Читать книгу Professional Practice for Interior Designers - Christine M. Piotrowski - Страница 92

As an employee, you are no doubt looking for opportunities that will challenge you to use the design education you have recently completed. Truthfully, your new bosses probably want to challenge you but they will not quite be ready to let you loose on clients or major projects in those first weeks or even months. You have to pay your dues, and I don't mean to a professional association.

Your boss will be assigning you work responsibilities that might even seem beneath your skill level. Just about everybody who has graduated from an intense interior design program has thought to themselves in those first weeks, “I didn't go to school to file price lists and brochures!” There is actually method to this assignment: it is an excellent way for the novice to learn sources…and indirectly work with several experienced designers.

While projects are being processed, interior design work in most studios and offices is intensely busy. The owner and senior designers are pushing to prepare whatever design documents are needed for the projects on the schedule board. Often decisions on specifications for the wide range of products used in a residential or commercial project have to be made quickly. The time to agonize over the floor plan, or color scheme, or selections is speeded up sometimes exponentially from the academic environment.

A firm owner told me a story about a very talented recent graduate. This relatively new employee came up to one of the senior designers and said, “How about this carpet for Mr. Brown's house?” The senior designer looked at the novice blankly and said, “That project was presented two weeks ago.” After a discussion with the employee, the owner decided to let that person go. The office is not going to slow down to your pace. You are going to have to learn to work at the office's pace. That includes being very conscious of time management.

It is perfectly reasonable for you to expect that the boss or senior designers will spend time training you in the way the office does projects. However, because of the speed at which design work must be done, sometimes those experienced individuals don't give much thought to their training responsibilities. You need to ask questions, ask to be involved, and ask how you can help. When you are new, asking questions is not going to be considered a bad thing. Sitting around reading trade magazines waiting for someone to involve you only makes you look like you are not interested in working.

Although you may be impatient to be given responsibility for designing a project, it is important for you to understand that the time spent in learning on the job is necessary to help prevent you from making mistakes that can hurt both your short‐term and your long‐term career. As an entry‐level designer, you still have a lot to learn. Be committed to that learning curve and before you realize it, you will have project and client responsibilities!