The miserable lot
At the end of last month, the City & Guilds of London Institute published its annual Happiness Index, a survey to track the satisfaction of the country's workforce.And the winner, i.e. the happiest lot, are the Hairdressers !!!
Then, followed closely by the Clergy, Chefs/Cooks, Beauticians, Plumbers etc etc....
And...
at the very bottom of the league, i.e. No. 39, are:
ARCHITECTS !
The survey shows that vocational jobs are more satisfactory and rewarding than white-collar works. Of course.... to change a 2p screw would cost one's lifetime saving if he/she ask someone to do.
Well, the result wasn't a surprise to us in the office. A couple of years or so ago, the popular weekly magazine on built environment, BD (Building Design) headlined 'Public blackout architects', after a survey among the public found out that only a minute percentage of them could even name a living British architect. And this week aj's (the architects' journal) article on the published Index says:
Indeed it is true, particularly in this country where the profession sounds rather glamour, but only just hat, no little more. In reality, contrary to the public perception, we are indeed scrapping the bottom trying to earn a descent living, whilst being used as slaves by the industry, especially the payers (clients). Small fees and tons of works seems to be a norm. In addition, over the past years, most of the role architects used to do have been robbed by others.Members of the architectural profession have chosen the most miserable career, according to a new research results revealed last week.
Only 2 per cent of architects are 'very happy' in their professional lives....
.... which showed that architects are also caused high levels of stress by their employment.
A few months ago, a friend's son who was deciding his career path and university course asked my opinion about going into achitecture, one of the fields he was interested to explore. Even before he could finish his sentence, i said ... 'no'.
So, yes... it is true > we are the miserable lot.
[ Well done to my fellow countryman architect friend who jumped out from the wobbly boat and opened the successful Malay-Thai restaurant in Manchester, Congrat kawan! Another architect friend is also looking to go into food business ]
posted by Atok @ 11:40:00 pm
