I often run across these quotes about "your job is not who your are" or how not to make your job your identity. I both understand what they are trying to convey and puzzled by the conflict. I LOVE what I do - geoinformation is both my profession and my hobby. In my spare time I am creating a geodatabase of my daughter-in-law's data from her doctoral research in Antarctica (marine biology). I get to learn a whole new segment of our profession:-) I guess I am puzzled because I do love what I do and it IS an integral part of who I am. It reflects how my brain works, it challenges me intellectually, and it allows me to be creative. Okay, in my spare time I also read stuff about neuroscience or string theory, or maybe human migration and management theory if I'm tired of science; but the geosciences are my passion.
So I do not see that I lose myself by identifying myself with my career. I guess it's not my precise job I identify so much with as the profession itself. I think there are like minded people on this board - people who spend their spare time setting up equipment to run statistical analysis on different scenarios, or other things not a part of the day to day activities. Only those outside of a bell curve do that kind of stuff:-)
So where do you fit in this schema? Is surveying just a job or is it a big part of who you are?
Those sayings apply to people who have jobs that suck......not us. Although this can suck once in a while too. For me, the good far outweighs the bad. I definitely AM a surveyor.
Land surveying is needed everywhere. That it why it has allowed me to raise my children far from the maddening crowd. It was a choice. After being my own employer for nearly 30 years I am practically unemployable out there in corporate America. Start time and end time bend around whatever I decide they should bend around. There are no coffee breaks as I gave it up in 1976 but there are plenty of nature and story telling breaks. But, like a dairy farmer, the job is right in front of me 24-7 as I work from my home.
geonerd, post: 324230, member: 8268 wrote: So where do you fit in this schema? Is surveying just a job or is it a big part of who you are?
Good question. I can't really say I've ever thought about it from that perspective.
Of course surveying is my job. I take care of business regularly during the week to keep things rolling, even when I am not that inspired to do so. But as I approach retirement I am realizing that although I've been a professional surveyor almost 40 years, I've also been much more in other areas of interest.
But to answer your question; I have a job and surveying IS a big part of who I am. While the job may go away, I'm pretty sure I will always "be" a surveyor.
I have been pretty clear that I work to live, not the other way around. It's the main reason I moved back to Cape Cod to work. I feel like I'm on vacation each day! (Especially in the summer)
I did work the 60 hour weeks in my younger days, down in Nashville, but I soon figured that I would rather work 40 hour weeks and have fun every day after work!
I will probably be known as "that land surveyor" just because of the preponderance of plans I've recorded over 35 years.
But mostly I'll be known as the father of the Poole Kids 🙂
That question, in the context of any field of endeavor, is one that everyone answers over the course of their lives. Some answer it explicitly, others implicitly, but it gets answered for all of us.
I've known many corporate executives who, having defined themselves totally as, say, corporate counsel for ..., or senior vice president of ..., or some other important or mediocre title, had no identity once their job ended. It's particularly harmful when the job ends because of a firing or layoff. Some wander for years, others get it together and move on. But the culprit is defining themselves by a job or job title. And, I think, that is the real context of the general question.
I saw it at a lower level when I taught community college math. People who had been laid off from textile or furniture jobs that they had comfortably held for 20 years had great trouble defining themselves as students and even greater trouble in finding a field suitable for their study. This was far more than retraining; it went deep into these folks psyches.
As a satisfied professional, you have a great advantage. You can always go where the work is, and there will always be work, just not as much sometimes and too much others. The real question is can you be happy in any role in surveying? I'll bet that you can, so I see little danger in defining yourself as a surveyor.
As to being a nerd, that word is complimentary, not pejorative. When people ask my wife what I do, she answers, "He cyphers." And years ago, when my wife worried that our choice for a vacation didn't have enough activities for me, my daughter said, "Mom, Dad is a bookworm. He'll be ok no matter where he is." So that's who I am: a cyphering bookworm!
