[Leslie B Wagle]

Interesting, and I hope you get some British comments from those more familiar with the situation. In a way, the country’s war experience and perhaps higher density has led to more progressive ideas on preservation as you describe them, compared to the US….but just a quick thought, it sounds a lot like you hope for a windfall….similar to how LA’s here want the profession to be more visible in transportation and other initiatives, perhaps even being “required” on projects. That involves lobbying in the initial legislation and usually gets shot down by other competing professions and never seemed a terribly productive effort or one likely to help small firms anyway, at least to me. In a nutshell, whether it’s government-funded work or private (in a healthier economy), humans being the creatures they are….there is that need for someone to get behind the scenes and cultivate soft-influence connections before it’s already too late. 

 

I have been worried for awhile that whenever a “pro business” pushback to the recession finally takes shape – whenever it comes – that it might just let loose an era of even lower development standards in a mad rush forward, than was prevalent during the the former boom.

 

 

[Leslie B Wagle]

I try to curb myself from universal-state-of-things comments because I read too much market conditions background info. and it’s scary. We may revive (economy and profession) but I don’t’ think it’s going to be any time soon…and LA can’t very well pull out ahead of the general background conditions by some magic formula. Of course “how to cope in the meantime” contributions should still be made, but I’ve only seen about 3 genuine “LA wanted” ads the last year in my whole state. There are bound to be a lot of courageous survival stories out there, but I suspect the individual sorrow levels and dashed expectations are pretty high also, and hard to spread on a board for the world to see. There is some value in just cross-confirming: if your situation is stressful, you are not alone or doing something “wrong.”

[Leslie B Wagle]

Well, yes the later-arriving initial children would be included in the “waves of needs” – and in my comment on “variables.” They could indeed ensure a situation for parents as complicated as any other!

[Leslie B Wagle]

I think I should have added to my bio post, that I did manage to get the lone consultant business solid enough to move into a low-overhead business “incubator” (suite in an old school building) during my son’s high school years, even employing some contract part-time drafting assistants on occasion. I would just pass on to younger women who may lack the way-out sense of time that after age 45, they still have a good 15 or so years of a window for employment elsewhere if they find a good opening. Most of us aren’t going to have small children to tend to at 45…however, the variables can make a big difference. Obviously having several children with waves of needs following the early professional years might protract arrival of the ‘greater freedom’ years. And another chunk of advice is to keep an eye on avoiding an ‘amateur’ looking resume at the mid life point. You need to have hefty enough work (ie. multifamily site planning) and community service (ie. things like historic preservation commissions or other such functions) to present at that point. I look back and still see a pattern of having to pass through an eye of a needle in terms of several transition points at along the way.

 

I’m sure many gentlemen have the same retrospective but it seems especially relevant to the female experience.

[Leslie B Wagle]

I’m very conflicted about this whole area. I managed to have a small family (1 child). For about 3 years when I needed them sometimes he was with private sitters followed by a good university preschool setting (I did have to pay for) while I was in LA school, then we hit primary grades using after school centers while I got my required office time to go for the exam. From grades  3-12 came a period of me working from home….then I went back to the 40 hour commuter life when he started college. Along the way, I have seen several younger women have to return to their desks very quickly after pregnancies, leaving tiny infants in day care centers. In retrospect, it was almost better for me that the child came before the education. I may have missed some collaboration with fellow LA students but you can do LA student assignments outside the required lectures and lab in an apartment. My situation wasn’t possible due to “wealth”as my husband struggled in his field also, but we got by.

 

When I read “poor me” postings by women who chose to stay at home and later find they are hugely compromised when they decide to return to work, I think of the ones who were putting in the office time and wonder why should they (or any men for that matter) have to “move over” to accommodate or accelerate the new returnees? I would especially hate to see the continuous workers taxed even more to furnish any additional no-means testing welfare-style benefits. There is already a trend of subsidized lunches, Medicaid, Section 8, food subsidies, etc. making some welfare recipients tally not far below other working people. We don’t need even less incentive to work in this country, even if at the moment jobs are hard to get.

 

However, I also felt badly for the small children in the cases of the young professionals who wouldn’t shift focus after having children. I can see why they felt they had little choice (and their careers did keep moving forward as a result of their choice) but I noticed some of the kids ended up with a few problems that more maternal attention might have addressed. No point to make here I guess except that there is no single perfect solution.

[Leslie B Wagle]

This comes to mind and maybe you can research it further. Also I think there is a butterfly one somewhere.

