My 2 Cents On Labor Shortage

Lee D, post: 442944, member: 7971 wrote: This could be the next big thing!! Maybe Paden can write the first season and we can pitch it to Hollywood!!

I've had an idea for a while now about a 'maverick' private surveying consultant named 'Rock-Ferd' that is always getting himself into sticky situations and skirting the law. In the story he lives in a travel trailer on a beach with his retired father and drives a Pontiac Firebird. I think it might be a hit, but my pick for the characters would have been James Garner as Rock-Ferd and Noah Berry as his father. Sadly they're not around anymore.

But it would probably be easier to 'dig them up' than to find an actual Pontiac Firebird that still runs...;)

I'm growing my future. I currently have 3 grandsons ages 3-10...with another on the way. My son is a rough neck and he works with me when he is off from the rig. The 10 year old has done a few elevation certificates wih me.

There's no doubt the 1-man crew and under-valuing our product are issues, but the downward spiral in work ethic is far and away the biggest problem. I live in a very small town and know nearly everyone.

Fully one-third of working age folks are unemployed/sporadically employed (work when they feel like it).

The kicker is they still eat, their kids still have clothes, and they still have a dish on the side of their house (which I do not). Most pay more in rent than I ever paid for a mortgage. I am not saying they have a high standard of living, but they get by and most importantly to them their time is their own.

These people are not interested in giving up the freedom of spending most of their day in front of the TV watching God knows what for any amount of money, and the only way they ever will is if they get hungry IMO.

Steve

TXSurveyor, post: 442841, member: 6719 wrote: Main problem companies don't pay there employees enough. Next is demanding supervisor pay and work ethic of people. Average wage for a PC in my area is 18-25/hour. Same person putting out less effort and needing less smarts could get a job as a lineman at a local electric company for $18/hr plus benefits and be making $25/hr in two years.
Point is we as a profession need to charge more and pay more so we can weed out the dim wits

I am working with the State Surveyors Society to address some of the issues brought up in this thread, and will address some of the others, but this is the one I grabbed to start with. We as a profession would like to charge more for our services. I know we have to look at our billing and sometimes trim the numbers a bit, because the amount of work we put into research, and calculation, can run into days and days to correctly fix the boundary problems. Yet, our phone calls go like this about 75% of the time. "Yes, we can give you a quote, but we need more information, can you tell us where the survey is, how large, improvements to the property, etc? " Client" Why, the last guy quoted $350 and didn't ask any questions". At $350 a job, I am not sure how he pays the insurance on his truck, nevermind his employees, or fixes a tire when he has a flat. But because of that, people look at us like we are crooks when we tell them a respectable survey on a small parcel will likely be close to $3000 to do it properly. The locale I am in does not pay near as much for PCs, we are in about direct competition from fast food joints as far as pay goes.

sjc1989, post: 442967, member: 6718 wrote: ..These people are not interested in giving up the freedom of spending most of their day in front of the TV watching God knows what for any amount of money, and the only way they ever will is if they get hungry IMO.

Steve

I had no idea how different the core values of my generation and those younger than I until I had a conversation with an employee a few years back. Although I paid him a fair wage, he was never able to provide himself with a running vehicle. He was a decent employee and I figured it was none of my business what he did with his money.

One day he approached me about an advance for his paycheck. He needed to get current with his multimedia provider that covered his phones (cell and home) along with his entertainment and internet at home. I asked how much he needed. He needed almost $400. I was surprised and asked how many months he was "in arrears"....his answer: that was just one month's bill. I had to mention to him if he'd budget a little better he could probably afford a vehicle instead of entertainment. I got a blank stare and cricket sounds...

I still can't believe folks will pay an amount more than a good car payment just to keep the latest and greatest little screen in their pocket.

Priorities, man. It's all about priorities. Maturity never happens until you learn how to put your priorities in the correct order.

Brian McEachern, post: 442909, member: 9299 wrote: Recently on a Facebook page directed mostly toward the field audience, aptly named, "The Field Crew" I posed a question about moving someone up the ladder from rodman to I-man. The responses were far and wide, and quite a few were directed toward there is no longer a ladder. The ladder is dead because of the 1 Man Crew. The idea of apprenticeship is slowly dying, yet that is exactly what surveyors need. I do not mean to hijack the thread, however this where the 4 year degree is lacking. Folks that work their way up through the field have a greater knowledge of how distances are actually measured. "Everything is easier on paper" is a quote I am sure most of the "old school" surveyors have claimed once or twice while cutting line through a job that should have taken 5 less hours. Learning how to deal with errors in the field, hostile neighbors, as well as anything else that may arise during any given survey is crucial to the profession and those aspects are something that simply cannot be taught by a textbook. Apprenticeship is dying quickly and giving way to the "1 Man Crew".

