the google saga, i am by no means an expert but i believe the setup is that you spend that time pursuing personal research interests, probably with some sort of clause linking it back to google on a propriatary and financial level, but without any outspoken scope of thinking up new stuff for the company. rather the idea is that this activity even when it doesn't become a new google project, stimulates the employee in a way that's useful also for the 80% of the time spent on "regular" projects. again, obviously mutual respect and trust is key.
Where I used to work....It was like a two-year nightmare. I feel like I need a cup of hot black coffee to be talking about this...
This was a reasonably large national firm with offices in multiple cities. My office was not the mothership firm but the second or third largest office. We had a staff of about 100 people right before I left. When I was hired, I was one of 11 people to join. The 10 others were ALL from the same school. I was instaly excluded from their clique and then from everything there. I did everything there by myself (dont get me wrong, I developed some very good friendships with some people down the road). I realized only after 3 months working there that I made a huge mistake joining that firm. But I needed to tought it out just for another year at least.
I was on about three different projects my entire time there, and even within those teams I was excluded from everything -- happy hours, lunch, EVERYTHING.
After about a year things seemed like they were a little better until one morning, I went to my workstation to see that my screen saver was changed -- it used to be the 3d marque thing that said the name of my favorite football team, and then instead to my absolute shock and horror it said, "GO HOME OSAMA."
It instantly became clear to me that all of the hostility was because of my race -- I'm actually an indian-american. There was already very little diversity in this office and I quickly noticed that the few people there who were of other backgrounds were constantly neglected and treated like shit. When I arrived that morning, all the other people were there and I saw about 7 or 8 people giggling as I approached my desk. I tried my best to pretend that I didn't see it. I could have made a huge fuss about it but instead I reshifted my efforts into finding employment elsewhere. I figured no one needs to put up with that kind of horseshit EVER.
Times were good (not great) but I was able to land three offers. I chose an international firm in my same city with a large and diverse culture and project type. The money was WAY better, the culture was WAY better, and the work was WAAAAAY better. I put in my resignation letter exactly the same day I got my offer from this firm. It came as a shock to everyone mainly the upper management who really wanted me to stay. I told my main supervisor about the incident and he was absolutely horrified and disgusted and eventually told the upper management.
To put into perspective, those two years at that firm were two of the worse years I've ever had in my entire life. It felt like 10 years. I've ben with my current firm for over a year and it feels like I just joined yesterday. I would say it is the BEST life-changing decision I've ever made in my entire life.
About a year later most of the people in that previous office were either laid off or straight up canned. The one guy who everyone believes was the culrit of the Osama thing, was fired for making a racialy charged barb at the secretary. This firm is only down to 20 people now.
Next time if this type of BS comes up again, first take photos as evidences, second talk to your supervisor. If nothing happens, call NAACP local office and explain the whole situation, they will offer you some very good free legal advices.
that is bullshit med. i think i woulda screamed bloody murder. you showed impressive restraint, and am glad you finally brought it to attention of office. would have been absolute pitta if you had let it go entirely.
empea, fair enough. i thought you were just asking for something for nothing.
not sure how google works either. i guess they can afford to pay people to not work if they want to (somehow don't think that is what they actually do). i certainly cant. for me a perk is not time to be lazy, it is offers of responsibility and being treated as equal (as much as possible). i like the idea that people get room to be wildly creative at google and would like to do same in own office. not sure how that would work exactly...anyone here do/done that?
Excessive overtime and under-appreciation caused me to leave my last job.
I woke up one morning and realized that I hadn't spoken with friends and family for over two years and spent scarce time doing anything other than work. I did the math to find out I was making about $8/hour, with no raise or bonus for two years and was managing a major major project alone and very successfully in addition to having worked on 4 other projects in that time.
