First day as a party chief mid 70’s.
I worked in the office doing some drafting and learned to run and program a Monroe 1880 desktop calculator. My boss purchased a HP programable calculator to play around with and a T16 with a MicroRanger EDM. I was sent to the field one day and took the HP 65 with me. While the PC was setting up the instrument, I was computing the traverse and corners. When the PC wanted to pick up the instrument and move over 3’ to get around a tree, I told him to just set a traverse where he could see the next monument and that he did not have to cut any vegetation or run an offset. The PC got mad and quit. The crew followed my lead and we finished up the survey in less time than budgeted plus set the corners. When I came back in the office, my boss called me in his office and asked me what happened. After he chewed me out telling me that the PC was the boss in the field, I think I saw a smile on his face. I stayed in the field for a few more months then back to the office.
What was your first day like?
Upper 30's and rain all day. No electronics involved.
Not really. My transition to PC was a gradual thing. I was a rodman doing some drafting, then a draftsperson sometimes rodman, then a survey tech guiding the PCs and sometimes going in the field with the crew, to being in more in charge of the crew than the PC was, to being the crew leader. And eventually to just being the whole crew. And the drafter. Always the drafter.
My first PC job I thought I was $hittin in tall cotton, I still had a lot to learn though and I was motivated to learn as much as I could. I was leading a three man crew and running a traverse and doing topo on a densely overgrown 3 acre lot. I’d picked up 2 corners on one side and decided to cut through the center of the lot to a computed location of a third corner. My Rodman was arguing with me how stupid it was to punch a line through saying I didn’t know what I was doing. Finally we punched through and over the radio I gave him line and come and go. When I had him within a few tenths, asked him to kick the spot and tell me what he found. Over the radio came a subdued, ‘I found the corner’. Missed it by a couple inches. Man did that feel good for a new party chief. My confidence got a really big boost that day.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
I filled in as a Junior Party Chief for about a year. One day, I showed up for work and there was a brand new Chevy Suburban in the parking lot, lettered up.
As I was waiting in my old PC's truck for him to come out with the work assignments for the day, the president of the company came out, handed me the keys to the truck, told me who my two other people were and where the new work gear was in the basement of the office.
What a great feeling! The only thing beating that professionally was passing my LS exam in 1993.
We were staking columns and anchor bolts setting the elevation on top of steel. The regular crew chief was out sick. I had been the only other field person on that site. The project engineer who had many years in the field as well sat me down and said look you can do this. He handed me the set of plans and told me which area we would be staking and which columns would need to be set. I was basically aligning the drill rig as it drilled down right beside the existing building. Surgery was going on in the basement area as the contractor was drilling. I was a baby faced kid. I got to the site and set up the transits yes two and the level to come off the site BM. Had a helper as they tried setting it he steel I kept telling the contractor he needed to go deeper. My helper allerted me that they had no sona tube and the whole was filling back up with dirt as fast as they dug. I was writing everything down walked over and grabbed the site super and explained to him what was going on. He tried his best to intimidate me which he was but I was documenting everything. I whipped out my field book and wrote exactly what was going on and asked him to sign it in front of the safety officer. They both did and asked they pored the concrete which I had stated the steel was still to high. He blamed me of course. It went to court. I was terrified sitting in the hall way. When I was called and walking in the judge asked me if I was in charge and these were my field notes. I said yes your honor. He said great job and the expert witness said you remember how important notes are because those notes just saved your company thousands of dollars. Man was I glad when my crew chief came back. After that they started sending me on my own on different projects. I made a lot of mistakes over those years but the LS’s all kept pushing me and saying look we know you will make mistakes keep going. I think all those rump chewing s I got were all for trying to apply what I had learned in school or from others. So they were all worth it for sure. That VA hospital scared the heck out of me. But some great LS and PE all stood beside me and prepared me. I reckon those days are over. I don’t see a lot of but chewing these days. People are different and don’t react well to that. I for some reason never took all that stuff personal. I just accepted I made a mistake and tried not to make the same one twice.
We only had one 2-man crew with 1 robot and 1 base/rover. One day I showed up and 2 projects needed handling sooo the PLS gave the PC an instrument and the more complicated project and I got the other instrument (probably the robot) and the simpler project (probably a topo)... and it's only gone downhill from there. 😎
I don't remember it all. It probably doesn't help that I've been through so many companies, it's all a bit of a blur.
I remember the first day in the field by myself. I was doing 2-minutes observations on coordinated marks for a cadastral traverse. I had a route set up that I was meant to finish before lunch because that's when the satellites were meant to shift and I need to repeat the whole thing again in the afternoon. I managed to do it without much trouble, despite being quite green in terms of surveying and my boss was quite impressed.
First day as a party chief mid 70’s.
I worked in the office doing some drafting and learned to run and program a Monroe 1880 desktop calculator. My boss purchased a HP programable calculator to play around with and a T16 with a MicroRanger EDM. I was sent to the field one day and took the HP 65 with me. While the PC was setting up the instrument, I was computing the traverse and corners. When the PC wanted to pick up the instrument and move over 3’ to get around a tree, I told him to just set a traverse where he could see the next monument and that he did not have to cut any vegetation or run an offset. The PC got mad and quit. The crew followed my lead and we finished up the survey in less time than budgeted plus set the corners. When I came back in the office, my boss called me in his office and asked me what happened. After he chewed me out telling me that the PC was the boss in the field, I think I saw a smile on his face. I stayed in the field for a few more months then back to the office.
What was your first day like?
My takeaway from this story is that the PC was an ass___ and the boss was probably glad to get rid of him.
Like Mark Mayer I don't remember a specific day of party chiefing. Sort of a gradual thing as people were shuffled around to various projects. Chief one day, I/O the next... Some days it was unclear who was chief. I was the college kid with limited experience working summers and school vacations, working with an older full-time employee of limited experience. We just focused on getting the work done.