How many times has something similar to this happened to you?
A fellow surveyor reported of an incident with a different surveyor. The first fellow had made a survey of a quarter section pertinent to a survey he performed a year or two ago. The second fellow, from nany miles away, blows into the same quarter section to do a survey of another property. He finds the first fellows recorded survey to help him along with his project. Guess what! Three out of four sides match very well with the record data. One side is off a bit more than 10-feet. So he calls the first guy to tell him about his sloppy work and that he needs to fix his old survey. The first guy is tied up and can't possibly check his old work for at least two days, but, promises to do so and call back. After doing as promised, he calls the second guy to report that he can find no clear errors in his work. The second guy then tells him that, in the meantime, he had discovered that he had found a different, unrelated monument and mistook it for the quarter section corner monument. Now everything seems to be just fine.
No apology for causing undue work and concern for the first surveyor. Simply a matter of the second guy's arrogance overruling what many of us would recognize as a very good excuse to double check our own before chastising someone else's work.
My policy has always been to call. Let them know what we found, and wait to hear back. I was taught in my 1st year surveying, to assume we are wrong. It typically works out I'm not, but no egg on my face. I've used this advice for Surveys and construction. It feels good watching a contractor admit he was wrong after checking stakes. And when we are wrong, we didn't pee in anyone's cheerios.
" ...we didn't pee in anyone's cheerios."
Mark that's hilarious and revolting.
I agree that we should doublecheck everything before calling someone else and always be respectful despite what we may think of anothers work. Usually the fault is more in lack of proper supervision of crews than direct shoddy work by the surveyor. I try and state the problem, ask for their help in resolving the issue and move on.
That's a lesson, Holy. Thanks for posting the story. If anybody ever calls me, I'm gonna ask him/her to sit down with me before I spend two days checking my own work. Or at the least, have a telephone conversation about what/where they found, and all the details.
"you found a concrete monument? Gee, I held an iron pipe..."
Two heads are usually better than one, anyhow, even if they're competing heads.
Had one like several years ago with a former employer. A surveyor called and said he found one of our corners off by several feet, and when corrected, it was causing building encroachments, etc. So the boss when out and checked it with a robot, and everything looked fine and match record very closely. So, the other surveyor went back and checked, and agreed he must have made a mistake. In looking at his raw data he determined he did not have zero set in the gun after he traversed and backsighted. That's an easy mistake to make with TDS. I've done it before, too. Now, this tells me he did not close his traverse... and didn't check anything in the field ... but still had the nerve to call another surveyor and say he made a mistake ...
Yes
You Deed staking pile of garbage! 😉
There are a number of us in my neck of the woods that call each other frequently about our 'found & set'. It's usually good-natured banter with an honest exchange of field data.
One fella in particular, while a good friend, gets a little under my skin. A number of times I've sent him my file fodder...then he calls me back and says something like...,"I'm still not convinced..."
I've tried several times to professionally explain that I've satisfied myself...convincing him falls way down there on my priorities. We're still buddies, though.
One rule of thumb is to question anything you find too easily. Another is to not go crazy if the first surveyor said he found a 5/8" bar and you find one that is 1/2". It might suggest a different monument or it might, very simply, be the same bar noted incorrectly by one of you. It's your job to doublecheck yourself first. Who actually saw that bar, the two of you or newbie rodmen?
Our profession is one where opinions play a very strong part. Mine is the only one that matters and I am always right.
I quickly found out that I was incorrect in my assumption.
My favorite was the line that was off by almost a foot. Land Courted property (traverses and plans are reviewed by the court, so there should be a level of confidence).
The other surveyor set a line and the property owner built a wall right up to the line. We were hired for the neighbor and found the wall to be over by a foot. We set the stakes and provided a sketch. I got a call from the other surveyor who was proud to have used a closed loop from a land court plan adjacent to the property. He was insinuating that I had not come off a loop. Well, I had come off a road taking loop (LC standard 1:15,000, Town of Chatham Taking Standard 1:50,000) that trumped his loop. I then found that the LC and the other surveyor had held a subsequent monument for their work set in the 70's that happened to be about a foot off the math. The other monuments worked fine with the math...
Even when all was said and done, the other surveyor disagreed with my work by 0.10'. He held a monument at the corner of a road that we held. Our original location was from the late 80's with subsequent locations in the 90's and 00's. It looks like some snow plow or SUV driver adjusted the location of the monument somewhere in the late 90's. original and undisturbed...
Had a surveyor from a few counties away call me up and said he could not get this recorded description to close. He had the nerve to tell me that it was not good business practice to let something out of my office without checking it. As luck has it, it was a 5 page monster of an easement.
I stayed up late, calced it up 3 times, spent probably 4 hours doing so and it closed right on the money every time.
Called the other guy back with the news and he said he had a bad copy and could not read some of the calls very well. I told him that if I could reach through the phone I just might choke him until he turns blue.
Randy
hmm, perhaps that should be a new invention... a new button on the phone to take care of those problems on the other end.
(the guy being choked was from some random internet pic)
the upgrade will be another button that slaps the silly person on the other end...
Where can I get one of those phones?!?!
I'll sell you one for the low, low price of $1499.99.... But wait, included is a set of knives that can cut through soda cans, then slice a tomato with the original sharpness and ease of a new knife!
Double the offer and I'm all in!
I can also throw in a bridge! Seems to me it is in NY somewhere near Brooklyn 😉
Okay - but how does your response apply to the post?