I made an appointment to speak with the bosses at which time they told me I didn't work enough for a bonus and was worth a raise as a human but not as an architect. i was asking for about $8,000 more a year in compensation since I was now registered, managing, with a grad degree and about 14 years experience. I was being paid what someone with a bachelors and about 3 years and no management experience. During my last week, one boss (woman) told me they were hiring a male to fill my position and that she thought my project would go better with a man running it.
Come to find out, the GUY they hired to replace me receives $30,000 more a year (in a recession!), has less experience and now they are rehiring for my position because he can't handle the project.
Needless to say, what I learned about valuing myself and leaving a less-than-stellar situation no matter the economic climate has been worth WAY more than $30,000.
Excessive overtime and under-appreciation caused me to leave my last job.
Been there before. I also had to leave a job because I couldn't shake the stigma of being the "intern."
google famously requires employees to spend something like 20% of their time pursuing personal research interests
I recently went on a tour of the New Belgium Brewing Company. They do something similar where each employee is encouraged to come up with new brews. Not sure how you'd emulate this in an architecture firm but I do agree that most firms have far too much of a militiristic structure where position titles, rank, specilization and project teams are defended all too much. If the admin has a better design idea go with it.
New Belgium is also an employee owned company. Each person has a clear stake in the success of the overall company. I think that makes perfect sense for architectural firms. It's way too easy for a wet behind the ears intern to bitch about his salary and complain that the principals/partners are taking all the profits and credit. Give him a stake and he might see things differently.
Honestly, med, your restraint is impressive. That's such bullshit, it hurts my head and heart to know that some dumbshit close-minded jerk would do something so blatantly offensive. I'm really sorry you had to deal with that and glad you were able to move on.
My worst firm experience was a secretary, who happened to also be the founder's wife, timing our lunch breaks and calling us out for time spent anywhere but hunched over our drafting boards. Shortly after she joined the firm a bunch of us left. it was sad because we had been a very happy and thus quite productive group, and she basically made everyone hate coming to work every day.
On the opposite end, as a young intern it really meant a LOT to me to have the firm principles make a point of coming to my desk after a big meeting/deadline to say "Thank you, we really appreciate how much effort you put in." And that doesn't cost a firm anything!
definitely med - what goes around comes around, too bad you had to sit through all that huge pile of b-s first, glad to hear you're so much better off now.
I appreciate it guys. Not really looking to gain sympathy at all, I just wanted to share with you guys the terrible experience I had at my last firm. The scariest part of this is that these people all were highly educated in architecture and thought like this. And the worst part about it is that even though there was one culprit who actually did this, there were others like about 7 or 8 people laughing with him. I had allies there -- particularly in upper management but I really didn't want to bring it up. I just wanted to leave. I didn't belong there.
I documented my saga over a year ago in a thread I created.
This was slightly before the actual incident happened. At that time I still didn't quite understand where the animosity was coming from. I was just a normal dude who liked normal things. Besides for the color of my skin, I was 100% American, talked "American," and liked American things. I never discussed religion, politics, or any of that other stuff I don't care about so it led me to post about it. So after the screensaver incident it became abundantly clear what was going on.
Things are a thousand times better now. My coworkers and I work very well together and the culture here is phenomenal. When pretty much every one at that firm was laid off or fired down the road many of them came to my firm to seek employment. I definitely had to interject in a few of those cases. It just shows you how small this profession is and that kind of unacceptable attitude and bigotry will end your architectural careed quickly!
After having worked months and months of at least 10 hours a week of unpaid overtime, I left the office in the middle of the day on a Thursday because I was having a miscarriage (4 months into my pregnancy, too....) . My boss called me at the hospital on Friday not to say he was sorry for my loss, but to say that if I was not at my desk on Monday, he was going to dock my pay.
......because I was having a miscarriage (4 months into my pregnancy, too....) . My boss called me at the hospital on Friday not to say he was sorry for my loss, but to say that if I was not at my desk on Monday, he was going to dock my pay.
How would he feel if someone did this to his wife.....
