End of My Geomatics Career

Good on ya, James!

Good luck, I hope it works out well.
Just don't count on there not being any stress - only a better kind of stress (hopefully).

Congratulations. I walked away from a national company where all correspondence with HR had to include your employee number. They had bought the small engineering firm for whom I worked. I stuck it out for five more years but hated most of it. I have less in my retirement fund than I would have but I am SO much happier with the decision. Find the job where you enjoy going to work and you'll never regret it.
Andy

Andy Bruner, post: 428771, member: 1123 wrote: I walked away from a national company where all correspondence with HR had to include your employee number

[SARCASM]I am surely going to miss the monthly automated emails from the accounting software when my utilization rate dropped below 80%[/SARCASM]

May you enjoy your new direction...........

Welcome to the boondocks. Apparently the rats were winning the rat race. If SWMBO can't handle the change, tell her to come live with me for a while. It won't be long before putting up with you will look like Heaven on Earth by comparison.

Ran a survey dept. for a consulting group for about 8 years in the city.
Commute wasn't that bad since the office was tucked away along the lakefront so I didn't have to deal with the business district and interstate mazes.
Company paid for my vehicle and gave me a gas card and other plastic.

But there is no way that I ever could do that commute again. I wouldn't last a month.

Good luck. Over here there are too
Many Thai places. The old dush that I like is Pahd Tai Noodles anyway.

Congratulations!

I hope you enjoy your new direction.

Loyal

James Fleming, post: 428772, member: 136 wrote: I am surely going to miss the monthly automated emails from the accounting software when my utilization rate dropped below 80%

I've worked in a few offices like yours. They talk about innovation, staying abreast of technology, out of the box thinking, yadda, yadda. Then they have unrealistic utilization rate requirements that precludes anybody doing anything but keeping their head down and grinding out product the same old way.

I am subcontracting for one of those big firms. Boy do they want to be first in the queue...

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

James Fleming, post: 428765, member: 136 wrote: ..Trading it all in for a job in the good old fashioned profession of Land Surveying. Farm boundaries, rural & exurban subdivisions, and site plans. Fifteen person company (two PE's, a LA/Planner, and the owner is an LS) in an old Victorian house with an address on South Main Street in a sleepy town of 10,000 people. No Thai restaurant, but the Olde Town Restaurant a one block stroll down Main Street has a nice hot roast beef sandwich as a lunch special. I've got four farm boundaries waiting for me when I get there next month...

Just don't take your modus operandi with you. Learn to listen to folks, chat and enjoy personal contacts. Make sure your geographic isn't the only thing that changes....slow yourself down enough to enjoy the new scenery. And maybe you'll live longer and won't need that life insurance....

And if you're lucky...the Olde Town Restaurant is probably owned by a couple with the last name of Tran or Nguyen...just because Pho isn't on the menu doesn't mean you can't ask for it!! 😉

Nothing beats a small tight knit firm! I'll take a small 15 person firm over 500 employee stockyard any day.......

Congrats James!
Keep us posted, looking forward to see some action pictures!
Christof.

paden cash, post: 428786, member: 20 wrote:
And if you're lucky...the Olde Town Restaurant is probably owned by a couple with the last name of Tran or Nguyen...just because Pho isn't on the menu doesn't mean you can't ask for it!! 😉

We've got a pizza place around here called Pizza4Less. Owned and run by an Indian family. The best food by far is what's not on the menu :).

FrozenNorth, post: 428789, member: 10219 wrote: We've got a pizza place around here called Pizza4Less. Owned and run by an Indian family. The best food by far is what's not on the menu :).

We had really good tex-mex place called "Dos Banderas" around here for a while...owned by a Vietnamese family. I use to order the "Plato de Jalisco" just to hear them try and repeat the order...;)

I left a big firm such as that, never happier!

Thanks for posting James. Hope your new life is good to/for you.
Makes me remind myself how fortunate I am. Been on my own in a sleepy little town doing farm surveys for so long it becomes second nature to wake up and enjoy looking ahead to a new days challenges. Just doesn't feel like work anymore. All friends/family talk about looking to retirement...heck, I feel like I'm living the life just by what I do. Latest bells & whistles GNSS/robots/DC software, flying drones, getting into photogrammetry, always something new and exciting to dream about and explore. Why retire and be bored stiff?

James Fleming, post: 428765, member: 136 wrote: No 500+ person company. No more fancy corner office inside the beltway

James Fleming, post: 428765, member: 136 wrote: Trading it all in for a job in the good old fashioned profession of Land Surveying. Farm boundaries, rural & exurban subdivisions, and site plans. Fifteen person company

Welcome back to the land of the living.

paden cash, post: 428786, member: 20 wrote: Just don't take your modus operandi with you. Learn to listen to folks, chat and enjoy personal contacts. Make sure your geographic isn't the only thing that changes....slow yourself down enough to enjoy the new scenery. And maybe you'll live longer and won't need that life insurance...

I was a "country surveyor" before I became a "fat cat big city surveyor". I spent the first fourteen years of my surveying career at a company that fluctuated between 3 & 8 people in the same county as my new one. In fact my new employer and my first survey employer both came out of the same company and learned surveying from the same mentor. It's a homecoming of sorts.