Ive just secured my first party chief position at a very reputable firm with an old school by the book PLS. this job has the best pay and benefits ive ever had. i start next week. Im just about to be 3 years into my survey career. any general advice?
first: congrats!
own it all.?ÿ things you do well, and your mistakes.?ÿ?ÿ
excuses are the worst thing to bring in from the field.?ÿ i can always deal with mistakes, delays, etc.- and of course there are occasional reasons for excuses.?ÿ but i'd recommend getting in a habit of owning everything you bring back in the door at the end of the day- your data, your gear, your ragtag rodman...
it's not rocket science.?ÿ and even rocket science isn't nearly so hard as we scare ourselves into imagining.
If you bring a problem to the boss, try to offer three possible solutions at the same time.
Congratulations!
As flying solo said, own everything.?ÿ Be honest 100% of the time.?ÿ Good or bad, be honest to yourself, to your PLS, and to the profession.?ÿ Mistakes will happen, no one is immune to them.?ÿ They're also valuable lessons.?ÿ At the very least, if caught "cheating" ... your reputation will be ruined.?ÿ I've seen several chiefs "cheat" things in the field, only to get drummed out of the local business for good when they got caught.?ÿ No one believes them anymore, they can't be trusted.
Keep up with technology, it is our future (like it or not).?ÿ Never forget the 'old school' though, it's valuable in utilizing the new technology that continually comes around and progresses, with what you learned.?ÿ Tech is just a tool, that knowledge is what's important.
Also, when speaking with the public ... always know who you're talking to.?ÿ Everywhere.?ÿ Boundary, construction, etc ... it doesn't matter.?ÿ If you're working on a boundary, and someone comes up and starts talking ... you don't know them.?ÿ Nosey neighbors are just looking for gossip anyway.?ÿ I'm often asked 'why I'm surveying', and it often is a gateway for them wanting the details on who is selling, why they're selling, how much are they asking, etc ... This can be used in court, so watch what you say, and to whom.?ÿ?ÿ
A construction instance faux pas I made once, I told the wrong person about a mistake I'd found.?ÿ I mentioned, in passing, to a Project Manager on a new site I was on ... that one of his newly set drainage structures was low by over half a foot.?ÿ That wasn't the person to tell ... bad news travels fast.?ÿ He was angry at what he thought was a mistake by his drainage crew.?ÿ And they called my boss, who called me, and then everyone and their brother was involved and upset.?ÿ Turns out ... the office gave me wrong benchmark info ... the elevation was high by a little over half a foot ... also another lesson ... check into a 2nd BM, and not just looping it back to the first ...
Congratulations.?ÿ You now have the opportunity to let your light shine.?ÿ The key bit of advice I would offer is to treat each job as if you were the one signing everything at the end.?ÿ That will make you dig deeper and search wider for?ÿ existing monuments.?ÿ Learn to think as if you were the surveyor you are following who set those monuments and consider the technology and procedures used in that era.?ÿ And, remember, it's not all about measurements, it's about the correct locations.
Congratulations! Don't depend solely on numbers. Use your eyes. If it doesn't look right, it may not be. Be aware of fatigue. Mistakes are often made in the late afternoon. Learn from your mistakes; they are great teachers. Stay within the scope of a job. When in doubt of what you need to locate, stake-out, etc., call the office. Don't do anything to embarrass your company. Dress for success. Perception is everything. If you look like you just crawled out of a hole, people will think your work is the pits.
Attitude is everything. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Review the experience requirements for getting a license?ÿ in your state.?ÿ
Keep a journal describing your work, especially when what you are doing is relevant to those requirements.
Try to become familiar with the finished product and process, it is important to understanding your role but rarely is the finished product emphasized and explained to the field crew.?ÿ
Keep an open mind, be thoughtful and methodical even if you have to force that a little.
-Get out while you can-
Some advice I received, when I first started surveying:
Concentrate on doing the job right the first time; you will get better and faster with time.
If you can take the best of every party chief you work with, and apply it to your own. You will be the best party chief around.
Listen to the people working under you. They can come up with some good ideas. You don't have to act on it; you are the one responsible, but at least listen and encourage them to speak up.
?ÿ
?ÿ
Familiarize yourself with your state??s minimum standards laws, as well as ALTA standards (if your company does them). This is what your boss is following, and if you know what he wants, he has less to explain to you every time you go out. Also, if you can catch something HE missed, he will know that you??re the man he can trust. A checklist with some routine QA/QC items on it could be very helpful too. When you??re finished for the day, you can check it off to make sure you didn??t miss anything (like those damn overhead wires or overhangs). Good luck and have fun!