He has one. He divorced his first wife and married an income stream: She is a killer attorney with no soul. His kids are all grown and won't talk to him.
This is the same place where we once came to work and the front door had been padlocked by the IRS. Apparently he had been withholding our taxes from our paychecks but not sending them to the IRS. He spent the money on nice suits at Barneys.
Honestly, I could go on and on about this guy. I quit a month or so after the dinging me in the hospital thing.
You know what, life's tough and bad things happen to nice people. I think archie's story is one of the most objectionable ones I've ever heard and some of the others make me uncomfortable too.
But, what's the point of rehashing all of this here ... where's the lesson in all of this venom? It just feels like another "piling on" exercise.
I agree with Steven Ward above ... for every instance of "firm abuses employee" it's easy enough to relate two "employee abuses firm" retort. What's the value in doing this?
We are experiencing the most difficult economic circumstances I've witnessed during my long career in this wondeful profession. Many talented, hardworking people are unemployed, or significantly underemployed. Instead of wasting energy on threads that do little beyond demoralizing those who come here, why don't we spend some time helping each other and trying to raise each others' spirits.
Negative threads like this one, and the venom they generate, make me less and less inclined to continue visiting Archinect ... I've got more productive ways to use my time.
i completely agree bluegoose. unless the complaints are intended to be used positively i see no reason other than bilious wallowing to posting this sort of thing here.
, I see it as sharing war stories, aka bonding over similar circumstances. No, I never had a boss tell me to leave the hospital to get back to work (jeez, archie, that's horrid), but we've known jerks and it helps everyone fight the jerkiness in themselves to share dislike of it in others.
Let's hear your very bad experience at firms.
TOO MANY OVERTIME ?
WORK ON SAT/SUN?
WORK ON HOLIDAYS?
WORK TILL MORNING?
PAY CUT?
CHEAP BONUSES?
BAD CO-WORKERS?
BAD SUPERVISORS?
LEARN NOTHING?
FEEL BEING CHEATED?
Don't be polite and let bro and sis at Archinect to share your pain(s).
um... no.
seriously, what do you hope to gain by this thread? i've had one or two less than stellar workplaces, but there's no way i'm dishing about them on this kind of forum.
our profession is very, very interconnected. be careful for what may come back around on this.
(and by the way, why didn't you start with an experience of your own?)
Is to let the young grads know which is and isn't....
Firms that would simply waste your time to stay because you learn nothing from them.
Interns did not get paid at P Eisenman office. Rather, he would offer his interns "free" lectures every week to substitute their salaries.
Isn't there something to be learned from every office?
Working for an office where the experience might be sub-par at the very least teaches you to have more discretion when you look for the next job. And is any job really perfect? Every job will likely have any number of the above mentioned items that frankly you have to learn how to deal with.
It's like an apartment - the first one you live in will likely suck and have roommates from hell. You move somewhere else with the knowledge that it's important to make sure your landlord is not a coke dealer. For example.
And honestly why should young grads get some yellow brick road to job satisfaction paved for them? They should be capable of doing the research, asking the questions and making the decisions just like anyone else in the workforce.
And as outed says, the profession is very interconnected and word travels fast so it's general best to avoid this type of conversation on an open and public forum.
rateyourarchitecturalfirm.com
and rateyourarchitect.com are available!
if you're an old architect, can you complain about young deadbeats here?
no office sex :(
I'm with Steven on this one ....
jojo ... if you want to improve the lot of interns, start a thread that looks for good examples of firms that support the career development of your professionals.
if you want to improve the lot of interns, start a thread that looks for good examples of firms that support the career development of your professionals.
good idea but will be on another thread :)
1/2 CD package was scheduled to due in the middle of January. Around three weeks before Christmas, senior partner in charge at SOM Chicago ordered the team NO Christmas vacation except 12/25 and 1/1 required public holidays.
small potatoes, babs ;-) you wanna talk real selfishness go to wall street type companies. i know person who waited for multi-million bonus, the size of which was fought over for some time. then when said person got desired bonus said person quit. was key player. did not help stock of company when said person left.