I believe this comes back to the idea that if you want it done right, then do it yourself. It is easier for a person in the know to run a robot, collect the data necessary, and return with a fruitful field trip. The guys that know how to do it, are doing great as a solo team and that is great for them. I too have found myself lately wishing to have a robot and good GPS. That attitude however, leads to the exact predicament the industry is in now. If there is no ladder to climb, then there is no reason to climb it. There is no reason for a younger person or a person seeking an alternate career to choose surveying. The ones that have had the privilege of learning the industry from the roots are the only ones benefiting, and not even benefiting to the fullest extent because of formal education requirements. Surveying is the best example of a "well paying" dead end job. Without a degree one is stuck, and the "1 Man Crew" will hold the profession there until apprenticeship is recognized again.

Another item I am in discussions in the State Surveying Society with, is our number of applicants are dropping, and I am of the opinion part of it is how many kids graduate from high school with the hopes of going to college to become a land surveyor? not many. I suspect a large number of good surveyors don't realize they want to survey until they saw an ad in the paper, or heard from a friend about this guy who was hiring, and they worked on a crew for a few years, worked up the ladder, and said, "hey, I like this", but now they have kids, a wife, a house, and this full time plus job, and taking time to go to college, even a few hours at a time, is difficult. So we are looking st a person who has lots of surveying knowledge, but in several states, they are prevented from sitting for the exam, because they have no college credits. The nice thing is, they may have 7 years I-man, so they can find work pretty easy. But on the other hand, we have the college graduate, who got their degree in criminal justice, with a few extra math classes thrown in, who then went to an engineering firm because that was the place that had a job opening, and the boss said in 2 years I can make you an RPLS, start learning how this computer program works. In two years, without hardly ever leaving the office, or meeting the field crews, we have a person who passes the RPLS exam, but has no good working knowledge of what a good survey takes. And since they can sign the papers, they can now go open their own firm, if they wish, with less experience than the 7 year experienced I-man. And they count on the I man they hire to do good work, but they wouldn't really know, since they never go to the field to check, I mean what would they check? They dont know how to check, except the computer math comes out good. We need a mentorship type schooling, so that every RPLS has to go to the field, and see firsthand about searching for corners, see about things like radio problems, see things like the corner they want might be out of place, yeah, that really happens, it's the real world. Make these young guys hike to the back of a property to search for a rod, find 3 and see why the crew sometimes spends a day cutting weeds out of the way to get to a corner. Take them to the courthouse to learn how to research out the old records, go through a chain of title, so they can find a missing 40 acre tract. Skills that are needed, because they are part of surveying, but that are not being used, because it is easy to pass them over these days.

Getting out of bed every day, preparing one's self properly and arriving at the workplace no later than "on time".

Sadly, that has become Job 1 instead of simply being common sense. Who's at fault for their early training in life that says showing up whenever you feel like it is just fine?

Holy Cow, post: 442977, member: 50 wrote: Getting out of bed every day, preparing one's self properly and arriving at the workplace no later than "on time".

Sadly, that has become Job 1 instead of simply being common sense. Who's at fault for their early training in life that says showing up whenever you feel like it is just fine?

I had a sad-sack (22 year old) employee for a while that could never make it to work on time. One morning I sent the crews out the door on time without him. He showed up thirty minutes later and wanted to know "where was everybody?" I told him they were all at work and it looked like he was out of luck. My 'friendly paternal admonishment' to him was "if you want a paycheck, you need to show up on time".

About an hour later I realized he was sitting in the conference room (asleep in a chair). I asked him what he was up to and he explained it was my job to give him something to do; he was at 'work'. I had to get firm and explain to him his check would not include the time he was burning just sitting in my office. His reply was "we'll see about that".

He didn't show up the next day and the day after that was payday. He came in to get his check and I explained to him he no longer was employed due to not showing up and not calling. I thought I had heard the last of him.

His mother called me over the weekend wanting to argue about my decision. I wasn't very pleasant to her over the phone. I finally asked her why she didn't get him up and drive him to work on time. She told me 'that's not her responsibility'. I agreed with her and offered my opinion that it wasn't mine either and I felt the responsibility was squarely on the employee, who had failed miserably. Hence his dismissal. I never heard from either of them after that.

