Been living in NY for a little over 10 yrs now (surveying for 13) and the last few month have been the worst I can remember. I went to work for a smaller engineering consulting firm 2 yrs back. Last winter got bad but they found stuff to keep us going, billable and overhead to stay on board. Now they've asked myself and others to take a few weeks off as they cannot afford to keep us on staff. Anyone run into these situations? I was never asked in the past when working for larger firms. I'm debating going back when the weather breaks or look elsewhere. They seem to look at work differently than other outfits and bad attitudes to their clients and potential clients from what I see. Maybe I'm answering my own questions. Just curious what other are doing with the weather and trying to keep their current staff. Unlike the others I have my own equipment with survey and construction side work to keep me paid as not to be a burden on uncle sam.
As always stay warm my friends.B-)
As a small business owner, I could not imagine what it is like up north right now.
I feel for the employees, but from a business standpoint, I understand the owner's point of view. If you can't work, and there is nothing to do, I would have to do the same thing. It is a tough, tough decision.
I am solo now, but one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make was cutting the hours of a guy that I hired several years ago. He had worked on my crew at a previous employer, and when he got laid off after I had started my own firm, I hired him immediately. We were busy for about a year and a half, then the bottom fell out, and I just could not afford to keep him on full time any more. He was, and still is, a very, very good friend.
As an owner, you cannot go in the hole to keep your employees employed. It is tough, but sometimes you have to make the tough decisions to keep the doors open.
Hopefully it is a temporary situation, and the weather will break soon, and we all will be back working.
Good luck. In the end, you have to do what is best for you and your family.
First off, how did you guess the password for my wireless here at the house?? 😉
Seriously, winter is always a "down" time because of weather, no matter whether you're up "there" or down "here". Short sun and cold is the nemesis of field work.
As a business manager I try to plan for times like this. My guys keep comp time built up that I prefer they use in the winter. And quite simply, we can't bill in the winter as we do in the summer.
I may be in a minority, but I try and help out my employees as much as I can when the weather sits down. We've got some 'projects' around the office that they work on when they just flat can't get out in it. It's definitely not NY here, but I don't think I've written any checks for less than 32 hours all season.
And no, I don't make as much money in the winter as I do other times of the year. If I wanted to get depressed, I'd look and see how much I've lost...
But we all pull together and get through each year.
Good luck and pray for warmer weather. B-)
Relax, collect unemployment, ski, snowmobile, go ice fishing. It will be crazy busy in a few weeks when weather breaks. We had too many mild winters before this season in the northeast. Many construction projects had planned to work all 12 months a year, and Karma has caught up with them. I wish I didn't have to go in the field for a few more weeks. Production is terrible, right now. Ground is like concrete. But have to head back out tomorrow with -8°F temps in am, and high of 18°F. But at least low winds with sunshine.
Followed a coyote chasing a deer about 1/2 mile down the centerline of State highway 8 in Adirondacks today.
3ft snow in woods.
Ha ha ...it worked out to be my screen name by choice. Also ebay user name. I cant remember anything else.
I see other firms are looking for people now or maybe just trying to jump ahead. Im a tech nerd who likes messing with all the newer survey equipment and i try to demo them out as much as possible. Maybe its karma too. I really wanted to learn more of the 3d scanning but theres few companies around here with those. I would have to travel farther from home which ive done in the past and can again if need be. I almost got out surveying all together until a few years back when i had the chance to work with gps machine control and met a few other surveyors learning it too. I still dont use the training as often as few contractors have the equipment full time in use. So I did alot of convential stake out. Still trying to convince people of cost benefit and savings over time. Maybe i should do sales? Around here it would be like trying to sell water to a well.
Damn mother nature!
Funny about the coyote. I found the lower part of a deer leg in my driveway last week.. The blood was still bright red and limb was flexible. Fresh meat!
Unfortunately i dont ski, snowmobile, fish, play hockey or winter sports to enjoy the weather. Unemployment doesnt pay enough to cover bills and mortgage. Luckily im a skilled carpenter from previous work and found work that will pay way more to cover bills for at least the next three weeks. Either way im still going to apply at other firms that were looking for well experienced field guys. Last year was tough this year got worse. What might happen next year. I cant say. But neither am i willing to chance it.
Stay warm tomorrow. Bring coffee on a propane torch to thaw the ground!
This will be the first week that I did not do any field work by no choice of my own.
Things are pending and it may open up next week. I can remember Marches where I had a few days of surveying in a tee shirt and shorts in the middle of the month.
Paul in PA
Would need to do paper for a HOT PERMIT, torch won't help much any. They'll give me few laborers with a rock drill and grinder.
Crappy weather makes field work a challenge year round. We may have three or four days in a row where standing up is a challenge due to the wind, let alone trying to keep a total station from quivering. 100F+ days are days to find an air conditioner, not chop line or dig holes in roads looking for monuments. It takes more than a few drops of rain for me to pack up the gear, but I'm not risking my high dollar gear in a thunderstorm (Been there, done that, spent more on repairs than the job billed out.) Subzero is no longer in my work vocabulary. I try to build in opportunities for things that can be done on days when field work is not a good option, but, sometimes there are more crappy days than busy work to be done.