BUT that was considered appropriate behaviour by all involved. no one thought it was nice, but they all understood.
a few hundreds for ARE? barely a blip, barely a blip. chump-change really.
i have no complaints about interns or mentors, nor offices. if you got complaints take them to the people you are pissed off at and man up.
totally bad karma all round to be talking shit about other people. unless there is criminal things going on, in which case you should be talking to police or lawyer or reporter. or all of the above.
now if you wanna share how to make an office work better by exploring issues without axe to grind, or if you have examples that work real well, then am all for it. otherwise what is the point?
I agree with Jump.
I think businesses are being too "businessy" and fail to face reality when it comes to things like that.
Personal example: The only two "real" interviews I've had in the last year asked me what my future in the position was. The jobs were to assist in master planning development as entry level planners. I honestly replied to them that my interest in the positions was for a few years. I told them that I would make a minimum commitment of 2 years and a maximum commitment of 3-4 years.
When asked why, I responded by saying that developing a master plan would take far less than two years and that it would be unnecessary and unfair to stakeholders for me to be there any longer than what was necessary to create the plan, show the plan and get the plan going. I also hinted that planning takes different experiences and different positions to fully grasp the profession and that holding one job for a long time limits the ability to grow as a planner.
That's when the interviews promptly ended.
I think working in a private firm would be much different since there's different projects in different places. But as a public slash contract employee, that's not the case.
Honesty is suppose to be the best policy. I was honest. Kill me. I wanted my two years to get a better job some place else.
I honestly think that being upfront with "using" an employer could make the relationship easier to manage if they know I'm leaving far down the road. The experience I learn from taking another job elsewhere might mean that I could be more valuable to the organization if I come back or if there is a place for me to come back to.
there was this guy in my previous office who had spent 20 or so years working for the same owner. anyway, he had a heartattack in the office, was hospitalized and then passed away.
working the man or working for the man?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGXtX_V_DVs
concur with jump. considering the ancient organizational structure and business models so many architect's offices are stuck with, the really interesting discussion imo is how an office structure can be better suited to the complexity of managing the architectural project and deal with the world of today. also, how can middle- and upper management open up to newer (more "google-like" if you will) ideas of time resourcing, personal development and so on rather than staying fixed on the idea that you need to be at your desk from 9 am to 6 pm, an hour spent training is an hour lost drafting etc? now that i think is more worth talking about.
i started my own firm and work with only people i like to have a beer with.
Businesses that aren't "businessey" don't stay in business - especially in an economic climate like this.
Looking at organizational structure I know one of the reasons we founded DSC was to build a better mouse trap. We have flexible hours, encourage personal and professional development, until you are licensed you get time and 1/2 ot.
That said, for our work the times I need people in the office depend on their projects. We tend to get calls from the contractors at 7:0AM. am on a regular basis. and for others calls at 5:15 PM.
I am not a big fan of telecommuting b/c our projects tend to be small and during the day it is possible to be involve in two project meetings of separate projects. For the most part it is just not practical.
I am getting a bit pissed at excessive time spent on personal e mail during the business day. If you are there 8 hours and spend an hour on personal e mail / projects, you should only log 7 on a time sheet.
Such a website already exists
Inside ARCH
http://www.insidearch.org/
babs - google famously requires employees to spend something like 20% of their time pursuing personal research interests, many of which feed back into the company and become some of their best ideas. now i have no idea what it is precisely that you mean by "businessey" but to me this seems to make perfect sense both from a personal development point as well as a financial one.
dsc_arch - if someone in an office works faster than someone else doing the same thing, should they get paid for less hours?
and that's not to say btw that i think spending company time on personal things without prior agreement should be universally accepted, however i do think it should mater whether you get done what you're suposed to anyway or not. if you spend time writing personal emails on office time and end up delaying a submission because of it, then yes that's an issue. if you're simply quicker than the next person and spend the remaining time doing whatever thrills you, i don't see why that should be a big deal..?
