I was getting some points with my GNSS receiver on and near a city street. The prospective new owner's son "seen" me walking across the back yard and told his momma. She got in her car and drove down the side street where I was working. She rolled her window down on her nice looking air conditioned car (it was about 95 degrees out today) and said, "Hey! What choo doin'?"
Me: "my name is Harold Dendy, with Dendy Engine......"
Her:"WHAT?" (The air conditioner was blasting on high, and she was conversing with someone on her vehicle hands-free telephone system). She told them, "Hold on, I'm talking to someone else!"
Me: repeated name and company LOUDER and said that I was a surveyor.
Her: she said, and I am quoting, "what's that?"
Me: (oh, brother). I am the guy that puts corner markers in the ground and makes sure that the property boundary matches or is in close conformity to the record title. I swear, I "seen" her eyes cross! So, then I explain that I am one of many people that she must deal with in the course of buying a house. I told her that she will also deal with the guy at Rural Development, an attorney, a surveyor, the bug man, the owner, the banker, and a few more when it is all said and done with. She seemed a little stunned, but then thanked me, and drove off.
"What's that", indeed. I is a SURVEYOR, dag-nabbit! I did not even go into to what an engineer does. I are one of those, too!
I actually had a guy say one time, "oh, so you drive trains!" And you wonder who ties their shoelaces for them!
Ya'll ever meet people like that? :-/
I've always been 100% honest with people that ask me what I'm doing. But that never stops me from having fun with it.
I usually tell them: (1)someone bought the property and we're measuring it up: (2) I really don't know who it is; I'm working through a third party: (3) I don't have the slightest idea if they are going to build anything or not. (4) No highway is coming through here.
That usually covers it.
The real fun is when the local constabulary (sheriff's office) drops by because someone called in suspicious activity. Most of the older deputies can tell what we're doing and pass slowly, with a good ol' American tip of the hat. The younger ones (and God they're getting younger!) want to stop an be nosey.
In their best authoritative baritone, "What are you guys up to ?"
My standard reply, without hardly looking up from the DC, "Not much. What are you up to?" Some get flustered and nasty. Some have even laughed. Then they go into their best "we got a call...yadda yadda..". Then I have to explain to them why we're standing in the road..:pinch:
But they always have to leave me with a safety lecture about being in the road. Someday I'm gonna make sure they understand that I have been digging holes in county roads since they were a tricycle-motor. But, I let them fulfill their need to protect and serve. After they tell us to be safe, I always tell them, "We will, and thanks"...
It's a delicate dance
It is amazing how some people assume we know everything that has occurred that has resulted in our being where we are and that we will gladly tell them all of the juicy details. Yet, once we start to tell them anything they want to tell us that we don't know what we are doing. The fun ones are those who jump in to explain how Mrs. Client caught Mr. Client "socializing" with the lady three doors down the street so they're getting a divorce and she's getting a big payoff so he has to sell the house to cover that and................................
I always get a kick out of the ones who start in with some helpful story about how all we need to do is go down to such and such place to a square chunk of concrete with a brown metal circle in it. Everything is laid out from there. If you don't go down there you can't possibly get the job done correctly. Oh, and be sure to write the description going clockwise because if you do it counterclockwise it will be illegal.
The few visits we have received from the law over the years have always been congenial. We always try to educate them about the art of land surveying and the challenges associated with it, including interacting directly and indirectly with all sorts of nosy people. They face similar circumstances routinely so they can sympathize with us.
What's that?
I've had that one. I start out with my name and my client's address and name. You read their reaction and know whether to start off with details or "PROPERTY PEGS...I'M MARKING THE LINES." In response to me saying, "Property pegs. I'm looking for property pegs." A woman replied, "Oh no. I don't want any of those. Nobody told me anything about this."
Other guys are all about where the last guy started. It's always way down the street and is regaled as some kind of main peg or "starting peg."
One peg to rule them all...
What's that?
We have "stobs" around here!
When I do a retracement survey I always survey enough of the adjoining parcels to satisfy myself that no issues exist. Recently I was working on a small village lot that was bounded on one side by a much larger parcel that had a recorded survey. I was about 5 lots away from my parcel and around the corner looking for an iron that theoretically defined one end of the common line.
Down the sidewalk comes a civil war widow wheeling a baby carriage. I'm on my hands and knees elbow deep in a muddy hole chasing a dip. Water's seeping in as fast as I can bail; I'm not a happy camper.