Also, when speaking with the public ... always know who you're talking to.?ÿ Everywhere.?ÿ Boundary, construction, etc ... it doesn't matter.?ÿ If you're working on a boundary, and someone comes up and starts talking ... you don't know them.?ÿ Nosey neighbors are just looking for gossip anyway.?ÿ I'm often asked 'why I'm surveying', and it often is a gateway for them wanting the details on who is selling, why they're selling, how much are they asking, etc ... This can be used in court, so watch what you say, and to whom.?ÿ?ÿ
A construction instance faux pas I made once, I told the wrong person about a mistake I'd found.?ÿ I mentioned, in passing, to a Project Manager on a new site I was on ... that one of his newly set drainage structures was low by over half a foot.?ÿ That wasn't the person to tell ... bad news travels fast.?ÿ He was angry at what he thought was a mistake by his drainage crew.?ÿ And they called my boss, who called me, and then everyone and their brother was involved and upset.?ÿ Turns out ... the office gave me wrong benchmark info ... the elevation was high by a little over half a foot ... also another lesson ... check into a 2nd BM, and not just looping it back to the first ...
This is key here if you'll be doing anything construction related. I'm a project engineer but several times one of our survey crews may have gone somewhere to survey something and said the wrong thing to the wrong, nosy person only to have issues come up later from it. Some times it's not a bad idea to carry a business card with you & if somebody has questions refer them to the office to explain why you're there (unless you need to specifically survey their property for say a municipal project).
?ÿ
Also, like he mentions, always check in to multiple benches, rather than the same one. Again, I'm not a licensed surveyor but I've seen several instances where a bench's information was either recorded or referenced incorrectly in a field book or maybe bumped/damaged during site construction. From there, the office staff, would take the results from said error (usually with as-builts) as the gospel and have either the as-built plans noted as such or the contractor try to adjust for it where possible, only to find that a field crew member made a mistake which managed to slip past the survey dept head as the math on the field notes appeared fine. Some times it would get to the point of where we'd be ready to review & seal a set of plans weeks later only to have to send the crew back again once the blunder was discovered. I almost wish we'd spend an extra half hour or so upon each trip to the field to re-verify the project's control (within reason of course on the time factor)?ÿ?ÿ
?ÿ
Lastly, anybody in the office appreciates the effort a crew chief goes through to be thorough about all things discovered while surveying the property or when they've been honest about everything they've done. I've learned a lot from the thorough crew chiefs between their notes & their methodology when they hit a site. Don't feel certain about something? That's fine just let us know there could be an issue and somebody will take the appropriate actions. Feel like something may need to be revisited to verify it? Sure, I'd rather take the extra time to be certain than rush the job and it cause problems later (especially with gravity sewer & drainage). Pace yourself & move at a rate that you feel comfortable with in order to yield sufficient results & explain that to the office staff. But whatever you do, don't lie about something taking you all day just to stake under a dozen points for limits of construction along a wetlands' boundary (roughly 400' of line to cut through the woods with all the site's control pre-established & within a couple hundred feet as well). The contractor had already called screaming at us the engineers about "hey your surveyors are still up the hill hanging out at the truck shooting the breeze and it's 3PM - we had our guys waiting for more LOC staking!" I caught a crew doing that and after catching a non PG-13 chewing myself from the developer & contractor about what "our guys" were not doing that day (let's just say that chief doesn't cash a paycheck from here anymore). That's another part of being honest; we're never 100% efficient and everybody needs a quick breather/rest occasionally but don't show up on site just to hang out or talk to other company's employees and don't BS somebody either when the work is doable (I had walked that same line several weeks earlier with the wetlands' consultant). What made it worse was that the contractor had a clearing crew out there with a dozer & excavator that had even offered to help the field crew cut some paths down to the boundary & our guys said "naw we're good right now" haha... like really man you could work smarter/easier & be more expedient but you purposely chose to sandbag this one?!!
Keep notes of what you do, better than you think you will need.?ÿ Take pictures if necessary.?ÿ You are the eyes and ears of the person signing the surveys.?ÿ Make sure you give that person all the information.?ÿ If in doubt, ask questions. Don't cut corners. Listen to your crew, you can learn lots from them, even the new guys can teach you something you didn't know at the beginning of the day. (it may not be surveying related, but it gets you in a habit of learning).?ÿ Ask the CAD tech how to make his job easier with what you turn in.?ÿ Be respectful to your bosses and your subordinates. Never say it can't be done, instead figure ways to make it happen.
If you observe something, and ask yourself "should we locate that?" - 90% of the time, the answer is "yes". If it makes you wonder, chances are it will answer an as-yet unasked question in the office.
Also, more checks are better than only 1 or 2 checks on things. Many times when my crew ran into a difficult situation, I've wished they had measured more checks on other things. It gives me more info to use to identify and fix problems.
Try hard to follow instructions. When the boss asks you to look for a pin at some coordinate, be sure that no future surveyor finds that pin and calls to ask why you set a pincushions. (True story many times) if the boss asks you to run a 14 mile line and shoot all pins along the line in the woods, don't come back and say you were able to find one point where you could shoot both ends of the line (True story). I no longer have employees partly for those reasons. Bring back accurate data, avoid second guessing the boss, do not blame or berate your crew in front of others, read the books on your own time habitually, and you will be indespensible.congratulations!
