My Job - A quick Description of the Frustration

This semester takes me away from college for three and a half months. It may sound like a brilliant thing, and let me tell you - it is. It surely is one hell of a time to be away from classes and lectures and exams and all things undesirable related to studies. There is so much to training under a qualified "architect", so much to know, and I have to experience it in person to understand. There is a reason why I enter this post today - and it is not to celebrate the happiness about my being away from college, but is to tell everyone about my work related disease.

Surely, and obviously, I am NOT frustrated by how my "colleagues" are. They are nice people and considering that they used to study with me once upon a time, it makes things even more comfortable for me. It is not that the principal architect treats me bad either. He's a nice fellow, who has never ever raised his voice against any of us (sad to say that ain't the case with his wife) and has even allowed me to take leave off the office for two days so I could participate at jipmer's spandan. Office hours are also favourable, it doesn't demand stress on me, and the number of breaks per day exceed the number of fingers on any one of your hands. What the fuck am I cribbing about right?

Again, i say, the office is not the issue. It is not the people. It is what they ask of me.

What they ask of me may seem make a layman react - "SO WHAT?". You know, being asked to render images - thats OK, it ain't a big deal. Being asked to detail out drawings - OK. Being asked to estimate values - is OK. Being asked to draw elevations - is also OK. --------------BUT, and a big big but at it, being asked to "design" interiors of a building referring to images downloaded - that is NOT OK.-------------- The worst part is - I could risk saying NO and get myself fired. The frustration of not being able to say "no" to the "design" assignment is something that is undescribable, but obviously thats not what causes my work related disease, and is actually the refer part that gets onto me. Though the word refer and design sounds quite normal to anyone reading this, it sounds more like copy to me. This illness will probably die down after I'm done with it, but finishing this assignment is going to be like flogging my own arse.

There is absolutely no design ethics in this office - and though this sounds like an absolutely chauvinistic remark, I say that women can't design (again - there ALWAYS are exceptions). They can't expect other people to design either, just like whats happening now. Design involves creativity, not just good aesthetic sense - a lesson I want to teach to all students of architecture. If the creativity in an architectural project goes missing, then from it the label "art" is going to be struck off, torn and mutilated. Which - by the way - I hear happens in most offices. :-( But let me give due credit where it belongs - the designs that enter this office from elsewhere - i.e the building plans that come here from other offices to let us finish the interiors, are absolutely gruesome. It is a shame that those plans are even approved. So - the "designs" of this office aren't THAT bad either. Somehow, I am in a place thats at the bottom of the design ladder - at the feet of this design being if i may call it that, and the others around are below in the shit thats stuck onto the chappals of this design-being.

Nobody in the office will realise my pain, because I am going to hide it. It is not an easily comprehended situation. Anybody related to the field of design - ANY sort of design - may just be able to understand how and what I feel. When will this world change???

Another one of my posts describing what I loathe. :-) Until next time, Bye.