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Text of the page (random words):
someone who was already a four alarm fire flaming douche and it s even worse when it warps a good sane person and turns them into said type of douche i ve been continually silent because it feels like everything i have to say is either a raging against the machine and b isn t really an architecture problem but a white collar worker in 21st century america problem i suppose both of those are true and yet that doesn t make them less important i m furious when i watch a group of so called seasoned design professionals refuse to think futuristically or at least creatively about how they run their businesses and their piece of the profession and while i can t change that 100 right now i can do something our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter rev dr martin luther king jr i m trying to find ways to articulate my thoughts suggestions advice questions and general pot stirring commentary in a succinct manner i ve been undergoing a real change in how i spend my days and energy in the past year and i still have work to do fixing my 31 flavors of shit especially personally so i m trying to figure out how to write without giving myself another task cross to bear but i m here with you and still ultimately feel the same way it s a good profession but it s sick and it can get better if we try posted by lulu brown at 7 23 pm no comments monday august 18 2014 still here still angry i haven t had much to say lately well actually i ve had lots to say but it s all been angry and cranky i m still frustrated with my profession i m beyond weary of a profession that cuts its own throat by underbidding each other and undercharging for their work i m worn out by ridiculous deadlines and horrible communication and poor coordination and at least a hundred other things i m still working out how to improve it or at least my part in it i m torn between wanting to tell interns the truth about what i ve seen and knowing that as a upper level manager at a firm everything and anything i write on a blog can be held against me so thanks for tuning in now and again i m here posted by lulu brown at 6 41 pm 3 comments friday may 2 2014 coming up out of the trough of depression and burnout all i m so thankful for the occasional but regular comment and cheers i m getting from you all it s been entirely too long since i last posted and if you all disappeared and started reading other better and more informative architectural blogs i wouldn t be upset at all it s been a long haul since the burnout really kicked in late last summer the short version of the story is this after a few months of struggling weeping in the bathroom at work and barely able to tolerate other human beings at work i finally went on antidepressants the meds began lifting me out of my fog and a good therapist has been helping me peel back the layers of beliefs attitudes and behaviors that have led me to a place of burnout and hopelessness i am finally coming up out of the deep underwater trench that is depression and burnout like a submarine from the marianas trench part of my rise from the depths originated in seeing brene brown s ted talks on vulnerability courage and authenticity i read a couple of her books and found that they and her ted talks resonated deeply with me reading these going on meds and committing to good therapy brought me to a few of my own professional and personal breakdowns um i mean spiritual awakenings many of the traits and behaviors i ve sought to suppress and squelch in myself and that i ve recommended you all suppress and squelch are actually the things that make me and you interesting and real to others sharing my fears weaknesses concerns etc in a not too tmi way can actually inspire and motivate others and get them on my side i ve been living unsustainably energy wise writing two blogs serving on several committees at work keeping up a speaking gig on the side and doing almost full time billable work on projects is unsustainable maybe it s my age i turned 38 in fall 2013 or maybe it s that all my busyness has kept the depression at bay but it s time to accept my limits on time and energy it s also time that i hold those boundaries with others including my bosses my firm really does like value and support me when i melted down last summer fall many of the senior leaders and partners rallied around me and asked how can we help when i just folded in my chair and cried they just sat with me and said whatever you need we ll help we want you here for the long run when i finally decided what i wanted they said great let s do it and did everything they could to deliver i ve been living my life for nearly 14 years like an intern just out of school trying to prove myself i didn t realize that i d already proven myself hopefully i can get back to posting a little more often as i start to feel better i must admit that so much of what i ve written in the past makes me feel like a fraud perhaps the truth is closer to a quote by oprah winfrey i know i know just indulge me a moment here when you know better you do better i realize that some of my advice to you all has been from a place of fear and not thoughtful strength and you all deserve better than that here s to giving you better and here s to you all the next generation of architects demanding better lulu posted by lulu brown at 5 34 pm 3 comments saturday december 28 2013 when it s deeper than burnout during these weeks who am i kidding months i ve been quiet on the interwebs i came to realize that my apathy comingled with fury was beyond burnout it became clear even after a long wonderful vacation with my husband that what i ve been experiencing was deeper than burnout it was full on irrefutable un ignorable in your face like a can of mace depression a fair amount of october and november were spent adjusting to an antidepressant and letting my coworkers know what was going on with me because i do in fact work with human beings they understood and agreed to help adjust my workload and schedule accordingly this wasn t just lulu is feeling kinda burned out this was now a medical condition that while it would pass eventually with medication and therapy it also must legally be accommodated and ethically and emotionally cannot be ignored i also spent the fall working on some project process research for the firm for which i work and i still had to fulfill my managerial duties of participating in staff performance reviews and some hr tasks these chores kept me busy enough that i didn t feel totally useless and gave me a reason to come to work every day while the lack of serotonin in my brain told me that work was bullshit and life was bullshit and there s no point in anything anyway fortunately i have several amazing and wonderful relatives and coworkers and friends who helped me combat these despondent voices i cannot thank them enough assembling coherent helpful blog posts has been tough for me these past few months and it s still a struggle while i m still not done wrestling with this condition i at least have the clarity to see when my angry apathy is the depression talking versus when it s truly work that has me pissed off one sign that it s depression if i say i hate my job and someone asks what i would rather do instead and i say nothing nothing sounds good that s the lack of serotonin talking things are looking up professionally i have some professional speaking engagements coming up in