Wayne
I make a habit of checking all the raw data files for fat fingered rod heights, mark ups, etc. There are usually more than are caught by the chief and written in the book. It's not that I hate edits, it's that it's frustrating. I also have a policy where they check into 2 points in the morning, and 2 different points in the evening before quitting. Then once the data is in the machine, I verify that the checks, actually check and there wasn't a ghost in the machine or something else.
Once of prevention ya know! 🙂
mapmaker
There is insight, that I would take, and there is bird-dogging someone and just irritating them because they can (like we see here). This goes back a long way.
Stephen
This dude, who like I said, has been a friend more than 20 years, grew up with a REALLY hard-a$$ of a dad. I watch him when I'm talking to him or critiquing the job, and he zone's out. It's weird.
Actually, I rail here or somewhere else so I don't ruin a friendship. Once calm, we have a "come to Jesus" meeting about it where I can think clearly.
The 4"x4" is always an option though. 🙂
Thanks,
Not beer thirty
We're going straight to captain and coke and margarita's in a few!
Loved the interview amigo! 🙂
good policy
I certainly can't argue with that process of checks. Pretty fundamental stuff. Sometimes I wish I was that thorough, but often we just zip along to get done. I'm certainly guilty of that. Especially when 0.2 is close enough, but at least I acknowledge that it's there and it's my decision to say "close enough".
It just seems that he perhaps recognized the problem existed, and put it back on you to acknowledge and fix. Maybe that's good, maybe not. He's your employee and your decision to make. Personally, I find that approach to not fit my approach. Maybe that's why I don't have any employees, and never will. At least in surveying.
Good luck
Not not rub salt in the wound, and I don't know what type of software you use; but with TBC this fix would be as easy as deleting one assigned coordinate. 😉
Frame of Mind
Sometimes it takes a person to find themselves completely alone with the expectation of no help whatsoever and that the next morsel of food for them and their family will come from the work that they get paid for today.
Days like these have caused many to see a light in that darkened time that they must be successful or there are going to be many very dark and cold nights ahead.
Most chiefs I have put into the field are button pusher and I like that to some extent because I don't want them to fix, balance, mean, compute, or many other duties that are my duties.
Frame of Mind
First Surveyor I was a chief for, didn't want me doing any calcs. He had trouble with guys making mistakes, and do things their way. Ignoring his wishes and not respecting his license. I did what he wanted and after a year, when problems came up I'd call him. While waiting on his answer I'd do my calcs for practice. When he'd call back, I'd compare his coordinates to mine. Typically saying yup those are correct. It took him awhile, then one day asked me what I meant they were right. I said for practice I was calcing too, and we matched. I caught him making an error one day. He was doing 3 jobs at once, and rushed through on a problem we had. I told him we had different answers, gave him my numbers. He called back 15 minutes later and said use my numbers. After that he let me be a Party Chief, but I always ran my numbers past him, and respected his license and wishes.
I guess bottom line is make your Surveyor happy, and comfortable with your skills. Two sets of eyes are better than one. I worked for him 8 years. Best Surveyor I ever worked for, and he felt same about my being his Chief.
Speaking of sugarland
I saw them last weekend, they were pretty good...not really my genre...but I liked em.
This isn't meant as criticism by any means...the comments here remind me of some good advice that I was given early in my career as a manager and mentor.
Most people want to succeed at work. If I start with that premise, then the likely reason that they do not succeed is that I have not provided adequate means for them to do so, either in formal and/or informal training, support, mentoring, encouragement, or simply the time and experience to learn.
I remember the managers who helped me to succeed, particularly when I was making similar (and worse) errors. I am grateful to them and worked my ass off for them.
Just sayin'
good policy
> Maybe that's why I don't have any employees, and never will. At least in surveying.
Once I had my friday evening plans blown to bits when after staking out a house location on a city lot after a long day, the licensed PS I was working under realized he didn't stake to the eave line for setbacks, but rather didso straight to the walls. All the staking needed to be pulled & restaked, including rebar offsets. Having my plans derailed pissed me off & he offered to run me (a lowly I-man at the time) back to the office and he would return and fix it himself. I told him screw that, lets just dig in, fix it and get it frickin done! People make mistakes, no matter what their station in life or experience / education level. I'm sorry, but IMO two will always be better than one and life's too short to have a god complex.
> This isn't meant as criticism by any means...the comments here remind me of some good advice that I was given early in my career as a manager and mentor.
>
> Most people want to succeed at work. If I start with that premise, then the likely reason that they do not succeed is that I have not provided adequate means for them to do so, either in formal and/or informal training, support, mentoring, encouragement, or simply the time and experience to learn.
>
> I remember the managers who helped me to succeed, particularly when I was making similar (and worse) errors. I am grateful to them and worked my ass off for them.
>
> Just sayin'
Here, here, itsmagic. :good:
I once missed a 9.5" measurement on some plans that resulted in 50' of a 10 course high concrete block wall having to be demolished. I was WHITE faced when I returned to the office that day. My boss/BEST MENTOR I EVER HAD said, " Ed, it's alright, if you never make a mistake it just means you're not doing anything. What you want to do learn from your mistakes and minimize them." I swear I almost cried that day. There are people that should never be put in positions of having to make critical decisions and others who never wish to be put in such a position. But, when you, as the 'boss', puts one in such a position and they fail, then you have failed. Just the way it is.
