I currently do most of my own field work. There are some people I trust enough to do it for me. With the trends in the Survey business that list is getting extremely short.
Here is a good example of the problem. I have a fence post not shown, with on old iron pin, and two nice stones. The picture does not do it justice, but the hole is nearly three feet deep, and four feet wide. The post and pin are easy to see, the round stone was the first stone found, but my curiosity as to why an old steel strap was coming out of the ground kept me digging. Many years ago, someone had placed the small rock into the loop of the steel strap to make it impossible to pull from the ground. Due to tree roots, it took me over an hour to dig and expose this. I know that they exist, but I unfortunately have never met a purely field crew with enough determination to do this. Too many crews I see would have located the wood post, or the pin and called it good.
When my name is on it...I want to dig it...plain and simple. The only question I have is, whether or not I should toss the round stone aside? I suspect someone knew a stone should be there based on the deeds, and put the round one there when they did not dig deep enough to find the original.
I wish I could go to the field, well maybe not right now when it is 105?ø outside, but I do wish I could spend some time doing the actual "survey" work. Unfortunately, the types of projects I work on don't allow for that. Currently I am working on a survey for a new highway ROW in the piney woods of East Texas. Being that this highway will affect close to 100 tracts (some very large), I would hate to think how long it would take, and how expensive it would be to use only RPLSs in the field.
Also, just as important as it is to have a crew with a good foundation for searching for boundary corners, I think it is very important that office staff is trained in proper ways to assist the crews to make sure they understand what evidence to search for.
I do all the field work and office work, especially with new employees. I train them and show them I can still do it. I had a boss that was a LS for a long time, and couldn't do the fieldwork anymore because he could figure out the equipment. I will not be like him.
In my experience an LS in the field is extremely rare, on similar frequency to an engineer visiting a construction site.
We've been fortunate to have an LS and a second person who has the potential to be an LS in the future on just about every crew. Sometimes the second person knows more about surveying than the LS. Having an LS doing the work doesn't mean you can tune out what that person/crew is doing.
I believe direct supervision is about knowing (with confidence) what your staff will/will not do as well as what they did/did not do (both in the field and in the office) AND communicating with them about the project. You need to know if your staff can comprehend and follow your directions. You need to know what the appropriate level of guidance/instruction is for each individual. You can't know the facts about each decision made out of your sight so you have to know about the character and knowledge level of the people who are making those decisions beyond your line of sight (field and office). When you have staff that you haven't worked with long enough to know about - be sure to send them out with someone who can assess whether they are making good decisions - the best person for this is you.
If you are in responsible charge of professional work (stamped or not) then you need be able to direct the work, know what happened/didn't happen, why that happened/didn't happen, and to be able to defend that work - whether or not the person in the field is licensed - AND you need to have enough control over the budget, schedule, and assigned staff so that you can ensure the task/project gets the level of attention that is required to exercise due diligence.
Webbed feet, post: 442147, member: 10038 wrote: I am curious how many licensed professionals still go out in the field. My opinion is that there are not enough LS's in the field training what to look for & where (in my area at least). Just want an idea % wise.
I go out in the field fairly often, but spend much more time in the office.
I am generally displeased with our world today that focuses almost entirely on profit making and very little on service provided. That is part of why I drive an hour each way to a doctor's office where the person I see has the correct set of initials following her name and not some inferior level of education with alternate initials. I refuse to be shuffled off to lower paid (higher profit making) staff anywhere with lower credentials.
If I were in need of land surveying services, I would only hire an LS who would be onsite throughout the project and personally handle the research end. It doesn't matter if the alternative employee has forty years of experience because I would assume that was one year of experience forty times over.
I have had too many helpers that understood the meaning of Direct Supervision as "I'll follow as long as you are in the mix of the battle too".
Meaning, they were not going to do the grunt work if the chief does not.
The helper is in a position that they can not see what is happening beyond their knowledge and some are willing to do whatever is ask of them and learn by watching and doing at the same time.
I've also found that others can not be taught anything without being shown first, and regrettably by insisting that they must start over every day.
I've also been told that I require too much of people and can be heard saying stuff they do not like me saying about them and they are turned away by some of the mannerisms that I may use in excess to express myself on certain occasion and last but least that I insist that my helpers do more than they think necessary to get er done.
Those are the ones that have been responsible for the launch of my solo career.
The limited numbers of licensed surveyors tells many stories.
One of those stories is that there are too many helpers that have settled with being button pushers and low ballers and just can not stand in the footsteps of the original surveyor.
0.02
I go in the field a lot, if for nothing else than to get away from everyone else. It doesn't make the bean counters happy, but they really don't understand that the bottom line probably irons out the same, because of the increased production and efficiency. But they'll never get that
I go to field for all boundary surveys that I seal.
