I just read a post by Bob Borson, FAIA, in his Life of an Architect Blog. He just left the firm where he was a principal – and had his name on the door for six years – to join a much larger firm.
To walk away from your former mentor, the team you’ve groomed, your clients.
That’s intense!
It made me realize how lucky I was in joining the SPWD. It was a total no-brainer decision when the opportunity arrived. A major pay raise with a pension, a reasonable expectation that I would not be doing crazy overtime (my previous firm was good at managing hours I could see a tsunami of work coming), and a status upgrade within my career.
The only downside was that I wouldn’t be wielding the big sketch designer pen, but I never had that role. I have been a DD thru CA architect, so going client side was a pretty natural jump.
In deliberations with my friends and family, it was a question of “dang this looks amazing, what I am missing?”
And it turns out what I missed was the hidden blessing of being handed a no-brainer career opportunity. Usually life consists of tradeoffs, giving up one thing to get another.
In this case, it was just a question of “how long is it gonna take to get a formal offer!?”