So a while back I got a call from another surveying company near me that had somehow gotten my cad file on a job I did in 2018. Mind you I strip everything out of a file before it goes out to an engineer or architect. Well they wanted my point file, which I of course refused as I don't give out my point files to anyone. I did send them a point file for three MAGs that I had used as a benchmarks which was all they needed anyways. Well I went out today to survey the lot behind the 2018 lot and as I am walking the new lot I went to look for one of my traverse nails along the back line of the 2018 lot. Well I found it, pulled up and thrown on the ground two foot from a brand new nail. There was no reason to pull my traverse nail except out of spite, especially as you could see the two back corners from this one nail. I don't understand this kind of behavior at all.
Never Assume MALICE when pure ignorance, passivity, lack of paying attention, and stupidity will suffice.
Maybe after setting up, the new guy pulled it, so as to not get confused. There are college grads, who would do that....
Maybe send them a cute little pic of your "Found Pulled Nail". Along with a very sweet "Request" to please put it back..... Ha ha.
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The temptation to retaliate would have been unbearable.
Many years ago I was running a USFS boundary job and was assigned a newly-hired guy to run the gun.?ÿ He had previously worked for a geophysical outfit, but seemed to know how to operate the instrument, so off we went traversing though the woods.?ÿ I went ahead to set points, while the new I-man and a rodman followed behind.?ÿ About the middle of day two or so I happened to walk back down line to move some supplies ahead, and as I walked past the new guy I found him beating the traverse point spike out of the ground.?ÿ Incredulous, I said "What the !@#$ are you doing?!"?ÿ He responded that he was knocking the spike out of the way so he could set a backsight.?ÿ I then learned that he had been doing that at every single point in the traverse.?ÿ Argh!
Similarly, the OPs problem may have been due to ignorance/inadequate training, as it was in my case.?ÿ I should have taken the time to ensure that the new guy understood the desired procedure instead of assuming that he knew what I wanted him to do.?ÿ There's nothing the OP could have done to alter the situation with another firm's employee, but it offers an alternative explanation to the one about spite.
I can't understand why the other surveyor would enter into a staking contract (reading between the lines here) without a clause explicitly stating that control is to be provided by the client, and if it is not provided or is insufficient to perform the work, the client will pay for the surveyor to establish or re-establish control.
If you furnished all deliverables and fulfilled the 2018 contract, the other surveyor's apparent lack of business acumen and professional competency is not your problem. They need to go talk with their client, not harass you.
I know any of y??all that have ran lots of levels. I am not talking about around a project i am talking miles or even down a runway at an airport. I used turtles for turning points especially on military airfields because no FOB was allowed no pk nails or mag nails allowed because a plane would or could suck them up into the engine. Well I had one guy yes no matter how many times you tried to beat it into his grape (aka Marine slang for the head that is supposed to hold brains) he would always pull the turtle up at some point and just pace right on by. You could ask him what he was doing and he would get mad as that would mess up his pacing count. ?ÿNow he was not dumb. He was about the border line genius to be truthful. He could calculate do math write code for me. But when it was something practical like running a rod or total station. Writing on a lathe. He just didn??t work that way. So on long miles of levels when I had no choice but to use him the turtles stayed in the truck and we pounded hubs that i would have to walk back every so often and pull. But that was the only way I could prevent starting over. ?ÿ
I don't understand why surveyors don't show or share baseline data when projects are going to be used for design and require stakeout. This practice indicates you may be trying to hide something or perhaps trying to hold the project tight to your chest.?ÿ
I realize many surveyors dread construction contractors doing layout, but get over it. This is 2022, those contractors likely have better equipment than you do and they know how to use it, or are atleast willing to pay lots of money for someone to teach them.?ÿ
I know any of y??all that have ran lots of levels. I am not talking about around a project i am talking miles or even down a runway at an airport. I used turtles for turning points especially on military airfields because no FOB was allowed no pk nails or mag nails allowed because a plane would or could suck them up into the engine. Well I had one guy yes no matter how many times you tried to beat it into his grape (aka Marine slang for the head that is supposed to hold brains) he would always pull the turtle up at some point and just pace right on by. You could ask him what he was doing and he would get mad as that would mess up his pacing count. ?ÿNow he was not dumb. He was about the border line genius to be truthful. He could calculate do math write code for me. But when it was something practical like running a rod or total station. Writing on a lathe. He just didn??t work that way. So on long miles of levels when I had no choice but to use him the turtles stayed in the truck and we pounded hubs that i would have to walk back every so often and pull. But that was the only way I could prevent starting over. ?ÿ
I had to pull our secretary out in the field one day to hold the rod for a control level loop. She kept picking up the turtle too! I even made a little sketch and explained to her how it all worked. She never got it! We ran one portion of the loop about 5 times. I can't drive by that stretch of road without thinking about it.
@edward-reading ???? Does it make the hairs on your neck raise up? I have been a big dumb knucklehead my self over the years. If I had a nickel for every bone head mistake I have made I would have retired years ago. I usually do some dumb thing when I am about ready to strangle someone for doing something stupid and I end up doing what i told them not to do. So i just bang my head against the wall. Thats when you know you have become to emotionally involved and should just stop and take a deep breath.
