Reply To: Who deserves jobs?

That’s a nice nugget of wisdom – Thanks Leslie!

I’ve accepted along time ago that life comes in cycles of good and not-so good times. As a “late baby boomer / me generation” person, sometimes I feel like we are a bunch of selfish latte drinking whiners that are getting a good spanking right now for our excesses. We were so busy chasing money and material things that we failed to instill what some would call good old “corny” values in our children. Things like a sense of perseverance, team work, caring for one another and being respectful. This is what we could use a little of to help pull each other through this struggle.

When I get a little bummed out because I have to compete for business against landscape contractors who will design someone’s front yard for “free” or wait for a check that may or may not ever come, I imagine what it must have been like to live through the Great Depression or WWII. Those were truly trying times. Honestly, I should be happy to win what I used to think were crappy little residential jobs from “freebie” contractors. Yes we’re in a recession and our boys and girls are dying over seas, but it doesn’t compare to what our predecessors endured.

I continue to say to everyone, we will come through this better off. This recession has made Americans with common sense know that we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them. Most of us know now that we can’t continue to clear-cut forests, fill and pave wetlands, dump our waste into our waters, burn massive amounts of fossil fuels, and fill our land with garbage. Regular people are starting to talk about things like urban gardens and forests, walk-ability and access to public transportation, green roofs and so on.

These things point to a positive future for Landscape Architects. Maybe it’s because I’m older, but I feel more optimistic about the future for LAs than I did when I entered the profession in 1989. We have a ton of things we need to fix and build in this country. The smart LAs will be prepared to take full advantage of the next boom and squirrel away some money before the inevitable next recession.

To get back to the original question of who deserves the jobs and who should be hired. I agree with the previous posts. Anyone with the knowledge, skills and abilities for the particular needs of an employer should get the job.

Also, there are not too many Landscape Architects. There’s just a temporary shortage of new projects for us all to work on right now. Just watch in the not so distant future we’ll be back to the problem of our schools not being able to produce enough quality LA grads. And then we LAs will be back to thumbing our noses up at strip mall and residential subdivision projects again (Think: mandatory Chanticleer Pears 25’ on-center, rip-rap lined trapezoidal retention pond and gushing boulder waterfalls).