I am not doing my job if i have scheduled them to work eight hours and they are getting their daily work done in 7.
The person who is consistently more efficient / effective will gain more opportunity for advancement as well as be given higher pay than those who don't .
Ergo there is no one doing the same job at the same pay.
Also, 15 min a day - ok. an hour per day- no.
lol. i personally believe if you are faster than your mates it doesn't mean more play time. if you work for money in an office you are there for the company not (only) for yourself. when you finish early the correct thing to do is get going on the next bit of work, not spend an hour burning the clock.
from what i have read the google idea is to spend time thinking up new stuff for the company, not to spend time texting friends. it is about freedom to direct your career not to get paid for pissing around.
not that work shouldn't be fun, but i can't understand an an attitude which turns an above average achiever into a liability for the office. why would anyone want to do that?
ok ok i might have been taken a bit literally here (and i admit this is probably my own fault):
i have worked in more than one place where efficiency and/or achievement are measured by the number of mouse clicks that can be heard from your desk and by the number of hours you spend in the office. within the mutual trust and respect and all that which should be at the base of a sound work relationship, i just don't think these necessarily are the best ways of gauging a person's overall work performance. it has nothing to do with advocating play time, pissing around or texting your mates and certainly not with aiming to become a liability, sorry if it came across that way.
as for the google saga, i am by no means an expert but i believe the setup is that you spend that time pursuing personal research interests, probably with some sort of clause linking it back to google on a propriatary and financial level, but without any outspoken scope of thinking up new stuff for the company. rather the idea is that this activity even when it doesn't become a new google project, stimulates the employee in a way that's useful also for the 80% of the time spent on "regular" projects. again, obviously mutual respect and trust is key.
Where I used to work....It was like a two-year nightmare. I feel like I need a cup of hot black coffee to be talking about this...
This was a reasonably large national firm with offices in multiple cities. My office was not the mothership firm but the second or third largest office. We had a staff of about 100 people right before I left. When I was hired, I was one of 11 people to join. The 10 others were ALL from the same school. I was instaly excluded from their clique and then from everything there. I did everything there by myself (dont get me wrong, I developed some very good friendships with some people down the road). I realized only after 3 months working there that I made a huge mistake joining that firm. But I needed to tought it out just for another year at least.
I was on about three different projects my entire time there, and even within those teams I was excluded from everything -- happy hours, lunch, EVERYTHING.
After about a year things seemed like they were a little better until one morning, I went to my workstation to see that my screen saver was changed -- it used to be the 3d marque thing that said the name of my favorite football team, and then instead to my absolute shock and horror it said, "GO HOME OSAMA."
It instantly became clear to me that all of the hostility was because of my race -- I'm actually an indian-american. There was already very little diversity in this office and I quickly noticed that the few people there who were of other backgrounds were constantly neglected and treated like shit. When I arrived that morning, all the other people were there and I saw about 7 or 8 people giggling as I approached my desk. I tried my best to pretend that I didn't see it. I could have made a huge fuss about it but instead I reshifted my efforts into finding employment elsewhere. I figured no one needs to put up with that kind of horseshit EVER.
Times were good (not great) but I was able to land three offers. I chose an international firm in my same city with a large and diverse culture and project type. The money was WAY better, the culture was WAY better, and the work was WAAAAAY better. I put in my resignation letter exactly the same day I got my offer from this firm. It came as a shock to everyone mainly the upper management who really wanted me to stay. I told my main supervisor about the incident and he was absolutely horrified and disgusted and eventually told the upper management.
To put into perspective, those two years at that firm were two of the worse years I've ever had in my entire life. It felt like 10 years. I've ben with my current firm for over a year and it feels like I just joined yesterday. I would say it is the BEST life-changing decision I've ever made in my entire life.
