Categoría: Opinión

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[Dedicated to former Kansas City Chiefs players who were cut and are playing in today’s Super Bowl. Congratulations! Clear proof that getting fired was a gift.]

When you lose your job, you feel crushed. And if you don’t find a new job quickly, the idea that your plight is anything short of a life disaster may seem even more ridiculous. Losing a job, and especially with the prospect of being out of work for an extended time period, wrecks your pocketbook and your sense of self-worth.

In short, losing your job is one of the worst experiences of your life. I agree.

Yet what I believe has really happened to you is that you have been set free. Free from going tomorrow to a job where you wonder if you’ll be there another day or a month. Free from the headaches of a project, chasing new jobs for the firm’s marketing efforts, and fearing disturbing discussions behind-closed-doors.

Your time is now your own. And that is quite a gift.

Furthermore, your freedom comes at a time when the architecture profession is battered from all sides. In short, trends and society have not favored architects. We all know that.

In the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, architects are the most out-of-work profession in America. A small field of only a couple of hundred thousand people at best, 50,000 are out of work. (New York Times). Some locations are facing over 40% unemployment.

It’s bleak. But that’s not my focus. I want to talk about freedom and what you might do with it.

Think of it as money in the bank. You can withdraw from it every day. I wager that the better you spend it, the more freedom you will find. In other words, invest in yourself wisely, generously, enthusiastically. You have struck gold.

vía Dear Unemployed Architects: You Have Been Given A Gift – urbanverse’s posterous.

@jbonet Advice for an aspiring architect http://bit.ly/bu7jor

Advice for an aspiring architect, in 1931

In December of 1931, as the Great Depression took hold, a young man by the name of Richard Crews wrote to a number of prominent architecture firms in the city of Chicago. Soon to enter the profession himself, Crews was curious to learn about an established architect’s typical working day, and so sent letters to local masters of the trade to find out from the best possible source. Four incredibly gracious responses arrived, including the one below; a letter filled with honest, sage and extremely quotable advice from Charles Morgan, a highly regarded architectural artist who in the ’20s and ’30s provided renderings for a number of large firms such as Frank Lloyd Wright. Had he written it today, I’m sure much of the advice would remain.