I hate my job with a passion uncontested

UCLA Extension

Click on Fields of Study and then Certificate Programs - the list is nearly endless.

There's a tab at the top for sending for a catalog.

Plus, there are always a lot of one day courses, travel and learning courses, oh, on and on and on.

Osso, what is it like being a landscape architect? Is that a growing field? Is the pay good? What is an average day at work like? Is it the kind of thing where you work for the city or the state, or can you go into it on your own? Could one get a job doing this with a real estate developer?

I just realized that this is not the same thing as mowing lawns and trimming hedges, which was my mistaken impression of it before.

It's a really interesting field. Not many get rich from it though. It really is a form of architecture. One learns site planning, really. Olmsted who did Central Park may have been the guy to formulate the title landscape architect. Campus site plans are often done by landarchs. Parks, such as Lawrence Halprin's very strong urban water parks done, I think, in the seventies - parks are not always green. Several of my friends in city planning were trained as landarchs. At a closer to home level, we, that is myself and business partner, like to help the owner site the buildings on a property and work out the grading (land contours) if there needs to be any change, site retaining walls if needed, figure out the pathway circulation and what we call hardscape - parking courts, paved terraces, site fountains, design ponds, pools, site and design decks and overhead structures, design pavilions, oh yes, and then screen negative views and enhance lovely views by choice of planting, often developing complex planting plans - all this with attention to the local surroundings, trying to do no harm - we have been known to take a property back to natural grade after developers filled natural water courses with tons of imported soil.

People tend to think of us as the ones who pick which plant to make the hedge out of, schniff.

You can work for a city or practice as one person, or work in one of the big firms that do range of things. I have to go to work now, but I'll come back later and name some big firms with some job examples.

Some beautiful work has been done recently in Napa Valley..
I am thinking first of Peter Walker's handling of the property that COPIA is on (Robert Mondavi's cornocopia of wine and food knowledge in Napa).


Here's a link to this year's American Society of Landscape Architects design awards... it'll give you an overview, with photos of various kinds of projects.
http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/publicrelations/pressreleases/press04/pressrelease071304.htm

i hear ya kicky
kicky- my advice to you- dont wait the year. plan to get out of there now- the money isnt worth it- you are young you have many yrs to make money, etc... No amount of money is worth your sanity! dont do wjhat i did- im sittin here for a yr now and i shouldve been looking long ago- but stupid me i said id wait tilll this december so i can get my yr end bonus... now december is 5 months away and im at wits end cant stay here that long- so im desperately looking for other job to get out of here. i realized- f the bonus, not worth the torture.
save your sanity while you still have some left and leave!
p.s.- like my username? working title for the book im writing in my head... (fo rthose of you familiar with "The Devil Wears Prada")

if u hate your job that much,just change one ~~~~
After all,happiness is more important than a job.

Okay, it's time for my quarterly bitch session.

I can't take this **** much longer. No matter what simple f*cking task is given to me, there is a problem. A simple task like making a PDF, which should take about twelve seconds, ends up taking almost an hour sometimes, because we have no control over our own print drivers, and have to use a generic piece of **** that doesn't allow for odd sized pages. Workarounds are not a rarity, but the f*cking norm here.

Our computers have just enough memory to do crappy simple powerpoint presentations, which means that anytime I have to do something that requires photoshop or quark, it takes forever.

Oh, and half the people I work with make me sick.

I have to make it until May. I have to make it until May. I have to make it until May...

May is a lovely time of year...

7-8 months? c'mon, you could do that with your eye closed...

You're both right! I just have to think about the money I'm going to walk away with if I can just last.

Maybe if I look at it as if it were a reality show...

Heh, kicky, when I audited for a living, the first 2 1/2 years (of a 3-yr stint) were spent with an Apple Powerbook 170. Yes, a 170. In 1995 - 1997. It often would dial in at 2400 bps. Mail, Excel and Word, opened in combination, caused it to crash. Took a good hour to do email on the road.

So I know from work-arounds, including bringing a calculator (which is silly, because Excel is a calculator), just so that I could do some calculations while Word and Outlook were open.

Complaining did no good, so I just charged more time, though never as much time as I actually spent on audits (after all, I was also being hurt if I declared the audits took too much time - I was supposed to be saving company money even while dreaming! This was a company that obviously didn't care much about hearing the truth - they only wanted to hear what they liked to hear). The only thing I could do was make myself the software expert and exploit Microsoft products for everything they were worth. This saved some time and frustration, but not a lot.

Anyway, for the last few months I had a Compaq but it overheated a lot and was a fire hazard (nice, huh?). By the time I got a Dell, I was finally no longer a road warrior.

So I can relate. I think a key to sanity or at least to easing the tension a bit is to just let the stupid print drivers just take forever. "Oh, sorry, oops, hey, the computer is slow." Stop caring about how fast anything is. Just let it rip at its usual snail's pace and then blame the machine and the driver, etc. if/when things are late.

That's what I did, too. Why take that burden and the responsibility upon yourself if the powers that be won't purchase better equipment? Just let it slowpoke around until next May.

You could pass the time by having fun contests with yourself, like how many times you can masturbate at work in one day.

