While the employment market is very ripe for job-seeking architects at the moment, there’s no guarantee that some of those opportunities won’t turn out rotten. The architecture profession is infamous for its highly skewed work-life balance, emphasis on the work, and office culture may not offer much relief. Impossibly long hours, low pay grades and demanding principals are almost seen as badges of honor. There are of course the golden eggs, the ideal employers who respect their employee’s life outside the office, and produce better work because of it.
But much of the work-life balance conversation in architecture is very cloak and dagger: no one wants to badmouth an employer, or limit their chances of gaining a high-profile position, and sometimes, it can be hard to distinguish ethical treatment from cultural convention. Now that the market has improved, and employees can afford to be a bit pickier, work-life balance will play a pivotal role in the distribution of architectural talent.
Help The Architecture Lobby and Archinect better understand the current state of work/life balance in architecture by answering the following three questions. The survey is entirely anonymous. The results will be posted in the Fall, and will be followed by a discussion on the Archinect Sessions podcast and in Archinect's forum, opening the thread for analysis among members of Archinect, The Architecture Lobby and respondents.
About the Architecture Lobby:
The Architecture Lobby is an organization of architectural workers advocating for the value of architecture in the general public and for architectural work within the discipline.
6 Comments
What are the odds that this survey only attracts those who are disgruntled or were dumb enough to accept low/zero pay jobs?
I like The Architecture Lobby.
Several high-profile architects in the media recently perpetuate an image of architects as ethically insensitive, competitively destructive and socially tone-deaf.
Survey is a little unclear about whether the firm name can/will be used.... Good luck.
The Lobby seems to be founded on its own take on the recurring myths about architecture work: "The myth that architects have it all – professionalism, creative freedom, autonomy, civic power, cultural cache – lasts until your first day of work. It is not that you immediately get the full picture; surely the bad compensation and crummy hours and the lack of power over design decisions are temporary, the dues you pay. But later, when you have your own firm or become a partner and the deferral can’t be deferred any longer, you don’t earn reasonable compensation, you work crummy hours, and you lack power over design decisions. " - from the about page
1. not sure who thought architects have it all. its a job, a career, not a heroic pursuit.
2. when I worked for other people, I didn't have crummy pay or crummy hours (for the most part, and I left the office that did). You can control that by not accepting low pay, and not working overtime unless needed (or leaving offices where it is abused). seriously, there are many offices that do not abuse overtime. sometimes, walking out the door at 6 instead of working till 11 actually gains you respect (as long as you get the work done on time still).
3. you wont get to make design decisions on your first day, well maybe some small ones. and you have to keep grabbing at that niche if you want to make them more and more. people just out of school have a lot of reality to learn before they will be handed design work.. and it really doesn't take that long to work your way into a larger design role. months and even a couple of years are not a long time in the scale of a career. play the long game and direct your path toward where you want to do.
4. now that I have my own office, any crummy compensation is my own fault. I make all the design decisions, and if I don't like it or make it, I can always go back to work for someone else. its a different struggle for sure.
They make it sound like architects/architecture workers have no control at all over where they work or what they do or what they make. Of course you have some control, push that to its limit.
They have some good points mixed in there, but I am always skeptical of an organization that wont put their own names and info on their about page.
Hey Jeremy,
Check out this podcast that explains a bit more about the survey and the lobby:
http://archinect.com/news/article/130415330/hot-work-in-the-summertime-from-helsinki-to-london-to-nyc-archinect-sessions-35
I want to reiterate that we are looking for all kinds of experiences -- positive, neutral and negative. Please share yours as a firm owner.
Ill check it out, thanks - I don't usually find time to listen to podcasts but will try it tonight. Am intrigued by the idea, though not sure if you are lobbying for architects (literally) or more generally advocating for architecture workers, or both? Is it more of a social awareness campaign? I feel architects can use some actual effective lobbying, and architecture workers can use some effective advocating, but not sure they are the same thing or have the same goals. Especially in that I have recently moved from one position to the other. Would love to see the About page fleshed out with some actual info about you all.
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