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?"
James Fleming, post: 428765, member: 136 wrote: Gave my notice today. Walking away in a couple of weeks from the exciting profession of Geomatics. No more scanning, or mobile mapping, or big transportation projects. No 500+ person company. No more fancy corner office inside the beltway (well almost inside) in a huge modern building with an office address that just said "fourth floor" and Thai restaurant in the lobby.
Trading it all in for a job in the good old fashioned profession of Land Surveying.
Okay, lemme get this straight. You have discovered that working in a factory environment tends to be much harder on the soul than practicing a profession in a human-oriented environment? Who could have possibly imagined that? :>
Congratulations. I made a similar move from the same size company with all the benefits, pay stubs and red tape to boot last august to start my own firm. I don't regret it for a minute
James Fleming, post: 428801, member: 136 wrote: 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.
When I tried this I was reminded of the Elvis song that talks about being a stranger in your own hometown.
James Fleming, post: 428765, member: 136 wrote: Gave my notice today. Walking away in a couple of weeks from the exciting profession of Geomatics. No more scanning, or mobile mapping, or big transportation projects. No 500+ person company. No more fancy corner office inside the beltway (well almost inside) in a huge modern building with an office address that just said "fourth floor" and Thai restaurant in the lobby.
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.
Couldn't be happier (SWMBO is livid that I'm leaving all the benefits, apparently she was looking forward to living large on the company provided life insurance once I keeled over from the stress).
Thai is just expensive Chinese food.
Robert Hill, post: 428837, member: 378 wrote:
I
I prefer lime.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/allrecipes.com/recipe/42968/pad-thai/amp/
Why is there chicken in that pad thai instead of Gulf Coast shrimp, though?
Kent McMillan, post: 428841, member: 3 wrote: Why is there chicken in that pad thai instead of Gulf Coast shrimp, though?
I think the recipe calls for both.
But usually, one can get the chicken as take out here for lunch at a lunch special price. You're going to pay extra for fresh shrimp.
Robert Hill, post: 428842, member: 378 wrote: I think the recipe calls for both.
But usually, one can get the chicken as take out here for lunch at a lunch special price. You're going to pay extra for fresh shrimp.
I've always thought of the chunks of chicken breast as being an adaptation for the American taste. A mixture of dried shrimp in the fish sauce and stir-fried shrimp is usually perfect.
Should have gone all the way and retire from all of it. I am so happy and a better human being after a month of not being in the surveying, geomatics, photogrammetry game. Loved it for a career, don't miss much other than the professional friendships. After a month a realize how wearing all the pressure and BS was. Good luck in getting out of beltway and throttling back.
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Robert Hill, post: 428842, member: 378 wrote: I think the recipe calls for both.
But usually, one can get the chicken as take out here for lunch at a lunch special price. You're going to pay extra for fresh shrimp.
Here is what a quick Google turned up for pad thai:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013121-pad-thai