These young kids today …

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Most of us have heard it time and time again during the boom. The idea that the people coming into the work force after about 1992 or so had never faced adversity in the job market and they would not be able to handle it if and when it ever came their way. They could quit a job on Thursday to join their friends for a long weekend and get hired on Monday by another company for more money. Now that this adversity has happened it makes me wonder if those that had faced it before are handling it better, the same, or worse then “these young kids today”.

 

I don’t know, but thought it might make an interesting discussion. Are the people oer 40 doing better at retaining jobs? Are they more willing to sling burgers if they need to? What are the younger people doing? Do they milk unemployment more, or live in their mom’s basement more than the older folks?

 

What do you see out there? Who is more stressed out? Who is holding jobs more. I know it should be skewed in favor of older people because of experience in the work place and more likely a home that has more equity in it (if they did not sap it out), but is it?

[nca]

I would say that many of the younger job seekers have the advantage in that they tend to have more technical capability, cheaper, and more mobile, right? Along with a sense of idealistic entitlement and overt pessimism, gen x and y are doing just fine. People over 40 grew up in the Reagan error under the ‘greed is good’ mantra and have a whole other set of personal issues to contend with.

 

😉

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Speculation or actual observation? I don’t get out enough to know whose behind the desks, whose in the unemployment line, who is gutting it out in lesser jobs to stay productive, and whose in their mom’s basement?

 

Is there a need for technical capability out there that is stronger than other needs? I’m skeptical, but I really don’t know. I’m out on a sand bar in the North Atlantic where there are small offices for arch/surv/eng and very few landscape architecture offices. I do get to see residential projects from the Cambridge crowd fairly regularly. I don’t see any extreme technology, though …. working drawings look like normal CAD drawings to me. Renderings look to be mostly hand drawings with a little sketch up thrown in there. It really does not look like cutting edge technology would make or break anyone in this market. Maybe it is and I just am not in the position to see it.

 

When I go to hearings in front of regulatory boards, I don’t see many young people as archs/engineers/LAs representing clients. I do see young people working in the municipalities and even young attorneys representing clients, but not so much in the design field. I find that interesting.

 

[nca]

I think you could argue that a lot of the new grads and junior levels have disproportionately far greater technical capability than design and construction knowledge. Then again, I tend to agree with nr. There are just as many mid-senior levels out there that can’t do either very well.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

“There are just as many mid-senior levels out there that can’t do either very well.”

 

Don’t you think that can be said in any profession? You have to wonder what it is that their employer thinks these folks bring to the table that you and I don’t see. It seems that when these situations occur and you wind up seeing enough of what is going on for a long enough time, you start to realize that sometimes people bring a value to their employer that is not so apparent or maybe not even valued at all by me or you. Every employer has a different business plan, a different personality, different way they interact with staff, and different values. I think that we come into this with what WE see as “the right way” an office should be structured, the deliverables it should produce, and many other things.  I’ve worked for two design/build LA firms and two civil engineering offices since getting licensed. The differences between each of them are so huge, yet each is very successful. Much of the work is the same, but after that everything is totally different and what and how much I am/was valued for is so different it amazes me. If these people talked to one another about what they valued and didn’t value in me they would absolutely think that they were talking about different people. (perhaps adaptability is my strong suit)

[nca]

easy–they make it rain. if not, then I dont know.

getting work done comes in a distant second to getting work.

[nca]

I think when you get to that point it’s time to start thinking about opening your own practice. There are a lot of members here who will say that you need several more decades of experience, but I don’t necessarily agree.

 

If you are confident that you can offer equal or better service at equal or lesser cost, then why not hang a shingle? It’s the natural course of things.

[Heather Smith]

Well I am in a funny position…I went back to school as a non-traditional student so am not a young kid but am a recent graduate…32 at the time. The traditional students I was in were anything but self involved. One class mate in particular pretty much worked her way through college in the universities kitchen…some weeks 40+ hours…and still graduated magna cum laude.  I had a lot of very driven young classmates and was always really impressed with their work ethic.