 

http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/thewaterfront/parks/musicgarden.cfm

[Leslie B Wagle]

I wonder if what the bad vibes are more about the issue of the AIA chapter placing this choice of speaker into such prominence, rather than a fellow professional (whether ASLA, a horticulture or environmental professor, a published author, or even a trained extension agent). Not to say that a plants lady has nothing to offer but it might feel a little weird showing up and trying to mingle in that context as announced. It might just further confuse people what level LA’s are working from.

[Leslie B Wagle]

Given what Albert C said above (“Flora Grubb Gardens is a retail garden store plants, pots, furnishing, gifts, coffee, etc.”) which was my impression from what I found on Google, I’m going out on a limb here and speculate that she might not even have a good clue what LA even IS, had some connections, and just saw a timely marketing opportunity (or some mix of those factors). I guess more charitably, she may have seen repetitive unimaginative plantings done BY ARCHITECTS themselves, and wants to open their eyes and while we would like her to tell them “get an LA,” she may not know that herself, or have thought of it. But also due to the retail angle, she may want them to just throw up their hands and decide to shove future “decorating” in her direction more than for them to become independent experts. It’s really hard to tell, but the emphasis on rowdier plants makes me wonder if it would work anyhow. (“Unimaginative” choices in stressful urban circumstances are often used for good reasons after all.)

[Leslie B Wagle]

It looks informative and eye catching, so I wish you well. Anything like this is good for raising consciousness out there – but I wasn’t clear whether it is delivered on line only? It seems like you can get the advertising, so best success getting the word out.

[Leslie B Wagle]

I was also trying to reply and it wouldn’t go through as her response to my post was deleted, and now it seems her whole account is gone. I briefly did see where she explained that she used “student” in order to deflect any danger, and is still feeling alone and unsure what to do. Now I can’t send what I was going to recommend privately, either. Well, in case she comes back or in case it would help anyone else, this is what I was going to say (having served on a board a few years ago). Salvaged message in italics.

 

If as you said, the website says “the law doesn’t apply to contractors, nurserymen, garden designers.  They can do all this stuff without getting in trouble,” then that is the role you would be operating in for now, not practicing illegally if you don’t exceed the job complexity allowed or advertise with the title. But maybe at this point, one step before using an attorney who might get it confused anyway, would be to find out the names of the board members and see if any locally nearest to you can furnish you with any guidance (it might even be good to gather and represent a small group of equally affected people). There is even such a thing as scheduling a face to face meeting with them. They aren’t a secret body and have public access for some business; you just have to call and get on the agenda. But there may already be some precedent cases they have solved already and can clarify if you press for more specifics than the website offers.

[Leslie B Wagle]

It can be confusing and frankly in my state, the shift from title act to practice act didn’t seem to change anything survival-wise. On the other hand, there will always be alternatives out there for people to use, no matter what you invest in. I hate to make specific analogies because it’s so easy to step on someone’s toes, but if there was no licensing, then we revert to the situation where literally anyone can apply the title to themselves. But in the end, there are people who would rather go to a shaman than a medical doctor (bad parallel I know) … the idea behind a license movement is that, when a term has requirements attached, at least IF people are looking for that training, they know the label means something. There are still ways to operate without it; and there will always be decision makers who confuse it with other fields or got burned once, and actively avoid all of us like poison ivy.

 

You said” I’m viewed as some dumb naive clueless kid because I’m not licensed,” yet you have a lot of work. I don’t think anybody here would believe that of a grad, and I even wonder if you can find out if there is a way to get your own self-employment to count. In some states experience is a zero when it precedes graduation (some people are freelancing that early)….but it may actually do you some good now (or get you a percentage type credit) if you can show enough plans to make the case that it’s wasn’t just an occasional fluke, more like serious time.

 

Meanwhile, your profile shows you’ve been on here a couple of years, and status must have changed so you might want to update it not to show “student.” 

 

And, by the way I think in times like these, that Boards SHOULD reward people doing exactly as you are. I don’t know how hard that would be for them to amend their credit tally systems, but you are more a help to the profession than people who walk away from it. Or if they could allow “mentoring” to count. Then elder people like me in the same region could be put to some use to look over/review work along the way, without having to pay a salary (or charge the exam seeker). Too bad this wasn’t all forseen.

 

[Leslie B Wagle]

Did someone blame unlicensed associates for a lack of business? When I joined in, the topic was mostly unlicensed blaming the RLAs for not being able to sit for the exam.

