Engineer planning vs. surveyor reality

The main thing wrong is that he BELIEVED what the client told him about the site.

I don't know if this applies anywhere else but here in the Southeast but:?ÿ "You should have no problem surveying it, we had the pulpwood removed two years ago and you can see all the way across it."?ÿ EXCEPT you can't walk 5 feet without tripping over downed limbs sharp enough to be spears, trunks of unwanted trees that were cut down, THICK blackberry briers and kudzu.?ÿ All this hiding ditches, creeks and other features that will be needed.?ÿ Oh, and of course, we have to have it NOW.

Andy

My pet pieve is when certain "Engineers" grab a design project from a client and proceed to plot a deed and start designing projects before my department has the opportunity to survey the property.?ÿ They do this repeatedly, despite the heated agrguments I get in with the Engineering department head.

Without fail, they will design buildings and structures in tight spaces, working in entirely different horizontal and vertical datums and when the survey work is completed they often find that they don't have to room to fit in their designs without modifying them and falsely assume that I will "make it work".?ÿ Way too much time and energengy is lost because they would rather get on things quickly than to do it properly and not have to redo things they had prematurely done.

Be a hero.?ÿ Move it all forward NOW!?ÿ Ask for forgiveness later, after the survey work is done, when we bill the client for extra design time.?ÿ Great profit maker for the ones on the top of the pay-chain.

@holy-cow I'm the second highest in the pay chain and have been in the game as long as the Engineering department manager has been on earth.?ÿ When he puts his department's work at the starting line before letting my department go ahead of him to do it right, he's doing nothing more than burning profit.

Flat map syndrom: "it's only FOUR corners! ,"we need a 30 foot grid!" (response to a very laborious topo through barely accessible terrain)

"Make it fit".

Ok, your 40x50 bldg is now a 30x60 bldg. No problem, eh?

N

I laughed WAY too much when I saw this... as I'm a daily MInecraft player.?ÿ?ÿ

@andy-bruner?ÿ

Had to have been an ITT Rayonier pulpwood crew. ?????ÿ

(other Southerners had a nickname for these guys that is irrelevant)

Yep, Both the Engineer that will not order the site clearing until he has the topo in hand OR the one that forgot the bid submittal until that day; and pulls a set of unrelated plans out of the cabinet, attaches a new cover sheet and gets the job; knowing he can blame the surveyor for things not working.?ÿ

For our topo jobs we have a clause that says the client shall clear the site. It never gets done, and we rarely enforce it - it's problematic:

One time, on a survey of a large diameter sewer pipe bridge, we enforced it. So, we arrive on site on the due day, just in time to see Sir David Attenborough coming out. We call the client - crickets. About an hour later a wagon roars up and two large chaps leap out and start hacking at that jungle with large machetes. In one minute they've cleared about a square foot, then they stop, jump back into the wagon and roar off. We wait another hour, then call the client to see if they are coming back. Turns out they will be back, but in a week or so, after the wound has healed and the stitches are removed - one of them caught his leg on a stump they'd just cut. We carried on, and enjoyed nature's crop.