Youth in the Profession

I REALLY do not want to be the person whining about their age, but ageism is an issue that I face on a DAILY basis. Granted, it does not help matters that I am 26 years old but could pass for a 16 year old. And unfortunately, that is not an exaggeration. This past year I was asked for identification to be granted access to an ‘R’ rated movie! Yeah. At the time, I was thinking exactly what you’re probably thinking: ‘who in the hell asks for I.D. at the movies anyway?’ Whatever, that’s not the point here.

I have found that my age is an issue with anyone and everyone that I interact with regarding my job, whether it is in the office or out in the rest of the world. When I tell people that I work as an ‘architect’ it’s as if they aren’t sure whether or not they should laugh at the hilarious joke I just made. I know that I should technically say that I work as an ‘intern architect’ but for the simplicity of describing my job to non-architects I find it easier to just say ‘architect’. When this matter first came up I would tell people that ‘I work at an architecture firm’ because I would feel a pang of guilt for saying that ‘I’m an architect’ when I knew in my honest little brain that I was not…yet. But that always lead to the inevitable follow-up question of ‘well what do you do there?’ with an underlying implication of ‘so you answer phones and make coffee?’ I suppose in my current situation the former is not exactly false, but I would prefer to describe the job duties that require the use of my master degree rather than my high school diploma. I mean, I’ll be paying an arm and a leg for that degree for many years to come, so I’d like to reap all the benefits I can get out of it. Can I get a what-what?

Things could be much worse. I am aware of this. I am extremely grateful to be young. Everything is still new and exciting to me. However, overcoming the obstacles and being taken seriously is difficult when you look like you just got your drivers license. The best solution that I have come up with to deal with this issue is to embrace your youth and prove your capabilities to those skeptics through your work. The work should speak for itself, right?

So in the words of Snoop Dogg (because I’m young):

“Nothin’ to it but to do it”.

One.

ONE. What does this number mean to you? What can this number possibly mean to me, my friends and colleagues?

Well, recently I’ve come to understand that ONE is a significant number. ONE minute can be devastating. A proposal that is time-stamped ONE minute late can be a deal breaker for being considered for a project. ONE minute late can take you off the boards for consideration! Now I’m not so sure that punctuality was enforced heavily enough in school!

ONE minute could mean something great too! A proposal time-stamped ONE minute early equals an enormous sigh of relief! Whew! We made it! All of those hours and last minute crises were all worth it! We made it with ONE minute to spare.

ONE minute of my time equals diddly squat of company money, whereas ONE minute of a principal’s time equals like 600% of my time. That’s significant.

ONE degree. If a wall is drawn ONE degree off, that could add up to a LOT of extra dollars spent to construct a wall assuming that the length of the wall is a considerable distance. Think about it. Just ONE degree could be unrecognizable to your eye when working on a 14” computer screen and then, BAM! $4,000 (or more) later it adds up to 25 additional lineal feet (or more) of some ridiculously expensive wall type to a project. That's huge.

ONE inch. The same principles apply here as they did for ONE degree. Imprecise measurements can be a devastating mistake. It’s as simple as that.

ONE is generally considered a small number. ONE dollar isn’t much to anybody anymore. ONE minute seems like a blink of an eye in most circumstances. ONE degree - well, any unit of measure that isn’t precise is generally going to cause problems in the future, so should we really be shocked by this one? ONE inch - (see ONE degree).

And let’s not forget, ONE is the loneliest number.