This conversation confuses me a little…speaking of retaining jobs…as only the Canadians from my studio have been hired by firms and I graduated in 2009. Those young classmates are working a variety of jobs…apartment management, surveying water rights, procuring part time work involving GIS mapping, a parks intern and of course the wide assortment of coffee shop jobs. 😉 Many also continue on with their education in the hopes that another cert. or degree will help them land the ever elusive job.

It would be nice to be able to talk about retaining a job…but when you can’t even get one? Pointless. Recent graduates have not even found a way to intern let alone be hired…even the most aggressive and talented of my classmates couldn’t get firms to give him a free internship.

And just in response to some of the belly aching about carrying an unfair workload. Let me get this…you want to complain about your job…but it would be too much work to go out on your own and work for yourself?  Complaining won’t get you far…so either do something about it or get used to being treated as you are.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Why don’t you start up your own firm?

[nca]

I’m not ready to get off the elevator quite yet. 🙂

[Heather Smith]

Wanted to add… I have no idea how this “magna+!@#$laude” came out like that…haha. I just noticed that and thought…, “Wow, Heather simmer down!”. I meant magna cum laude.

[Anonymous]

 

Please tell me you’re just joking.

 “… We are really the first crop of workers that was weaned early in life to BE competitive just to survive, not because we wanted to.”

Tell that to folks who lived through the “Great Depression”, WWII, the “Turbulent 60s”, and the layoffs of 70’s. Hard times and having to compete to survive are not something new.

Every generation is challenged by the next. When you’re 40 something you will have to deal with some young hot shot, fresh out of school who will think he/she has all the answers to Landscape Architecture. They’ll be up on the latest technology and with out a lot of effort you won’t be very current. But by then you’ll realize that a person with little experience is no real threat to you.

It seems as though you assume all senior LAs haven’t keep up with the latest technology. That’s not necessarily true. I’m in my late forties and I am a pretty productive operator of all the programs you mentioned. But that doesn’t make me a good LA. To me AutoCAD, Illustrator, InDesign, Sketchup, and Photoshop are just fancy pencils and document storage systems. Although the technology has benefitted me greatly, take it a way and I can still practice. I think a lot of us are too caught up in the technology and forget that it’s all about what gets built. All of the software programs in the world don’t mean anything if a memorable place wasn’t built.

The advantage that a 40 something LA has over a 20 something LA is that they have seen and been in more situations. A senior LA has solved more problems and has seen those solutions tested over time. Repetition and knowing “more than one way to skin a cat” are a big benefit. After a decade or two in a profession a person learns from their own mistakes as well as others. There’s a lot of value in a person that can say “been there, done that”.

That being said landscape architecture is a profession in which we should never stop learning and senior staff should learn just as much as from junior staff.

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I’m looking for the “Like” button.

[mark foster]

I think the largest difference between the younger generations and the older ones is student loan debt.  Student loans were rare in my day, so you had to work your way through and/or go to a lesser (cheaper) college.  I am very thankful for not having the opportunity to borrow large sums of money at such a young age. 

 

It was hard to get through school and it took longer, but I cannot imagine starting out with a monthly outlay as large as a new car/mortage payment.  I suspect the profliferation of student loans has also led to the inflation of post BS degrees.  It used to be the case that only those who wanted to be in academia went for a masters.

[Chris Carpenter]

I graduated with an Architecture degree from USC in the fall of 2008, and worked as an estimator for a contractor. It was a good experience to go through the process that builders undertake when making bids. I learned a lot about how bad the market was for people in construction. I made bids as low as my boss would let me go and we still were getting way underbid. I found an accounting job in Atlanta and moved away from Los Angeles but want to get back into design – particularly landscape architecture (now just doesn’t seem like the best time). Having talked to older people in the architectural field it does seem there is a disconnect because of advancements in technology, but I would also argue that they have more responsibilities in life to worry about. Unless you are a celebrity architect it seems that the profession is not financially secure as others. I still work on architectural projects in my spare time and will try to market them to developers, but I don’t feel that I can depend on architecture as a good career path – though it is a passion.

[Author]

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