I feel better having more than a king size bed as my office.
I can relate to that.;-)
I miss my office. But you do what you have to do to survive.
I don't need an office but I do like having one.
I might start selling my invention. I'll call it the 'The Besk King Executive System' (Sounds like basking office executive System)
or
'Desk-N-abed' with different classes. Single, twin, full, queen, king.
Installations starting at $99.99 first hundred customers get a free blanket and a pillow!
Might even come out with a pre-wired model. I'll call it the 'Plug-N-lay upgrade' Complete with motorized tilt and of course a coffee maker.
I'll be RICH!
> The excuses are about what I expected. And now let's hear the complaining about low pay, no respect from clients or realtors, etc etc.
>
> You don't have to spend $1000 a month for rent, but you do need to appear professional. If you have an office in your home, fine. But have an entrance so that clients don't have to go through the family living area where they trip over toys and dirty laundry.
>
> It's not a self righteous thing - it's a fact of life.
>
> Look at realtors - most have a nice office and very little complaint about 6% fees (or higher).
>
> Look at doctors. Even if they have a home office, I guarantee it's not an extra bedroom down the hall that people have to walk through the living room to get to.
>
> Look at lawyers. Even sole practitioners generally have an office, a waiting room, and a conference table / room.
>
> Etc. Etc. Etc.
>
> Say what you want, make all the excuses you want, but the public perceives us as we act. And that reflects the respect we get.
The perception persists from days long gone by:
(excerpt from "The Surveyor, Pioneer to Professional", W.B. Williams)
Of members of the survey partys that may have settled in the frontier areas of the congressional surveys - 'who better to show settlers where the lines were located than those who worked on the original survey? It mattered little about their position on the survey party, as long as they had been on it.
There was not enough surveying demand to enable this pioneer surveyor to make a living, so he generally had a farm and did the surveying in his free time and what he took in from this source was all "velvet." Therefore he was satisfied with a modest fee which without a doubt, was further influenced by his memory of the $3-mile fee paid for the original survey. So the tradition that a surveyor worked cheaply came into being.
He maintained no office; he kept few notes and was very jealous about those he did keep. Some of the old timers got their greatest thrill in life from showing up any other surveyor who had the temerity to operate in what they considered their territory. So the tradition was born that no two surveyors ever agree.
The composite picture of the ideal land surveyor that developed in the mind of the public in those early days was (and to some extent still is) that of a man of about 60 who still had the constitution of an 18 year old so that he could cover alot of miles in a day; who had an instrument that showed him where to find or place the corner stakes; who had a steel tape with which he could measure to hundreths of a foot, no matter who was holding the other end of it; who required a certain amount of oversight in his work because he was a simple-minded sort of person, or he would charge more for his time; who remembered all the surveys he had made and could go up to any section corner or property corner he had surveyed and shoot a slug of tobacco juice at the exact spot the stake was buried; and yet, one whose word was final in regard to the location of any property corner which he set until another surveyor questioned it, and then they were both crazy bums.'
> I don't know what I'd do with the 50 years worth of files, though.
Steve - you're REALLY young looking for your age...
If I had to choose, because of the economy, between a nice office or a presentable field truck then I would choose the truck.
It's a moving billboard and is seen all over town. I think this is why it's important for crews to dress appropriately while in the field. Dirty, sweaty, yes but not ratted out jeans and megadeth t-shirts.
Both of the local surveyors in Lawton have nice offices with conference tables but they do a lot of heavy subdivision and commercial work. Someone that did nothing but lot surveys would likely not really need the extra expense since 99% of the time they will meet on the jobsite.
I think it just depends on your type of business. If you have an office and it's used all the time by clients then you would want a comfortable and friendly atmosphere.
Deral
Well, I've only been working in surveying for about 44 years but I've still got all my dad's survey files too and they go back to the mid-1950's.
Just when you say something like this that makes me think "you know, Radu might be an okay dude"
> .....You could have a swanky down town office that looks more like a bordello! That does not grant a right of passage to professionalism.
>
You follow it up with an entire truckload of non-sense like this that just cements my first impression of you.
> If they win the job and satisfactorily deliver the product then they can be seen as Professional whether they work from home or not.
>
> If they win the job and do not deliver the product with satisfaction, instead reducing their costs by cutting corners and even if working from an office then their action is prostitution .
>
Both scenarios are prostitution.
That depends, can you dance real good?
Yeah, I kinda figured it was a family business...
I've always envied you guys who got to grow up surveying. My 13 year old doesn't share the unbridled enthusiasm that I think I would have had at that age growing up in a nuclear survey family. Seems like the old rpls.com had a thread once about family survey businesses. That would be a good topic to revisit.
