Florida Surveyors At Fault

Shouldn't this be in humor?;-)

You can always count on Kent

To kick someone when they are down.

> Shouldn't this be in humor?

No, I think it should be perfectly clear that Florida surveyors are collectively responsible for the collapse of the real estate market and should be working for free for the next few years to make things right. After all, shouldn't surveyors have notified lenders that many borrowers would have problems paying their mortgages without full-time employment? I think there obviously has to be more continuing education so that surveyors will be more pro-active on this score in the future.

You're one of those that refused to put the chain down in the thunderstorm, didn't you? 😛

> You're one of those that refused to put the chain down in the thunderstorm, didn't you?

No, I'm agreeing with you that the licensing problems in Florida are all the fault of Florida surveyors. I mean, with Florida surveyors being collectively responsible for failing to read and discuss the last four Jeff Lucas columns as well as not preventing mortgage lenders from realizing that many of their borrowers would probably need full-time employment, I think the Florida legislature may be letting licensees off light by just demolishing the licensing system.

I mean, everything has already been surveyed once. Why would anyone ever need to survey it again, right?

If you say so

You're putting words in my mouth. I'm saying it's our responsibility.

Don't pay attention to Kent...

...after 11PM. This late in the evening it's just the Grenache talking (typing) 😉

Don't pay attention to Kent...

Thanks for the tip 😉

Keeping up with the times.

> This late in the evening it's just the Grenache ...

Hey, I'm just trying to get behind this movement to blame surveyors for the Florida legislature wanting to see how swell life would be without anyone to point out where land boundaries are. Don't most landscapers and all real estate agents have a sixth sense about these matters? Why does Florida need the huge expense of maintaining a separate profession to do this?

Keeping up with the times.

I'm assuming that macheteman is actually new to this board, and not just another secret identity of a regular poster, since he or she clearly misunderstood Kent's humor.

I'd like to take macheteman more seriously, some good discussion, but I don't like talking with a man/woman behind a curtain. reminds me too much of confession.

Keeping up with the times.

> I'm assuming that macheteman is actually new to this board, and not just another secret identity of a regular poster, since he or she clearly misunderstood Kent's humor.
>
> I'd like to take macheteman more seriously, some good discussion, but I don't like talking with a man/woman behind a curtain. reminds me too much of confession.

Don't sweat it AJ, the almighty and merciful Lord grants you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Keeping up with the times.

"holy" baloney, BL, that just made my palms all sweaty, just reading that. Pavlov's dog, over and out!

Keeping up with the times.

Thanks Andy. I'm not a regular of Surveyor Bulletin Boards, this is my 1st time on this one.

I'm a man, in my early 40's, Surveying since the age of 16. I'm NOT a public sector Surveyor, you needn't concern yourself with that. For a host of reasons, I'm not ready to reveal who I am. I will in time...

My goal is to strike up conversation & urgency. We Surveyors are a "public safety" situation, but we are also an individual safety situation. Private landowners also deserve the right to have a competent Surveyor available to them.

"GIS/geospatial" guys are claiming their work is more important than ours now, so we should succumb to them, because they do more "public safety" work than we do. That's nonsense. No one is more important than the other. If anything, GIS is a PRIVACY HAZARD! They should be curbed by Govt, lest we wind up in an Orwellian nightmare.

Someone needs to keep those fancy ass GIS guys honest, who better than Surveyors? Maybe that's our argument in this modern era, that we protect privacy for the individual.

Keeping up with the times.

Thanks for the reply, Mr. M. I can appreciate your perspective of being anon.

We haven't kept up with the times

I don't see the GISers going around claiming GIS is "more" important than surveying. They are however doing a far better job of tooting their horn and doing their dog-and-pony show than surveyors are. Thing is, the GISers are still really not meaningfully in the data collection business, which is one of the sweet spots of surveying - and GISers rightly shouldn't be out in the field, evaluating evidence, and so on. And frankly, GIS is nothing, without good data going into it. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Likewise, they still do not have the domain expertise that surveyors do, in doing the research, reconciling the often-conflicting evidence, and making sense of what's found in the field. That is again, the sweet spot of the surveyors.

But again, to our detriment, what the public so often sees of surveyors is a ragtag bunch of hungover guys in greasy jeans and ripped Lynyrd Skynyrd shirts, sweating, yelling, cussing, and swinging machetes, and occasionally squinting through a little cam'ra on a tripod to see if they can see down the huge gaping, garish flagging-festooned swath they hacked through the verdant green, periodically decorated with gobs of obnoxious fluorescent paint... Not to mention what is portrayed of surveyors by the other "professionals", i.e. realtors and l@~yers, that surveyors are "optional" and they can do the job for $300, and later on that it's all the damn surveyor's fault that their closing is being held up (not at all because they didn't get the survey ordered just 2 days before). You and I may see it differently from the inside, but from the outside, that's what the public by and large sees of us.

And they don't at all understand what really even goes into it - the courthouse research, the math involved in processing the field data, the years of professional judgement involved in evaluating the evidence... Or care.

It still comes down to the same thing - surveyors really have not done themselves enough of a favor in adequately educating the public, educating realtors, attorneys, and others, they don't do themselves enough of a favor in presenting themselves as true professionals, and so on. This is where largely our professional societies have failed us, and where surveyors' typical old-school attitudes and bristly curmudgeon factor has caused the profession to be relegated to the back corners of respectability.

Surveyors really need to rethink themselves. Maybe this is the clarion call for a complete re-awakening of the profession.

You should have heard Lucas at the Illinois convention. He was really
slamming Robillard. A bunch of IPLSA officers were squirming in their
seats.

What does Pat May have to add ?

YOS

DGG

> What does Pat May have to add ?

She says that the repo houses are selling like hotcakes to bargain hunters, but that it isn't translating into a demand for surveys in connection with the sales.

No, I think it should be perfectly clear that Florida surveyors are collectively responsible for the collapse of the real estate market and should be working for free for the next few years to make things right.

Kent,
It appears some are already working towards that goal. Sad but true.