[Leslie B Wagle]

Most states pass registration with a number of provisions that grandfather in people or allow overlapping by other professions, or exempt land areas under 1 acre for the contractors to keep on doing those, etc. Which is ironically why I think Denise has more hiring options than she may think. Engineers sometimes, while continuing to be in the forefront of getting site work, do hire LA’s (when they are aware of how much technical help a good LA can be on more than just planting plans). If hiring is off even in multidisciplinary firms, it’s got to be off in LA led firms. So if the problem is how to make a living, the cure isn’t necessarily being licensed, it goes deeper than that. Admittedly, getting “alternative” experience sometimes is discounted by state boards according to some formulas, but many people have to submit some “mix” or take a while longer to get their requirements than the ideal 40 hours between school and the exam.

 

I hope my first post on this wasn’t too harsh. I truly understand how frustrating and disheartening it is, as I ran into the same thing immediately following my degree (as they say, in a galaxy long long ago and far far away, ha).

[Leslie B Wagle]

Denise, I doubt the comment about RLA’s “hoping to keep new graduates out of the job market through the licensing laws” for some 2-3 reasons besides the laws being there before the recession even started. First, RLA’s probably never were the main employers for new grads. I’m willing to bet most had to start with multi-disciplinary firms, hopefully under a staff RLA – and secondly, they just can’t hire you to look out the window. They are plain short on work and can’t afford it. Thirdly, they aren’t likely to be that threatened by non-registered people unless they are going after the residential market. So I’m not totally clear what you are saying but please don’t imply on your resume or business cards that you are registered, as that could lead to a lot of trouble in an interview.

 

Do you feel disadvantaged in not having access to some form of advertising? I’m not sure printed or internet forms are that help much in freelancing anyway. If it’s a problem in personal contact frameworks or even on business cards, what about just saying that you have a degree in LA? That would be enough to impress the small scale client and would be honorable in the meantime. Otherwise, what you are questioning is the whole merit of experience under someone in the real world. It’s too bad that’s hard to come by at the moment, but that topic has been covered and will probably continue to be defended. By the way, there are people with experience who think they should be exempt from the exam. The theory of licensing (even if you’ve seen some people who you feel superior to) is that it takes both. Otherwise, the standard would just be a degree itself but there aren’t many professions that operate that way. Teachers are exam only (?) but look at their situation…layoffs everywhere and not a lot of alternatives except tutoring. A license doesn’t give you clients and a degree never guaranteed a job, even in the good times.

[Leslie B Wagle]

Nope, this generation can’t get out and build the beautiful stone arch bridges on the Blue Ridge Parkway and other CCC projects that the still-manually skilled men of the 30’s knew how to or could be taught to do. “Shovel ready” jobs now take considerable construction training and we also have a lot of “undocumented immigrants” here that can compete for anything offered at the lower skill rungs. Also the nation was more insular back then, whereas now in the global economy, even companies that start to hire, can use competition from nearly anywhere.

 

I was in a city planning office from the 90’s through 2007 and while none of us grasped or talked about the financial ease of building nearly anything, we we deluged with subdivisions and development plans in general, and I remember wondering how in the world there could really be a solid demand for so much stuff? Turns out there wasn’t. It had crossed my mind that people were flocking into bricks and mortar and all the ripples from it (interiors, kitchen equipment, even the sales and paperwork) because it was reasonable pay and the last “domestic” product we could safely retreat to. Now those people can’t find an alternative and are joining many others whose industries disappeared in the 80’s.

 

There was a brief boost in the early arrival years of the computer revolution, but then the “dotcom” burst took care of the idea that everybody would become a programmer (later, website guru). The debt of this country is a huge source of concern but a lot of it would become more manageable if there was higher employment. I agree that some experts charting inventories or productivity might have seen an “end” to a recession, but where most folks live, the first one stuck and never rolled back. So no, we aren’t facing a second, the first never left and continues on.

 

By the way, this may belong in the “are you leaving the field” question, but I’ve been lurking in a discussion about Art Therapy (due to peripheral curiosity since I have a relative who got a degree in it and really struggled before dropping out for mixed reasons). There was a person in her grad studies who openly wondered if she should continue considering the expense and likelihood of never finding pay that would justify it. The answers were cheering her on more than I would have at the expense she quoted (I would have said go ahead if you’re determined but be careful of big student loans in the process). However, they also mentioned how they weren’t “respected” by others in the mental health field and that further depressed opportunities and wages. It distantly reminded me of the LA discussions here. I’m just bringing it up because that dilemma of what to do at the start of your life is hard enough anyway, and now so many doors seem barely cracked open, I just ache for all of those in her shoes, and it isn’t clear what path to suggest except to listen to your soul but also blend in reality and realize you’re not alone in this.

 

Like LA, art therapy would seem be a “personal delivery” vs. easily off-shored sort of field but that hasn’t spared either of us when local enterprises and governments are in a money tight operation mode.

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