Gramma stops next to me and watches for about a minute, then says, "Young man (I'm 60+, so I guess it's all relative) what ARE you doing?"
From my kneeling position I look up at her and say, "I'm looking for a survey marker"
"Oh.....what are you surveying?"
I mention the address & describe the house. She says, "Why that's way up around the corner, why are you all the way over here?"
I patiently and politely explain, in my best aw-shucks-simple-English, that the marker in question defines one end of the common boundary, and I need to tie it in to my other measurements, etc. I don't get into senior-junior, or coordinates, or least-squares, or any other make-your-eyes-glaze-over stuff.
"Well", she says, "If it's already been surveyed, you CERTAINLY don't need to survey it again, and you DON'T need to be all the way over here digging up the Morgenstrudel's lawn.
At this point I abandon the effort at PR, rise to my full 5'6" height, walk over and get right inside her personal space- "Look, MA'AM, I've been at this for 35 years and I'm pretty sure I know my business. Do you, for even one second, seriously think I'd be down here floundering on my hands and knees in the mud, if I didn't think it was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY? When, for instance, I could be home in bed with my wife, instead?"
"Oh, my word. Well, I SUPPOSE you know your job, but I STILL don't think you need to be digging up their lawn......"
Some members of the public don't seem to be educable.
My typical response......no hablo English.
-V
It's a delicate dance
About 1980 had a client that was an excavation contractor and ran a salvage yard for heavy equipment and Mack trucks. That combination had given him a good relationship with a local surface mining company. I have just started my own company, have one employee and want good relations with both of these companies. The mining company was selling my client a small acreage tract in an area that had been mined and reclaimed ten or fifteen years before. My research and conversations with the mining company surveyor indicated that the only survey control remaining was in the center median of Interstate 70.
Construction of the Interstate 70 had removed all corners along the northern line of three sections. Surface mining south had removed all other corners of those sections and the adjoining sections to the south. Mining company had tied everything to the two Interstate monuments 2,000 feet apart along a two mile tangent. All that information was available to me and made occupying the two monuments mandatory.
Set up a traverse point outside of the right-of-way, found and occupied the two centerline monuments. Three tripods out and leave rodman as guard on one. Fifteen minutes more and I'll be on my way. Highway patrol shows up and informs me if I do not vacate I will be arrested. I try to explain, response no way no how and you must work from outside the right-of-way. Again try to explain the mining and construction removed all markers. About this time rodman calls on radio "What the hold up?" Officer asks where is that man? I point him out response "You can not do that! What gives you the idea and of this makes sense!" I pull out my wallet and show him my P.S. license card. Silence and a funny look "I'll need to call the post commander." After a half hour and the safety lecture as well as that I need signage and four more employees as traffic control I am allowed to finish.
I'll spend the time to talk and inform (educate) my client about what I have to do to complete their survey. It always involves being away from the property for sometimes several hours to gather the necessary information, and they eventually understand that. Then inform them the last thing I do is set your corners.
Ok, now you're a 1/4 mile away doing whatever you deem necessary and John Q want's to know what you're doing. My standard reply is "a private survey down the road and I need the verify a few additional points to complete MY JOB". That tends to quiet them down, albeit with a deer in the headlights look. As I move on....
One time was fun though. I was by a school and a couple kids were really interested in my "camera". I spent a couple minutes talking with them, and let one of them even look through the scope. His eyes got all happy and that matched his smile, which made me smile too.
It's the know it all's you can't educate, but the uninformed and ignorant of what we do are the reachable ones. They aren't stupid, they just don't know. Sadly
20 years ago my brother was surveying a tract of land to reset a missing corner. After half a day traversing and tying corners,he was computing to set the iron when up drives Mr. Landowner. Brother says we are about ready to set the corner. His reply? Hell, that's all I wanted in the first place!!
I have a spiel about all the titles are like a big jigsaw.
Sometimes you get a corner piece so you know right away where things are, sometimes you get a side piece where it's a bit harder and most of the time you get a middle piece where you need to figure out some other pieces before you can work out the piece you are really after.
I used to try and explain in dumbed down surveyor speak about what I was doing four doors down from the relevant title but I quickly realised that peoples minds switch off and their eyes glaze over and they do not understand.
I have a much better success rate with the jigsaw analogy and if someone (rarely) actually does understand, I might get a plan out and explain a bit more to them in surveyor speak.