About a year later most of the people in that previous office were either laid off or straight up canned. The one guy who everyone believes was the culrit of the Osama thing, was fired for making a racialy charged barb at the secretary. This firm is only down to 20 people now.
Racism is evil.
Next time if this type of BS comes up again, first take photos as evidences, second talk to your supervisor. If nothing happens, call NAACP local office and explain the whole situation, they will offer you some very good free legal advices.
Similar incident to buddy as t MSFT. The culprits we all canned.
I can not stand any sort of bias. Male chauvinism too. We like all comers here.
Hell I even hires someone from OSU!
Despite his shortcomings he became a great employee and a better friend.
that is bullshit med. i think i woulda screamed bloody murder. you showed impressive restraint, and am glad you finally brought it to attention of office. would have been absolute pitta if you had let it go entirely.
empea, fair enough. i thought you were just asking for something for nothing.
not sure how google works either. i guess they can afford to pay people to not work if they want to (somehow don't think that is what they actually do). i certainly cant. for me a perk is not time to be lazy, it is offers of responsibility and being treated as equal (as much as possible). i like the idea that people get room to be wildly creative at google and would like to do same in own office. not sure how that would work exactly...anyone here do/done that?
Excessive overtime and under-appreciation caused me to leave my last job.
I woke up one morning and realized that I hadn't spoken with friends and family for over two years and spent scarce time doing anything other than work. I did the math to find out I was making about $8/hour, with no raise or bonus for two years and was managing a major major project alone and very successfully in addition to having worked on 4 other projects in that time.
I made an appointment to speak with the bosses at which time they told me I didn't work enough for a bonus and was worth a raise as a human but not as an architect. i was asking for about $8,000 more a year in compensation since I was now registered, managing, with a grad degree and about 14 years experience. I was being paid what someone with a bachelors and about 3 years and no management experience. During my last week, one boss (woman) told me they were hiring a male to fill my position and that she thought my project would go better with a man running it.
Come to find out, the GUY they hired to replace me receives $30,000 more a year (in a recession!), has less experience and now they are rehiring for my position because he can't handle the project.
Needless to say, what I learned about valuing myself and leaving a less-than-stellar situation no matter the economic climate has been worth WAY more than $30,000.
Sexism + Racism are still very common in workplace and very sadly, architectural firms are no exception.
Been there before. I also had to leave a job because I couldn't shake the stigma of being the "intern."
google famously requires employees to spend something like 20% of their time pursuing personal research interests
I recently went on a tour of the New Belgium Brewing Company. They do something similar where each employee is encouraged to come up with new brews. Not sure how you'd emulate this in an architecture firm but I do agree that most firms have far too much of a militiristic structure where position titles, rank, specilization and project teams are defended all too much. If the admin has a better design idea go with it.
New Belgium is also an employee owned company. Each person has a clear stake in the success of the overall company. I think that makes perfect sense for architectural firms. It's way too easy for a wet behind the ears intern to bitch about his salary and complain that the principals/partners are taking all the profits and credit. Give him a stake and he might see things differently.
Honestly, med, your restraint is impressive. That's such bullshit, it hurts my head and heart to know that some dumbshit close-minded jerk would do something so blatantly offensive. I'm really sorry you had to deal with that and glad you were able to move on.
My worst firm experience was a secretary, who happened to also be the founder's wife, timing our lunch breaks and calling us out for time spent anywhere but hunched over our drafting boards. Shortly after she joined the firm a bunch of us left. it was sad because we had been a very happy and thus quite productive group, and she basically made everyone hate coming to work every day.
On the opposite end, as a young intern it really meant a LOT to me to have the firm principles make a point of coming to my desk after a big meeting/deadline to say "Thank you, we really appreciate how much effort you put in." And that doesn't cost a firm anything!
That sucks med.
People like that give the rest of us color challenged people a bad reputation.
Glad to hear the guy was fired and hopefully that type of info/background is following him around.
i've never had a bad experience at a firm...maybe it's because i'm so pretty?
