If your a champion baker of cakes- this is who you should give your next one to

[Boilerplater]

I suppose they are maintaining a fantasy that they will find someone who is independently wealthy and just does LA work because that’s what he likes to do for fun and doesn’t really care about compensation.  It is rather ridiculous to expect what they outline of someone.  This is for someone who does not need what one would normally expect of a job.  One is better off working in another field until things improve.  Who knows when that will be!

 

I wonder if its they guy I interviewed with in Irvine around 4 years ago.  He was really into the HOA work.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

There are a lot of ways to speculate on motivation of both the employer and potential employee here. The thing is that we all have a choice to take on he job or not.

 

Some businesses are struggling and have to do everything they can to maintain their last few employees. I don’t know what the state of that company is, but it is not beyond reasonable possibility that this is a way to keep the company afloat to live another day while still being able to bid on projects that require more staff than they can maintain right now. That opens the possibility for new hires should they land some of those projects.

 

In a time of little opportunity for an out of work LA, this might not be the dream opprtunity, but it is at least AN opportuinty. No one is making anyone take it.

 

The primary objective of an LA office is to do LA work. Jobs are a byproduct, not the purpose.

[landplanner]

Andrew:

 

Thanks for the counterpoint, it was, as you usually do, very well expressed. Your points are well taken and the perspective you offer is certainly a better one than mine. When I first saw this ad, I was just appalled by how bad things have  become and continue to appear to be in the employment frontier, not only for our profession, but all the design professions. Orange County is a very expensive place to live and the meager nature of this job offering certainly does not take that into account. Anyone (and there will be many inquiries) who takes this job will have to have another means by which to support themselves. Yes, I also agree this firm is probably (and has already done) doing whatever it takes to hang on. I should have been a lot more sensitive about that and I appreciate you being so.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I think it has always been on a  “on a need basis only”. That is what made the explosion of landscape architecture jobs that generated the “20% expansion by the year 2018” statistic that was and maybe still is on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

 

That trend of growth obviously did not continue and we look back and see that it was not realistic to believe that it would. I don’t see that there is a compelling reason to believe that the entire cycle of boom and bust development has ended and it will never come back. When it does, profit minded people will put together design offices with employees. They will need to pay them to attract them and pay them more to keep them … just like before. Then they will lay them off when there is less work.

 

There are more ways to have more production with less people as technology advances, but technology has always been advancing and it seems we still need well trained and skilled people to use that technology.

 

In the end, design is a human endeavor and requires humans to do it. We ain’t dead yet. We just need a demand for more development by people who value that development (not make work). Money does nothing when it is standing still. Right now it is standing still.

[Leslie B Wagle]

This may not be a good barometer of anything, but just out of curiosity, I have had brief looks at elance.com and found site design projects within the help needed ads. They are varied, some just a one-time home plan, some as big as large apartment projects. And now and then you see one that wants a continuing relationship with a designer for a specific need, like outdoor grille centers or swimming pool areas, and the ad sponsor claims the winning bidder will then get a flow of work. I have seen LA’s in the mix of “bidders,” and I think that kind of relationship could be a good recession money stream or a side support of a small local business. However, these ads get a majority of responses from foreigners and those with (what I would consider) inappropriate backgrounds. Although I’m sure they’re creative, they really aren’t likely to have much grasp of either site design or common code considerations. Often they are more like product illustrators, etc. Hopefully the ad sponsors will grasp that but I don’t know what happens.

Going back to the opening of this topic, the ads also typically ask for fast turn-around, great skills, etc. but also don’t offer a lot per hour. Maybe that’s just a byproduct of the current market situation and big overall plans would still need to be sealed, but the foreign freelancer as a trend in mini or component design work may stick around even when the “bust” ends.

[landplanner]

Leslie:

I appreciate your commentary here. I only posted this job advertisment as a real-world testimony as to where things are in slow slog to recover from the Great Desperation. This ad reflects where things are at with our segment of the design professions, and both of us know that is not better or greatly improved for any of the others. I posted this in part, for the irony of it all. What I have seen over a good and long stretch of time during our slow, tortise paced recovery is this:

• most jobs are part-time
• they have been absurdly reduced to near entry-level with superstar qualifications
• the hourly wages offered have declined (from the peak) drastically
• the positions that are out there are short-term hauls contingent on future work prospects which are a crapshoot of chances; and despite all of this
• there is a torrent, no make that a deluge of interest in any of these meager openings.

 

So whether it is Elance or selling houseplants every weekend at your local farmers market in order to carve out an existence of a living and maintain your personal dignity and pride in our profession, those are the current options. I make no commentary beyond that, except that Dr. MacDonald’s comment seems to be loaded with his usual stingy commentary but accurate foresight.

[Author]

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