One thing never taught in any surveying class
Attention Deficit Disorder in the surveying workplace. It’s not a medical thing. It’s a challenging situation in most survey offices.
I set out this morning to finish one survey plat. About two hours worth of time required. I have yet to open the file and it is 1:45 p.m.
A County Commissioner called to get educated on a specific road that appears to be open but that was closed over 20 years ago. It also happens to be on the county line, so half would be in the neighboring county and require their support to reopen the road. Provided the history of that route and how the same people had made the same request to the County Commission about eight to ten years ago and were told NO WAY!
The County Counselor just sent an email asking about a different specific route and how to write a proper description for that route for a temporary speed reduction resolution. Fixed him up.
A surveyor from another State called to inquire as to what survey information the County has that might be helpful for an ALTA request for an industrial property in a nearby city. He was hoping we might have railroad strip maps covering the area next to the site. We do.
My farm mechanic has sent me eight or more pictures of what he is finding wrong with the combine we hauled home last week.
My wife is attending what is the first day of school for teachers. Students don’t come in until Thursday. She had heard previously that a student had been enrolled whose first name is Beowulf. Today, she learned he was transferring in from my school district, although he doesn’t live in either her district or mine. She told me his last name. I told her that I was nearly positive that he would be the son of someone we both know. Told her to check out his home address because if it was on Suchnadsuch Road, he would definitely be the son of a troublemaker extraordinaire. Turns out I was correct.
Had a twenty minute conversation with the County Coordinator of a neighboring county assisting him with three different issues. Sometime tomorrow, I will meet with him to wrap up all three items, as best I can. One of his issues involved two neighbors who hate each other. One wants to close a county road that is the only public route for the other fellow to access his house. The cops were called yesterday and both were charged with creating a public disturbance.
Former client called to request I come back to survey out a portion of his tract to be switched to being zoned as commercial property so the remainder of his tract can be downgraded to agricultural.
Need to take a little trip to the bank, courthouse and pharmacy before they close.
Who knows? Maybe, I can get to that drawing tomorrow. Maybe.
Edit: Neglected to mention receiving a call from a fellow surveyor needing help. He was out in the field on the opposite side of a highway from where I had a project five years ago. He thought something wasn’t right about the location of the section line of concern. As it turned out, I had to go back to another survey I did eight years ago for the same client to find the answer to his concern. I had found a bar set in 1993 by DOT surveyors following prior DOT work from 1965. The quarter corner is 29.0 feet north of the TW of the highway but only 11.85 feet north of the survey base line. He was confusing the baseline with the highway centerline as so many of our old highways were centered on the section line. Happy I could help him out. I’ve been in a similar situation in the past when calling him.
- 7 Replies
You should re-title your post…”All in a day’s work”.
Add twenty minutes for documenting all you did instead of what you wanted to do:)
????
Yes, I would enjoy some cheese and crackers to go with my whine.
Spoke with a surveyor today who wanted me to do all of his research for him. Life just doesn’t work that way unless real money is involved.
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!
Another thing they don’t teach you in school is how nice it is to be your own boss.
When I was working on my solo project this weekend a guy a couple houses down from my client wandered up sidewalk while I was scribing an X. We got to chatting and he asked if I was an LS. I said yes sir, y’all got the head cheese out here. ???? He kinda laughed and explained how he had worked as a survey field tech for half a dozen years with another local engineering company. He asked how I liked it so far and I go ‘You know what, it’s such a relief to be able to take as much time as I think is necessary to do the job and not have to worry about some guy who hasn’t been in the field for 20+ years raking me over the coals for it. It’s just really incredible”. He nodded some more and took off a few minutes later.
I forget the exact name of it now but we actually had an upper level class i school that was supposed to teach some of the basic elements of running a survey business. I remember talking about business plans, accounting principles, and other really generic stuff like but there was never really any talk of generating proposals and managing project budgets.
The closest I can think of was a story from the instructor who said he had worked for the forest service for a number of years and they had once spent a couple weeks looking for a single monument. He made the comment that you’ll basically never, ever see that in private sector work.
In hindsight I wish he had spent more time telling us that despite how important they say recovering monuments are you’ll probably have to battle a bean counter the entire way to do it. That might not go away with your own business, but at least the bean counter is you.
Log in to reply.