Measuring time to gauge one’s growth and accomplishment is usually a good thing… It sets a check point, at which you can break the passage of time into comprehensible blocks. This allows a snapshot of life, so that you can check in with yourself & loved ones to see just where you’ve been and adjust where things are heading. Birthdays, Holidays & other significant markers that get placed on the calendar for whatever reason that you may have for remembering.
A couple days ago, I had one of those mile markers come to pass.
1 year of being unemployed.
Now the benefit of experience having gone thru all of this once before, and for an extended period of time – I can manage the side-step all the “Why Me?!?!” And largely avoid the dark night of the soul that I’d gone thru during the last time. But the pressure is on.
I remember a George Carlin comedy special that I saw once where he quipped:
“Have you ever started a path? No one seems willing to do this. We don’t mind using existing paths, but we rarely start new ones. Do it today. Start a path. Even if it doesn’t lead anywhere…
Sure, you have to hold the grass down by yourself at first (scurried around the stage, pushing down)…”
Now manufacturing something out of thin air is generally the job description for architects and designers. Explore an idea, produce the set of instructions wrapping spaces with materials to produce a desired result – then help navigate the process of putting it all together. Right? (I understand the detailed nuances that I’m skipping here)
Personally – I’m compelled to figure it out. It’s in me. It’s what I do for fun. Other people have hobbies – I have sketching and playing with ideas & concepts. I don’t think that makes me wholly unique in this career field – but it might.
The world these days is all about digital content. Content Creation.
The marketing models where clicks and web traffic flow represents eyeballs, connected to purchasing power – so the follower count equates to potential ad and sales revenue that allow the content creator some degree of financial freedom. to continue to pursue their passions & explore ideas to pass along whatever information it is that gathers new followers and grows the brand.
In this environment, my particular challenge is that I ghosted on social media years ago. When the guitar shop lost its steam, and other life events unfolded – I unplugged. I nuked Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and any social media presence that I had.
It might’ve been a good move for mental health and reducing the signal-to-noise ratio, but in the present time it’s proven to be detrimental to social interaction during a pandemic. I was REALLY good at being a ghost.
Now, with the passage of time marked at 1 year – the unemployment benefits are exhausted. Whatever the next round is partially determines my fate.
In the last year, I’ve had exactly 1 project. A two-week existing conditions dash for a hotel remodel in North Carolina.
I’ve had a two week position as a handy-man and landscaper, bid out a roof tear-off and replacement, 1-month position as a care giver, and in between – a mad scramble to get something going, but having to hold the grass down myself.
As an unemployed professional, seeking employment in a down market with rising construction costs, it drives everything downward.
It helps to have an understanding of just what might be going on behind the scenes.
For firms, fees are compressed because instead of a field of 3-4 firms competing for a small project – you’ve got 10-15 answering an RFP. In order to be competitive in a stressed marketplace – they’ve got to cut their profit margins even thinner than they generally operate under. Historically, architects tend to walk by the business school to get to studio in college. I know I did.
Any architecture firm that I’ve ever worked for, tends to cut overhead by running lean. Fewer people on staff to limit overhead. If its a solid company that has spent money on R&D and using technology to benefit production, they may fare a little better by running lean.
(I’ve done 180+ key hotels by myself, and have all the institutional knowledge and detailing to do that in compressed timeframes.)
Now a firm, running lean with limited production capabilities is going to eventually get to a point where they need to hire someone – but it’s not me that they’ll be hiring. The trickle of 5+ year job postings begins.
For firms, it gains them the ability to produce the drawings necessary, without spending a ton on salaries & benefits. They’ve got to keep the lights on and feed families just like everyone else.
As the market begins to slowly open back for employment opportunities, you’ve got much the same situation that firm’s find themselves in. There is a metric ton of talent chasing a few open positions. Again – driving things downward.
Much as it happened last time, in order to stay in the game, and avoid being homeless – some of us will end up applying for positions for which we are over-qualified. To take a reduced salary, limited career growth, and experience that hard-to-stomach slam to the career trajectory. The last time that we all went thru this, I know a few people that walked away from the profession entirely.
In the pause of 2009, I missed out on 3 years of salaried income & benefits. I took free-lance drafting and production gigs at an hourly rate that was just shy of the wages you’d get working at McD’s in any major city (after taxes) – just to keep the lights on. Technically speaking it took a few years to make up for that but my career trajectory still took the hit.
The alternative path would be to hang it up and look for a position that is less impacted by finance and the economy, but that means taking a much much larger drop in lifestyle.
I’ve lived thru all of this once before, so Welcome to Fight Club.
If you’re experiencing all of this for the first time, and are currently swimming in your own dark night of the soul – you have my deepest condolences. I understand first hand the struggle to just be who you want to be – an architect or interior designer.
What I can tell you, from a position of experience, is that it does get better. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
If I were in a position to hire someone – I would be doing exactly that. Even if it was a couple days a week, to help keep someone’s kids fed. Know that you aren’t alone in this. I might be staring at a set of decisions that I never thought that I’d have to make too. There may be a version of my future where I’m living in a tiny town working at the button factory rather than practicing what I believe I was made to do. Architecture.
My hope is that firms and design profession as a whole, understand that there is a sizable talent pool from which to draw. Current workflows and circumstances have shown us that physical location doesn’t matter as much as dedication to craft.*
As the pressure mounts for resolutions and solutions – nobody is alone in the current situation. Drop a comment, AMA. I will do what I can to help or even just lend an ear.
JM
Side note: Yeah – the image above… I was going to sketch a cake for imagery, but usually my sketching just gets the concept into my head and I head straight to digital… so, I figured why fight it.
**Just typing that, I’m reminded of the discussions I have had throughout my career with the guys that held the corner office. Scolding me for showing up late while holding someone in high regard because they were there early. Which completely discounted that I’d gone home at 4AM to shower and catch breakfast because I was on a deadline that week and/or working 80+ hour weeks. Visibilty doesn’t alway equate to value.
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