We can relate but we can't tell you what is right for you. Only you can take that gamble based on what you know and what you think you know.
It's the norm in winter time around here for field work to slow to a trickle and most people know that going in. I started off as a field guy but quickly realized I'd being facing unemployment during those dark and cold months if I didn't expand my bag of tricks. With that in mind I found a position that allowed me to develop my drafting skills to a marketable level. Now when field work grinds to a halt because of weather, I usually have a pile of drafting projects that have been saved for just such occasion to keep myself out of the unemployment line. It seems that the east coast received all our snow and winter weather this time around so this winter is the exception and field work has only been slowed by the lack of snow to get into places we usually can only access when the wetlands are frozen. Snowmachines don't work all that well without snow. Spring is just around the corner. Hang in there.
When the weather is questionable, I like to ask the client to contact me when they are ready to meet me at the property and walk the job.
That is where I start.
Your situation is very similar to mine except that I haven't been asked to take any time off just reduce my hours to not less than 24 hours a week. To stay on the company's health plan I need an average per month of 24 hours a week. 80% of that is non-billable. I'm not complaining, but I can't live on 24 hours a week. It was nice at first. Gave me time to get some things done around the house and enjoy life a little. Now I'm out of money and can't afford to do anything but stay home and eat beans and rice.
I'm moving on. Been looking since the 1st of the year and have some good solid leads. It means moving from where I'm at. Selling the house as it was listed this week. Another home I have 4 hours away has been on the market since September.
The company I work for is an excellent company. Never in their history have they laid personnel off in 68 years.
But I'm done.
SD
In the last six weeks I've been able to do one field work project and that was establishing some State Plane Coord's on a project for an engineer, and that was on the beach that was blown clear!
I am a month behind a big road project because of the snow. But at least the client isn't waiting for me yet, the wetlands have to be flagged first!
Dtp
I bought another X90 OPUS last week or so and haven't used it yet. I haven't been able to dig deep enough to find dirt.
It's nice to be able to take your time doing nothing for a while. I'm done doing that though. Yea. Surveying is slow here in western PA during winter.
> Your situation is very similar to mine except that I haven't been asked to take any time off just reduce my hours to not less than 24 hours a week. To stay on the company's health plan I need an average per month of 24 hours a week. 80% of that is non-billable. I'm not complaining, but I can't live on 24 hours a week. It was nice at first. Gave me time to get some things done around the house and enjoy life a little. Now I'm out of money and can't afford to do anything but stay home and eat beans and rice.
> I'm moving on. Been looking since the 1st of the year and have some good solid leads. It means moving from where I'm at. Selling the house as it was listed this week. Another home I have 4 hours away has been on the market since September.
> The company I work for is an excellent company. Never in their history have they laid personnel off in 68 years.
> But I'm done.
>
> SD
I was even helping them out for the last 8 weeks too by not coming in 5 days a week. Sometimes 3-4. While not getting paid. Thanks god my wife has great health care. Seems other survey friends with bigger firms faired out ok due to jobs in NYC. Interior scanning, floor substructure layout, crack monitoring, etc. but the smaller firms that only did boundry and topos or lot line went nowhere fast. Im still a firm believer on diversifying during bad times but some people will never change. Contractors were calling in looking for layout that pays pretty well but they didn't want to travel a little farther away. Too bad for them now. But asking someone to collect and then come back weeks later is leaving a bad taste for me to deal with. Im already planning on working for a GC ive done a ton of work for in the past starting monday so hopefully i wont be down to rice and beans. I always stayed in contact with people i know who generally stay busy. Its a two way street.
Good luck selling your house. Im stuck in mine till whats owed equals value...i too want to move somewhere else. Hopefully warmer.
Agree other parts of the country faired out great and companies are hiring surveyors out there. I was looking nationwide today.
We shut the office down for two weeks due to the weather. We broke all time records here in February for being the coldest on record. Snow hasn't gone anywhere. Been along time since we've done this.
About 4-5 feet of snow here in Nova Scotia and no sign of it going anywhere in the next week or two. Colder than the arctic for all of February too so I have been at home most days except for a couple easy jobs that were almost drive-bys.
Pretty much the norm around here for winter although some winters have less snow than what we have right now.
I have a 20 acre wood lot to get into so might venture out next week and try to do something there...have lots of work to do but waiting till spring.
I haven't done much of anything in several weeks. We were hit with two decent snow storms one week apart with rain in between, resulting in major flooding. The river right behind me came within 4' of us, although many others in this area weren't so lucky. I am behind on several projects but most of my work consists of boundary surveys with local clients, so they understand since they are dealing with the same problems. I am solo and I don't have to worry about employees' well-being though. I certainly feel for you. The good news is that the sun is coming out, the temps are rising and the snow is melting. Good luck.
