Pros
- Can't think of anything specifically good... I guess I rarely worked overtime (though there were certain supervisors who did keep trying to pressure/guilt me into working 14 hours a day) - Pay and time off are average. - They pay for licensure exams and also time off for each exam.
Cons
I joined Perkins Eastman as a junior architect in one of the west coast offices. I had high ambitions and was misled during the interview about what role I would have and what projects I would work on. I was assigned to mind-numbing, demeaning tasks on boring projects that had no purpose but to make money for the principals. Still, I gave it time to see if things will improve. I discussed my goals with them after a while and told them I would like to have more responsibility and work on different projects. Here is where all the false promises started. For over a year they kept promising to put me on a different project soon, and they never did (though they kept saying how happy they were with my work). At Perkins Eastman, employees are only treated as production tools, regardless of their goals and capabilities. The managers will just run the numbers and make you work on whatever project makes them more money: A year of doing enlarged bathroom plans, moving lights and outlets around, making renderings of ugly spaces. All while being micro-managed by incompetent managers whose only accomplishment was having tolerated everything long enough to climb up the ladder. I felt bored, trapped, and undervalued the entire time. And based on conversations with my coworkers, many others felt the same way. Overall, there was an atmosphere of both frustration and apathy. Then on top of it all, there were the office meetings where the bossman would brag about *just how much* profit the firm was making, while the designers barely make a living. Joining Perkins Eastman was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I think of it as a wasted year of my professional life. I just wish I had quit sooner.