[USER=20]@paden cash[/USER]

I remember that guy.
After my conversation with the mother, her husband called me back and "was gonna come over and kick my ass if I talked to his wife that way again".
My response was that I felt their pain because it appeared that all three of them were having the same problems with all of them home all the time and added that I can't help them fix that.

paden cash, post: 442958, member: 20 wrote: I've had an idea for a while now about a 'maverick' private surveying consultant named 'Rock-Ferd' that is always getting himself into sticky situations and skirting the law. In the story he lives in a travel trailer on a beach with his retired father and drives a Pontiac Firebird. I think it might be a hit, but my pick for the characters would have been James Garner as Rock-Ferd and Noah Berry as his father. Sadly they're not around anymore.

But it would probably be easier to 'dig them up' than to find an actual Pontiac Firebird that still runs...;)

How to get private records from the other Surveyor in town:
[MEDIA=youtube]1sXm0y9RcQE[/MEDIA]

Dave Karoly, post: 443055, member: 94 wrote: How to get private records from the other Surveyor in town:
[MEDIA=youtube]1sXm0y9RcQE[/MEDIA]

Survey is in the toilet
construction is in the toilet
engineering is in the toilet

just change the order above to suite your toilet job siteworld
best get out............

and get into a better profession
so you don't have to look at

• garbage drawings
• mom and pop contractors
• home brew engineers

• garbage contracts
• Money men who think thinking is a commodity

Please add your comments to above Bullets

DON'T blame survey its the interface to others
okay
one man survey crew = true curse
11*17 plots = next curse

Regards

Peter Kozub, post: 443087, member: 375 wrote: Survey is in the toilet
construction is in the toilet
engineering is in the toilet

just change the order above to suite your toilet job siteworld
best get out............

and get into a better profession
so you don't have to look at

• garbage drawings
• mom and pop contractors
• home brew engineers

• garbage contracts
• Money men who think thinking is a commodity

Please add your comments to above Bullets

DON'T blame survey its the interface to others
okay
one man survey crew = true curse
11*17 plots = next curse

Regards

Perhaps you should consider giving this product a try?
[MEDIA=youtube]ZKLnhuzh9uY[/MEDIA]

Williwaw, post: 443112, member: 7066 wrote: Perhaps you should consider giving this product a try?
[MEDIA=youtube]ZKLnhuzh9uY[/MEDIA]

Typical small Surveyor industry response

Low rent

you can do better

put some effort into it

Please

Regards

Sorry Peter. With all your toilette and garbage analogies I thought you could use a chuckle. My bad. Carry on with what your doing because it all seems to be working out so swell for you.

It takes a lot of skills, savvy, and toughness to be a competent field to finish surveyor - you've got to be able to do a LOT of different things requiring fine and gross motor skills - requiring excellent reading comprehension and writing skills - you have to be productive in adverse weather, terrain, and general environment conditions - be able to haul gear - be able to operate and fix a wide variety of mechanical and electronic devices - make a large quantity of good decisions - be able to tactfully deal with adverse or unreasonable clients, neighbors, contractors, engineers, platting officials - be able to sit at a desk and operate a wide variety of software - be able to laugh at a joke when it's zero, the wind is blowing, and the 4-wheeler won't start 5 miles from the truck - and you've got to MEET PROJECT OBJECTIVES.

You don't get this for $20 or $30 bucks an hour.
You need to be competing for highly capable individuals - these folks can work wherever they want.
You have to compete on wage and opportunity. And you should do what you can to compete on the awesomeness and challenge of the work.
So...
When considering the fee you charge your client, remember:
[INDENT]- the survey being performed is NOT discretionary spending - someone is REQUIRED to have this survey done - they will have it done regardless of cost
- the cost of the survey is typically a VERY small percentage of the transaction/project value - cost is only a go/no go factor if the project is to build a fence or a shed.
- the $ amount of downstream work done based on your control/boundary/topo/layout is HUGE - any client who would be a good repeat client knows this - they care about reliability much more than they care about cost
- not just anybody can do this work properly
- the economy is recovering in many parts of the lower 48 and I'd bet you a growler of good beer (I pick the brewery) that demand for your services exceeds supply (yes, there are pockets where the economy is still suffering)
- you need to pay well to get good staff - to pay well you need to charge appropriately
- you need to have time to mentor the quality RAW material that is coming out of the 4 year degree programs
... and not to belabor the point but - the survey being performed is NOT discretionary spending - someone is REQUIRED to have this survey done - they will have it done regardless of cost[/INDENT]

So IF you are in an economic environment that isn't on the ropes - let the lowballers eat all the lowball clients the can stuff in their mouths. Charge appropriately so you can hire appropriately so that you can deliver appropriate and reliable services.