, nice one although I prefer pigmentationaly challenged.
med. nice to know that there really is such a thing as karma.
definitely med - what goes around comes around, too bad you had to sit through all that huge pile of b-s first, glad to hear you're so much better off now.
I appreciate it guys. Not really looking to gain sympathy at all, I just wanted to share with you guys the terrible experience I had at my last firm. The scariest part of this is that these people all were highly educated in architecture and thought like this. And the worst part about it is that even though there was one culprit who actually did this, there were others like about 7 or 8 people laughing with him. I had allies there -- particularly in upper management but I really didn't want to bring it up. I just wanted to leave. I didn't belong there.
I documented my saga over a year ago in a thread I created.
link
This was slightly before the actual incident happened. At that time I still didn't quite understand where the animosity was coming from. I was just a normal dude who liked normal things. Besides for the color of my skin, I was 100% American, talked "American," and liked American things. I never discussed religion, politics, or any of that other stuff I don't care about so it led me to post about it. So after the screensaver incident it became abundantly clear what was going on.
Things are a thousand times better now. My coworkers and I work very well together and the culture here is phenomenal. When pretty much every one at that firm was laid off or fired down the road many of them came to my firm to seek employment. I definitely had to interject in a few of those cases. It just shows you how small this profession is and that kind of unacceptable attitude and bigotry will end your architectural careed quickly!
my bad firm experiences all involved some form of nepotism...
my good firm experiences are where people are appreciative of my work...
"nepotism" ...like John Doe and Sons Architects?
How did it play out in the office?
After having worked months and months of at least 10 hours a week of unpaid overtime, I left the office in the middle of the day on a Thursday because I was having a miscarriage (4 months into my pregnancy, too....) . My boss called me at the hospital on Friday not to say he was sorry for my loss, but to say that if I was not at my desk on Monday, he was going to dock my pay.
......because I was having a miscarriage (4 months into my pregnancy, too....) . My boss called me at the hospital on Friday not to say he was sorry for my loss, but to say that if I was not at my desk on Monday, he was going to dock my pay.
How would he feel if someone did this to his wife.....
Probably this a-hole doesn't have one anyway.
He has one. He divorced his first wife and married an income stream: She is a killer attorney with no soul. His kids are all grown and won't talk to him.
This is the same place where we once came to work and the front door had been padlocked by the IRS. Apparently he had been withholding our taxes from our paychecks but not sending them to the IRS. He spent the money on nice suits at Barneys.
Honestly, I could go on and on about this guy. I quit a month or so after the dinging me in the hospital thing.
You know what, life's tough and bad things happen to nice people. I think archie's story is one of the most objectionable ones I've ever heard and some of the others make me uncomfortable too.
But, what's the point of rehashing all of this here ... where's the lesson in all of this venom? It just feels like another "piling on" exercise.
I agree with Steven Ward above ... for every instance of "firm abuses employee" it's easy enough to relate two "employee abuses firm" retort. What's the value in doing this?
We are experiencing the most difficult economic circumstances I've witnessed during my long career in this wondeful profession. Many talented, hardworking people are unemployed, or significantly underemployed. Instead of wasting energy on threads that do little beyond demoralizing those who come here, why don't we spend some time helping each other and trying to raise each others' spirits.
Negative threads like this one, and the venom they generate, make me less and less inclined to continue visiting Archinect ... I've got more productive ways to use my time.
i completely agree bluegoose. unless the complaints are intended to be used positively i see no reason other than bilious wallowing to posting this sort of thing here.
, I see it as sharing war stories, aka bonding over similar circumstances. No, I never had a boss tell me to leave the hospital to get back to work (jeez, archie, that's horrid), but we've known jerks and it helps everyone fight the jerkiness in themselves to share dislike of it in others.
At least, that's my opinion.
i must confess that i was responsible for most of my own bad experiences.
LOL, vado!
WOW, archie....
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