I love the term workarounds. If something doesn't work because our technology is sub par instead of upgrading our technology, we do a "workaround". Basically that means we do work manually that will take us an additional day to do, whereas if we had the technology, it would be completed in minutes. The one way to get the technology though is to screw up royally. Then when the higher ups complain there was a huge error, you get to explain why and they then can she the light! But in the mean time you are screwed when bonus and raises come around because your review will then say how you royally screwed up.

Hey, Kicky. I'm just finding this and have skimmed through. Sorry to hear of your predicument.

I worked at McDonalds in high school and college. Not a great job, and certainly not a career I would choose, but it fed me during a critical time. Knowing it wasn't long term made a huge difference.

I think having other plans would help. Have you tried brainstorming on what you might be interested in doing come June 2005? What are your hobbies? What do you do in your spare time? What was the most fun thing you've done in the last 6 months? What talents do you have? What makes friends and family say "Man, you do that so well. I wish I knew how to..." If you didn't have to worry about money, what (constructive) things would you do with your day?

A lot of people are just going along doing a job they thought they would like and not doing what they love. Many are just trying to justify their cost of college or training. We only get one shot at life, so I feel strongly that we have to make it count, AND we have to be happy in what we are doing work wise since that is a huge part of our adult lives.

I'd probably start with changing my attitude. You can't get out of bed cursing the day and expect the day to get better. And, you are only hurting yourself. Perhaps if you started thinking of your current job as a temporary thing just to keep you fed until you are vested, AND start making plans for June 2005, the time would pass more quickly and be easier to deal with.

Lastly, start placing yourself mentally in June 2005. Start picturing what you will be doing then, how you will be living, and how you will feel about your career at that time.

Sorry if I'm imposing too much happiness and positive energy, but gee! This place was looking kinda drab. Blue skies ahead, my boy, so chin up!

And, if you need help deciding what to do in June, let me know. I'll be glad to help you brainstorm and get going.

Squinney,

You're right! The frustrating thing for me is that I don't know what I want to do. Never did. Work is just work for me. I was brainstorming ideas earlier in this thread. Starting or buying a business of my own sounds right to me at the moment. And I do have this dream of living in Italy for a year and teaching English as a second language, but first I have to learn Italian, so that seems like a much further down the road kind of thing.

I have also realized just recently that I am bad under pressure. I do not like jobs that have many quick deadlines every day, and it makes me crazy. And I have been working in the printing industry for ten years. Ten years doing something that drives me crazy.

I am toying with the idea of moving back to Rochester, NY, where my father and brother own a truck route with the post office. I figure I could stay there six months or so, learn how to run a successful trucking business, and buy a route down in Orlando, where I used to live. I know, trucking isn't glamorous or impressive, but it's good honest work, you get to listen to listen to music most of the day, and most importantly, there are no f*cking computers involved.

The downside of that is the fact that I will really miss New York, and I'll have to live in Rochester, which has waaay too much cold weather, and waaay too much snow. But that might be just the motivation I need to push me on to Orlando. Hmmm...

Just some current thoughts.

Rochester! I visited a friend there a little bit ago. I thought it was beautiful, but then again it was in the middle of summer. Don't think I'd like to be there in the winter.

My suggestions: Forget Rochester. I know there is some comfort/security there with family being close by, but you aren't excited about it. No need taking another side step that just wastes time.

You seem more drawn to Florida. Is that due to the weather? Beach? Chicks? Or, do you just have fond memories of the previous years there? If you were going in cold, not knowing anyone, would it still be a place you would want to live?

You said what you really want to do is move to Italy. If that is true, even if it's a little scary, then again I would advise skipping the stop over in Florida and GO WHERE YOU WANT TO BE!!!

My sister and her two children lived in Italy for a few years. They absolutely loved it and talk often of returning. So, hows your Italian? Do we need to start sending you postcards?

You also appear to enjoy the outdoors, a little exercise... I'VE GOT IT! You could be one of those gondola guys!

In all seriousnes, I would be focusing on Florida or Italy. That seems to be what gets you the most excited. As for Italy, I have no idea what the job market is there or what is in demand. Florida... I can come up with stuff.

If you go back to Rochester, I got a gal I can set you up with (seriously, she and I went to college together). :-D

Follow your heart when it comes to work - maybe you can use the next few months taking intensive Italian lessons. Even if you never live in Italy, you'll feel good doing something proactive.

Kicky, my friend that taught English in italy didn't know italian to start with, I don't think. I'll double check.
She worked as a governess for a high end family, taught english in Rome, and typed for an american author. I think she taught English first, right after she got there.

I don't suppose, no, I bet you haven't, thought of teaching your computer graphics stuff??

Osso, actually, I have thought of teaching people to use the applications, but I really want to break clean from all that stuff eventually. I consider that a very good plan B.

Jespah, thanks for the dating offer. If I do go to Rochester, I will definitely take you up on that. I'll need somebody to huddle together with against the cold.

I want to make the most of my year or whatever it might be of living in Italy. I don't want the extra pressure and frustration of not being able to communicate at all, so I am going to make sure I already have a good grasp of Italian. Plus, I've never even been there before. I might hate it when I go to visit next year. Once I see it for myself, then I'll be able to really make an informed decision about that one.

I'm thinking the Rochester idea is not too bad. I know it sucks there, but my family is there and my parents are getting up there in age now, so I think it might be good for me to spend some time with them in between my adventures.