the spring and i ll be working with some different project teams in my office to see if that helps with my meh ness i promised myself i d try again at this blog i hope i m not done trying to help and mentor others wherever i can but if i ve given all i can then i have to accept that i ve found in the last few months that i was right about some things and i ve been dead wrong about some other things i hope to have to courage to share these things with you all in 2014 til then have a lovely holiday season and here s to a new year lulu posted by lulu brown at 8 57 am 3 comments monday september 23 2013 is there a place for the quiet leader part of the discussions my firm is having about the next ten years involves leadership some of the conversations are basic who s retiring who s staying who s advancing or should be advanced and so on some of these conversations are more abstract and revolve around leadership itself we ve had previous discussions about what does it take to reach certain titles in our office but there s still something lacking something not quite right about those rules many of our firm s and indeed our society s hallmarks of leadership include what might be considered extroverted behaviors and traits speaking up and often being visible tooting your own horn being involved in multiple visible roles etc are often considered what it takes to be a leader in our culture but if we are to believe the research presented in quiet the power of introverts in a world that can t stop talking and i do believe it myself we need quiet more reserved and less out there leaders as much as we do the social butterfly multitaskers that we ve rewarded with leadership roles and power for so long i m often thought of as an extrovert but the truth is i prefer to work alone or with only one or two more people and i require a lot of alone time to recover from public speaking and teaching engagements i consider myself just barely an extrovert but i also find myself getting louder and more involved and vocal when something really matters to me even now while trying to slog through my burnout and get some much needed rest i find myself compelled to be involved in these long range planning efforts going on in my firm right now this is due in part to the fact that it s something i ve wanted to be involved in for a long time and it s also due to the fact that whenever something needs to be done as part of this planning there is only a handful of people willing to do it so it falls into my lap or the lap of one of a few colleagues extroversion through coercion so it seems so i do wonder is there a place for the quiet leader the monotasker the thoughtful sage in lieu of the verbose savior and can architecture make that kind of leader work both in its firms and as its face in society posted by lulu brown at 4 58 am 2 comments labels tough questions monday september 16 2013 random thoughts on architectural work i still don t have anything lengthy and coherent to blog but i have had some musings i thought i d share our firm has been going through some major changes regarding how we manage and treat employees and how we re going to move forward for the next ten years and the conversations that are causing and are caused by these changes have given me some random insights and or ideas or maybe they re just brain droppings empowerment is a two way street your manager needs to allow you to take something on and run with it and do it without his her micromanagement or constant supervision on the other hand you have to be willing to accept responsibility if when there are errors and do what it takes to get that task or part of a project done if you can t get right what i ve given you so far chances are good that i m not going to give you new or different stuff to do the farther you go up the ladder at an architecture firm the less actual architecture you do every day the biggest skill that young architects and interns as well as the rest of the world isn t learning before they hit the work world is how to communicate clearly and civilly your bosses didn t learn it either but we have to start somewhere with good communication in the workplace good communication doesn t mean always being nice or never calling people on poor performance it means that when you do call out bad performance it s about the performance and not the person cultural change takes time even when an entire organization is on board with changing the way it works it can still take 3 5 years to see the changes and get them firmly entrenched in daily office culture it s still worth doing just be patient people want change but people don t want to be changed winston churchill no matter how much you try to help make things better there are always going to be a few people who aren t going to be happy it s still worth making things better there are two sides to the happiness at work coin one side is that you have to be able to do the things you enjoy doing so that you can stand coming to work every day the other side is that you have to do the crappy stuff sometimes in order to get the job done not every day should be a horrible grind but not every day can be sunshine and flowers posted by lulu brown at 5 40 am no comments labels communication is not a four letter word it s not just a job it s an adventure saturday august 24 2013 update on lulu the duchess of burnout first off thanks to everyone for the kind emails and comments they re appreciated and i m thankful that anyone is moved to comment or email at all many of my posts go uncommented except for the occasional anonymous spam comment saying i much like this and have made bookmarked it or some other such nonsense so thanks again to address my burnout i realized that while i do need some rest i also do better when i have something to do i created a project for myself that involved reviewing my office s processes for planning and staffing projects and my two primary bosses agreed that this would be worth doing i ll be working only on this project until late september at which point i m going on a two week trip out of the country for a nice long vacation when i return my bosses and i will assess what i ll be doing next based on how much of my analysis project i ll be able to finish by the time i leave in the meantime i ve been pondering a variety of professional and personal topics none of which i can discuss here with any coherency or brevity but i m working on it i ve broken a few of my own rules lately including that i ve actually told several of my colleagues and interns architects about the nature of my burnout i ve realized that the old stiff upper lip behavior in the guise of being professional only works to a point in the 21st century workplace this is just one of several big shifts i ve had in my thinking lately and it s taking some time to get used to the idea that the way i ve worked acted and behaved in the past several years may not be serving me well anymore having said all that i should let you all know that i m not able to redline any resumes right now i have received a couple of questions about what to do with some ethical and professional workplace questions which i ll get to in due time thanks again for hanging in there with me and i hope to get back on track in the next few weeks lulu note someone asked recently about whether you can include work you ve done at your present previous firm into your own portfolio i would advise against bringing a lot with you but photos of the project alon...