Posted: May 5th, 2015

FORUM DESCRIPTION

Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

write an essay discuss the story and answer the questions.

An architect, who had worked for a firm for just over six years, was offered a position with a competing firm. The new firm offered higher pay and new opportunities for growth. The architect accepted the offer and provided two weeks’ notice. Although the architect offered to complete project responsibilities, the firm declined and terminated the employment contract immediately — not an uncommon practice. The firm agreed to compensate the architect for outstanding vacation time, however, they offered no other severance or assistance.

During six years with the firm, the architect’s responsibilities ranged from drafting and CAD operation to project design and finally project management. The firm’s marketing department possessed extensive project documentation; renderings by professional illustrators depicted his projects and a professional photographer documented completed projects (the photographer retained the copyright).The firm also produced in-house computer-generated images of some of the projects.

The architect felt entitled to copies of project renderings, and photographs and thought the firm was obligated to provide them.

The architect agreed to pay for the copies requested since the firm paid for the photography, the artist’s renderings, and the computer graphics. Was the firm obligated to provide copies of those materials?

Many of the drawings the architect completed were in storage six miles away from the office and the firm would not allow the architect to access without supervision. Was the architect still entitled to copies of the stored documents? The architect knew that the AIA Code of Ethics entitled employees to examples of work. Without permission the architect made copies of some of those documents while still employed by the firm. Was it ethical to make those copies without permission?

If the architect had spent his six years developing software for the firm, what would be an acceptable example of work? Would the architect be entitled to a copy of the software? If the architect had developed specialized details using research obtained while at the firm, would it be wrong to expect copies of those details?