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Instructions to clients, who wish to discuss surveying

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(@nate-the-surveyor)
Posts: 10522
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1.) Don't use Left and Right. They are RELATIVE terms. They are only useful, if you give a bearing, on the direction you are looking.

2.) USE North, South, East and West. Use the same ones we use. Don't make up your own. If you have made up your own, sit down, and work out a FULL and COMPLETE mechanism to allow us to understand which one you are using at the time. For instance, it is not acceptable to USE South, as North, when you are at the EAST side of the property, and then, when you are at the NORTH side of the property, to use EAST as North.

3.) If you don't know which was is up, then don't use terms like, UP the road. Or, Down the Road. This confuses us.

4.) If you tell us that a certain piece of land is "40 acres long", then, that does not tell us how wide it is. Same with "Go one acre down, then Turn Left, and come back down to the North side, and then Come on down South to where we started. Water can't even do that, an so Engineers could not do that. Surveyors came from the more pedantic of the Engineers. Thus, we became surveyors, not engineers.

5.) Theory, and Practice are not the same thing. North, can mean Left, Right, Up or Down. We cannot discern what is meant, when in theory you mean one thing, but in practice, you mean something else.

6.) Southeast is a direction. Approximately 1/2 way between South, and East.

7.) Surveyors are surveyors, because, we cannot manage to live, in the middle of the gene pool, or in the middle of the pack. You are dealing with people at the EDGE of the pack, near the edge of the gene pool. We simply cannot read minds, or comprehend Lisdexic directions. We often can calculate a position to within 10 decimal places, and so can you. But that is no guarantee that the monument in the field will be set that well.

Happy Friday to all!

Nate

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 6:13 am
 RFB
(@rfb)
Posts: 1504
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The trick is knowing what they mean, or what they want.

As opposed to what they are saying.

:-S

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 7:14 am
(@paden-cash)
Posts: 11088
 

> The trick is knowing what they mean, or what they want.

So true.

But one thing that still staggers my mind. Some folks have never had to even conceive the thought that their property has an exact corner. In their mind the property goes over "to the fence". Always has. Paying someone to tell them different doesn't sit right with them.

Being able to explain what we do and why is an art. If you get all technical on them, they feel as though you're trying to hoodwink them with double-talk. If you get all down-to-earth and explain things in layman's terms, they feel as though you're overpaid.

There's a sweet spot in between.

I am fortunate that 90% of my work is of a corporate nature. My dealings with private property owners are usually incidental. I do a whole lot of cherry-picking when it comes to surveying for private owners. I send a lot of them down the road.

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 7:45 am
(@thebionicman)
Posts: 4437
Customer
 

Not so long ago folks understood up (north), down (south), in (towards the interior) and out (towards the coast). Over time we have ceased to pass these basic terms on, or allowed them to be hijacked by those not familiar...

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 10:00 am
(@mescobar_rpls)
Posts: 130
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I agree, left and right are relative terms. When I give directions, I say, “go north on whatever road, take an east on that road, take a south on this road, etc.”

My wife hated when I start that, now she uses it and gets frustrated when others don’t.:-D

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 11:17 am
(@stephen-johnson)
Posts: 2342
 

> I agree, left and right are relative terms. When I give directions, I say, “go north on whatever road, take an east on that road, take a south on this road, etc.”
>
> My wife hated when I start that, now she uses it and gets frustrated when others don’t.:-D

My wife still doesn't handle North, South, East and West well.

I don't think in left and right, except when giving line and that is backwards to most people.B-)

If you can't follow my directions, you are lost and I can't help you other than to lead you to the place you are looking for, which I am highly unlikely to do.:-/

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 12:58 pm
(@imaudigger)
Posts: 2958
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That's great when you live in corn field country where all the roads run in cardinal directions. When I travel tend to lose all sense of direction, left or right is all I can handle. I hate it.

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 1:17 pm
(@dave-ryan)
Posts: 5
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I love it when they call on the phone trying to describe their propery... "back yonder towards the Jones ranch then down over by the old 40 ac. piece where the crick used to run...blah blah...". Since so much stuff is available digitally right in front of me now, I can often pull up an Assessor's map while on the phone and try to follow them. But often they aren't looking at a map and have no idea which direction their own property is oriented. And of course Assessor's maps are mostly cartoons anyways. That's when it's time for them come down to the office, otherwise chaos and confusion will surely ensue.

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 2:46 pm
(@holy-cow)
Posts: 25292
 

Had to help some county employees with a troublesome citizen that involved a survey from several months ago. The initial request for help said something about the Bobber survey. In Section 18. That made no sense. With a bit more info I finally figured out they meant the Bober survey, which I did over 20 years ago. Again, that made no sense. They insisted I had done a survey in June. So I offered a different name as a possibility in Section 20. Nope, that can't be it. It must be Bober. Told them it had to be someone else who did the survey. No. They had been told most definitely that I did it. So, again I gave them the other name and said this is a half mile further east, on the east side of the railroad tracks and on the opposite side of the road.

Eventually, I tracked down the county employee who initiated the request for my help in person. He pulled out the rural directory, a handy-dandy map that includes a dozen maps that blanket the county showing the roads and who lives where. He pointed to the property he needed help with and said "right here on the south side of the road". I said, "You have the directory upside down. That is the north side of the road." Suddenly, the little light bulb over his head came on. He rotated the map and voila there was the very property I had suggested from the start and which I had, in fact, surveyed in June.

 
Posted : 07/11/2014 5:33 pm