> But, when you, as the 'boss', puts one in such a position and they fail, then you have failed. Just the way it is.
Thats how I roll Ed, my employees mistakes are viewed as my own mistake. I educate them as to what was done wrong,how to do it right, what the consequenses are, and what they will be for each of us if it happens again.
However, if humans are involved then mistakes will certainly be made, I make them all the time. It is not the mistake that is the big deal, it is the intention, attitude, past history, and willingness or ability to learn from the mistakes that matters most to me.
I know KM was just blowing off some steam, I hired a college educated idiot a while back, he only lasted a few months...what an idiot, lol.
I always tell my guys - "I will give you one" Just don't make the same mistake twice. All I ask for is honest effort. Anyone can make a mistake. I do every day. My grandfather taught ne a very valuable lesson of double and sometimes triple checking my work. And always keeping my eyes open. Mistakes are made every day. Some get caught early. They are easy enough to fix. I am trying to stress the importance of checking work to my 10 y/o dughter who constantly missses a few problems on every test in --- Math!!! Of all things!!! Most of her mistakes are due to carlessness which drives me batty.
>My grandfather taught ne a very valuable lesson of double and sometimes triple checking my work.
lol, let's not mention this to grandad.
Seriouly though, I struggle with the double triple check issue myself, when it comes to surveying I compulsively check and recheck, I wonder sometimes if it is OCD or what, there is a line where the average joe calls it good but OCD guy has to check one more time, one more time, till the warm and fuzzys arrive.
I think the reason I do it is the excellent feeling that my work must be right and I will likely not produce a common oversight error to get sued over. Being able to say he11 yeah it's right, I know it's right, I checked it!
Construction staking and calculations is where it really kicks in, I almost always review all my important calculations twice or three times, measure twice cut once is a cliche but it will save your behind from time to time.
I think anyone can be forgiven for misreading a set of structural plans. I don't know where S.E.s go to learn how to dimension plans but they can put out a confusing mess of a plan with hidden little dimensions like that all over the place.
One time I was drafting a certification drawing for another LS where he had staked the foundation of a large building and topo'd all of the piles after the fact. I was sure he made a huge mistake in a bunch of the piles until I saw the little hidden dimension among all the noise of a million lines on that plan not to mention the gridlines. He is really good to have done that staking job correctly off of that set of plans.
> These two points were 0.005' apart and the elevations were flat. Okay, pick one right, WRONG!
Was he building a watch?
Not so much OCD. Just simply when a final plat is printed out, review it before it gets stamped and sent out the door. Double check m/b calls on the final plat. Usually I prefer to have a separate set of eyes review this as well. Now in the field doing stake out -- double check along the lines of if the pin set is supposed to fall in the fence line, make sure that it is in the fence line. Basically common sense type checks. OCD can sometimes be a good thing, good thing, yep a good thing. 😀
> I once missed a 9.5" measurement on some plans that resulted in 50' of a 10 course high concrete block wall having to be demolished.
How long ago was that Ed? Interesting how you still have not forgotten the actual distance of the mistake even to this day, it stuck with you.
LSA software makes this easy. Someone mentioned TBC.
Star*Net can handle this too. Take all of your GPS vectors (RTK or Static) and all of your conventional observations and process. It will tell you your residuals and how well everything fits together.
I don't necessarily worry about what coordinates are in the conventional DC. I just turn the angles and process later.
For example, I'm working on a project where we have a combination of a static network of control combined with a lot of conventional observations to monuments under canopy. In some cases we have traverses that connect multiple GPS points and other traverse points together. Every night in the hotel room I gather all the conventional data, edit as necessary and put it into a Star*Net DAT file. Some of the conventional was done from assumed coordinates in the DC with a compass bearing for a backsight because I didn't have coordinates for the point yet but it doesn't matter because I only need the angles and distances and the HIs and THs. Then I process the days GPS vectors in Topcon Tools and make a TVF export file which Star*Net converts to a .gps file. I process and make sure nothing blew apart. Usually this takes less than an hour.
One thing blew apart this week. I turned angles to a BLM tablet on a rock a quarter mile away (across the canyon). Then I backsight the tablet and foresight the backsight (a control point) except that I zoned out on it and told the DC the backsight was also the foresight. That made some interestingly big error numbers but I figured out what I did pretty quickly. I already had two other observations to the tablet (across a very steep canyon) so I just commented out the bad observation and the numbers looked much better.
We also had a section corner to locate in a very difficult location. So my co-worker (the other Party Chief) volunteered to go down there with a total station (800 vertical feet from the truck). He is a solo crew right now. He already had a tripod and target down there from the day before. He hiked down there with his TS, DC (a different brand from mine) and a pole and target. He set a traverse point where I could see it from two places on a road across the canyon. I shot his target from a traverse point then set up a target for him to shoot. I tied my new traverse point into a traverse he had run the week before. I already had a target on another point underneath a GPS receiver which was collecting static data. He shot that. I eventually shot his control point from the other point. A little complex but we coordinated it over the radio. After observing my targets he shot another traverse point from which he could see the mon then shot the mon. Then he carried all of that equipment out of there. Star*Net put all of that together with no problem despite two different DCs and not really a linear sequence of traverse data. He gives me a thumb drive each evening with his conventional DAT file and his GPS files (which I process).
