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.
Given your work location, I thought maybe you were giving up surveying because you had been tapped to be the next FBI director or Special Prosecutor.
(It's a joke. No opinion posts, please.)
Bill93, post: 428806, member: 87 wrote: Given your work location, I thought maybe you were giving up surveying because you had been tapped to be the next FBI director or Special Prosecutor.
(It's a joke. No opinion posts, please.)
Nope. But I did ALTA surveys on the three sites they are considering moving the FBI headquarters to. And Trumps hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Did the same thing 10 years ago, and I'd never go back. The benefits and perks were great, but the stress will kill you. Making a lot less money now, but healthier and happy. Wife probably would have collected the life insurance by now if I stayed.
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 :).
That isn't the Cup-o-Pizza, is it?
The last big engineering design office I worked at was in 2002. When I joined I looked at the folk around me, pale, pasty, grumpy, grubby and focused solely on self appreciation and "doing one over" their fellow competition. After I left work one day, one of the principals got hold of a report I wrote, apparently reviewed it and scrawled "Bullsh*t" on the front of it and gave it to my manager. I took strong exception to that. Anyway after 6 months they made me redundant, which is not a good look, but on my last day on my walk home it was spring and 23 degrees C, not one cloud, a shimmer over the greenery, ladies out in their summer frocks ... I had that feeling you get at the start of the summer school holidays.
I walked away from running a small satellite office of a 2,000 person, 50 office company. Professionally, I've never been happier in my life. I do admit there are a few things I miss dearly, but professionally I finally have a work/life balance that I never had before. It's made me a better surveyor, and a better person.
Kudos, James.
Congratulation James! I'm currently working with the largest firm I've ever been with (15 employees) and probably couldn't be much happier. I've owned my own company twice, and I don't miss that a bit. It was a great experience when I was younger, but the regular paychecks now that I'm older are very nice. I was once offered three times what I was making at the time to move to a large state to the west of me. Fortunately, common sense prevailed. I love living in the town my children's grandparent's were born in, although it is getting too big for me. There is an infection here called a "University" that is destroying things. One-third of the population over the age of 18 are university students, so I am surrounded by children wherever I go. I have an eye on several much smaller places where the average annual snowfall is less than 100" - that's beginning to take a toll too. I have a great crew chief I am mentoring and in a few years hope to just fade out of working. There is lots of fishing and gardening to be done!
Jim in AZ, post: 428810, member: 249 wrote: That isn't the Cup-o-Pizza, is it?
Nope:
You know the food's gonna be good because of the law of inverse quality regarding food and architecture.
Congratulations. And I hope you have enough of those survey nightmares that was underbid but your doing it anyway. Your pulling more deeds than any other surveyor would, because that is when it is really fun to be a surveyor. I do not miss those busy office days and lunch in front of a computer. Lunch in the woods or field vehicle is great, especially if there is no cell coverage.
Paul in PA, PE, PLS
When it's all said and done, it ain't about having the most dollars for the heirs to fight over and then hate each other for the rest of their lives.
There is an old story told about a fellow who wanted to take it with him when he died. When he knew he had but a few days to live he had every possession he had turned into money and the money traded for a single chunk of gold. The gold was placed in his casket. When he got to Heaven he was seen walking around lugging his chunk of gold and was asked, "What are you doing walking around with that chunk of low grade street paving material?"