If the economy sucks where you are - do what you need to do to survive.

There are enough competent, hard working young people to put one on EVERY crew you've got - they just have better opportunities than much of the survey community is offering.

Pay MORE * Charge MORE * MENTOR

or not.

The focus on crew size is, in my opinion, skewed by the power of nostalgia. The party chief of 30 years ago possessed a more complete understanding of the art which has since been fractured by separating field and office into much more distant branches. I am of the opinion that if we are to find our way forward the division needs to be lessened.

My experience has been that crew size has no bearing on the involvement of people in responsible charge in mentoring and guiding field hands. The savvy business person will be making money sufficient to afford them or their organization time to take care of their people, if one of the tools they use to get there is a one person crew, perhaps with office hands lending a day here or there when the task requires it, then I see no harm.

Holy Cow, post: 442874, member: 50 wrote: It's all the fault of the parents. Haven't you learned that yet? It's the so-called parents who enable their children to become unlikely employees anywhere.

It's all the fault of the schools. Haven't you learned that yet? It's the so-called educational system that encourages students to find themselves and awards them all sorts of bizarre trophies, ribbons and exalting titles for doing little more than being present.

It's all the fault of the employers. Haven't you learned that yet? It's the greedy owners who want to re-institute slavery where the workers actually must do work in order to receive a paycheck instead of being handed a paycheck simply for agreeing to show up from time to time, when it's convenient to their schedule.

It's all the fault of the government...........................oops.............................never mind..........................................

It's (so and so's fault) because it can't possibly be the fault of the injured individual doing the whining.

The bottom line is that we have to make jobs attractive to the group of people who might actually possess the various skills needed to eventually succeed at it. First, they must know the surveying profession exists. You don't see any TV shows featuring the thrill-packed adventures of a survey firm. You don't see any movies made about the greatness we know as the world of surveying. We have no major advertising similar to "Be all that you can be" that wakes up young people to the possibilities for them in our profession. Face it. We are as dull as a butter knife.

Here here...
As a former debate judge (high school and college) I can say with certainty there are brilliant kids willing to work. Do they all understand the ins and outs of employer / employee realationships? No. They have to learn it like WE DID.
As for the money, it can be made if you choose wisely. I did see an ad for a $13/hr experienced tech job the othrr day. Made me throw up a little. If you want to charge and pay crap open a pizza joibt.
My comments on 4 year degree and 1 man crew have to be combined. They are intimately intertwined. Ive heard Board members justify the degree because we now use 1 man crews. It is a circular pile of garbage. Not every company runs 1 mam crews and not every person needs a 4 year degree. We put ourselves in a box, tape up the lid then whine about no sunshine.
A few suggestions...
Reinstitute a combination education and experience track that reopens the door for good candidates.
Do your Professional duty and follow through ejecting the dirtballs among us.
Be respectable.
Charge and pay according to the value of your service.
Invest in somebody. You wouldnt be here if someone had bot invested in you.

Our entire industry is slowly dying, and each and every one of us is at fault.

We don't promote the profession, don't promote the value of our services and don't charge enough for the service we provide. As a result, we have started cutting corners, principally in mentoring, paying our technicians, and community outreach. The fact is, we are professionals, but public opinion, and our billing rates make us out to be tradesmen.

As a licensed land surveyor for a firm, I was billed out at $85/hour. The local chainsaw repairman, fence builder, and automotive stereo installer currently bill themselves at $75/hour. I am guessing their professional liability and equipment costs are considereably less.

I left the private surveying world for a career in government. I can't say it is as fulfilling, but I have better medical, better retirement, better vacation and considerably better wages.

In the private world, I was making less than my party chief makes now.

The prices billed for survey work in the Pacific Northwest have really not increased much since the 1980's. Does nobody else see a problem with that?

Is ??t really shocking that someone with a college degree in a high cost of living area expects $70k? Did they get a college degree complete with student loans so that they can do you the favor of working for $15/hour or less?