Excuse me, but why didn't I think of this? Oy.

[twfarlan]

In response to this blog post, well, let's just say that a couple of people feel that this person isn't quite in touch with the reality under which the majority of people live in this country. Consider this my annotated response to her list of suggestions for architects who have received the "gift" of a pink slip.

Comments

[bronxelf_ag001]

Please tell me you linked her to this. Please.

[twfarlan]

I just did.

[crossfire]

I am enjoying the conversation you are having with her.

[bronxelf_ag001]

Wherein she just doesnt get it- I wonder if it's because it's just me hammering home the point rather than her getting the asskicking she deserves so desperately.

ETA- what's most bothersome in her replies is she truly doesn't see how offensive she is. She's trying to push for "looking on the bright side" but her suggestions for doing so are often counter productive, many times laughably terrible and in many cases, offensively and dangerously not thought out.

Beyond that her tone is really condescending, but I'm letting that slide. I was tempted to tell her regarding her comment to me about my "gift for expression" that she should look at the ORIGINAL version of my reply. I don't know if she'd have the same reaction.

[pagan_writes]

Good grief - so basically, you're advised to spend all of your time online apart from the few minutes a day you take to walk around your hometown looking at things.

Well, the unemployed of Bedford have certainly got the hang of that. Usually they choose to do the 'appreciating architecture' bit by hanging around the bus station in a track suit drinking cheap cider.

I hope you don't mind me forwarding this on to a couple of UK architect friends?

[twfarlan]

Certainly I don't mind, as long as you're suggesting reading the original article to take the whole thing in. The original author needs to be provided with more and varied perspectives on why her suggestions are, as one commenter here said, noble-sounding bullshit.

[acelightning]

The same sort of noble-sounding bullshit suggestions can, of course, be applied to former practitioners of other professions that require extensive education. So why is someone(*) with nearly fifty years' experience in various aspects of computer programming, and a Master's degree in computer science, driving an airport limo (12 hours a day, 6 days a week)? Why is someone(**) with a Master's in music education and state teaching licenses for both New York and New Jersey working (part-time) as a bookkeeper?

(*) My husband
(**) My daughter-in-law

[twfarlan]

Well, one reason for both is that this economy is fucked up beyond prior recognition. Profit margins, worship of the bottom line, and a willingness to attempt to do everything on a shoestring budget means that the lowest bidder wins every time, including in employment. You might have to pay someone with experience what he's worth, but someone fresh out of college... or less? You can pay them barrel-scraping wages and they'll gladly do whatever you say.

Expertise is expensive. Half-assed approaches that temporarily shore up the stock value is all anyone who has power cares about in Corporate America.

[acelightning]

It winds up cutting both ways. They won't hire an older, experienced worker both because they'd have to pay that worker more, and because that worker is very likely old enough to be the parent of the person doing the interview. They won't hire someone right out of college, who would accept minimal pay, because that person has no experience. (And they won't hire an older person who's trying to embark on a new career because that person is old enough to have changed the interviewer's diapers, is too old to accept a demeaningly low wage, and has no experience. The person trying to start a new career is simply fucked.)

[bronxelf_ag001]

Well you know, according to her, your Daughter In Law should just teach elementary school. It's just that simple, right? Right?

The irony is that your DIL is *already* licensed as a teacher. This woman is suggesting that Architects just up and do that.

[bzarcher]

I've noticed a lot of these "advice for the unemployed" blogs out there lately seem to assume that you had some kind of a 6 figure income and massive nest egg banked up, because there's no fucking way that most of the stuff they're talking about will actually work in real life otherwise.

[twfarlan]

I suspect that part of why these blogs are taking that approach is that, for the first time in a long time, people who had been receiving six figure salaries are finding themselves "at loose ends." Not knowing what to do with themselves, they feel that they can improve the world by sharing their opinions with the masses, people they assume to be in the same straits.

The irony of me saying this in a blog wherein I irregularly attempt to share my own experiences isn't lost on me, by the way. I know I'm a pretentious sod, being the major difference. ;)

[bronxelf_ag001]

The truth is though that most Architects I know have houses,families, student loans, etc. So that salary, even if managed well, was usually the vast bulk of the income that was coming in. I dont care how much money you WERE making- unless youre really close to retirement, the prospect of going from six figures to nothing, when 40% of your profession is IN THE SAME BOAT, so the chances of finding anything for at least a year are near zero... You're *going* to blow through that cash unless you radically alter your lifestyle, which the author really ignores as a matter of course, since she assumes *someone else* is standing right there to take up the slack.

[twfarlan]

I don't believe that she comes from a single-income household, or indeed has ever even lived in one. Based on her writing, you've nailed it: she expects that there's another source of income available, that resources might be tighter but never totally unavailable.

I actually don't have any faith in her as an architect or urban planner based on her writing. I don't think her capable of performing an accurate usability study based on the assumptions implied in her article of what constitutes an average person's experience in the modern cityscape.

[sorcia]

Okay...how long did that take you...really?

[twfarlan]

Hour, two tops.