I was assigned one time to the city precise level crew.?ÿ When we stopped for lunch the rods were put away into the tubes atop the truck, the tripod into another, and the turtles in the back of the truck, except I put my turtle down and forgot to pick it up while we went to lunch.?ÿ Luckily it was still there when we came back after lunch.?ÿ I guess noone in the neighborhood had a use for whatever that thing was.
Near THRAC ALERT?!!
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although the idea personifies the level of cognitive abilities of the people involved but here you go
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Sounds extremely petty if that is indeed what happened. I feel like one of the unwritten rules of Surveying is not messing with others Control.
On a side note, what??s the purpose of stripping out control on deliverable DWG?
I had a firm call me expecting me to hand them all of my data from a job four years earlier.?ÿ They needed to do a topo.?ÿ I explained that my information would be worthless to them.?ÿ They couldn't understand that the entire site had been stripped and dirt moved all over the place and even the property monuments had been ripped out already.?ÿ Explained that, even if I were to go back and do what they had been asked to do, I would be starting from scratch.?ÿ They still demanded that I send them the data OR ELSE.?ÿ Politely explained that the Sun don't shine where they could stick that OR ELSE.?ÿ They did not get my worthless data.
Sounds extremely petty if that is indeed what happened. I feel like one of the unwritten rules of Surveying is not messing with others Control.
On a side note, what??s the purpose of stripping out control on deliverable DWG?
I always do that on construction work drawings - with a note giving my details. It avoids the situation when some newby sets up on a point and decides that another one set for a different traverse and just a few feet away makes a good backsight, rather than having to walk the tripod and target out for a few hundred feet to use the correct backsight.
Nothing on the drawing means they have to talk to me to get the coordinates. The little extra hassle on each job more than covers the major problems when a contractor manages to swing the whole setting out because the sight was so close.
This is another reason it's worth the time to begin every project on state plane.?ÿ On the vast majority of projects you don't have to worry about losing old control.?ÿ I include at least a couple of NEZs in every deliverable, but if the contractor or surveyor doesn't like them, I just point them back to the metadata.?ÿ
If they were spiteful, and chose to pull your nails, they're idiots.?ÿ The proper technique is to pull the control and reset it a half a foot or so away.?ÿ
On a side note, what??s the purpose of stripping out control on deliverable DWG?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.?ÿ You do your work, provide a hard copy of the final, along with CAD.?ÿ
Why does another company, who's possibly competing for the staking layout, deserve your fieldwork??ÿ The information is all on the plat and CAD, let them do their own survey to tie into everything.?ÿ And unless I'm being overly cautious, you'd be opening yourself up to even more liability if the winning bidder screws it up, using your control
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Obviously, if that was part of your original contract, to provide the control, then it's a different story, and you're hopefully compensated for that.
And unless I'm being overly cautious, you'd be opening yourself up to even more liability if the winning bidder screws it up, using your control
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Obviously, if that was part of your original contract, to provide the control, then it's a different story, and you're hopefully compensated for that.
This is my take as well. It's not an either/or, all-the-time answer.
If I'm contracted to do a boundary + design topo and the scope of services and deliverables list does not specifically include control work, then anything I do control-wise is incidental to the boundary or the topo, and I don't need to hand it over.
Moreover, not all control is created equal, and not all pre-construction surveys require control that is sufficient for construction staking. Boundary standards (and by extension control used to observe boundary) are pretty loose horizontally in this state, and if it's for a water line replacement corridor or we're just mapping an empty field, the vertical doesn't have to be tight enough to set bolt packs, nor does it need to be intervisible.
Even though our SOP is to hand everything over, I'm always wary of it because it's not uncommon for us to get calls from the client on behalf of their contractor asking "where's the rest of the control" or "why does your control miss by [insert amount]" or "are these state plane coordinates" or "they can't work with this control because they can't get a good site calibration". That can burn a lot of time that we're not getting paid for.
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When we are on the other side of that process, and contracting for construction staking, we specifically state that our costs are based upon the assumption that there is good control existing on site, we will check any existing control on site, and if it is not sufficient, we will be paid to run in additional control or upgrade the existing.
It depends on the type of job, any topo for design gets three control points and they are labeled on the drawing, then the type of coordinate with meta-data is shown.?ÿ
If it's a remote site for a something like an oil and gas project I will set a main control point and some nearby Section corner type monuments for a GPS check. No one gets my points beyond control.?ÿ
But without site control the construction phase will be messy at best. It shouldn't be needed in the contract, how else will it get done? It's like selling a car without tires. You didn't request tires, so why should you get them.?ÿ
One reason I like giving site control is that now anyone can proceed, they don't need to contact me, I don't need to bid it, cause I don't want it anyway.?ÿ
So far what I think the 2 prominent answers from responders on this is:
1.) It's your control, the next Surveyor can do their own work to re-establish control on site.
2.) It extends liability if others use your control.
The way I approach part 1 is provide a stamped/signed pdf of the topo for designer to insert into their packet for the existing conditions page. Then provide a CAD file with my stamp purged. My feelings are that the control points on/near the site are treated the same as the monuments utilized on site to establish the boundary, but just tighter. If I expect the next person down the line to rely on my monument positions to re-establish themselves, then how is my control any different? Additionally, I will charge the new or prior Client for correspondence beyond my deliverables. Simply explaining to them that it would be fair for compensation beyond my original scope of work (especially since they have moved on without my services for the remainder of the job) seems to get a reasonable response from them.
I feel like part 2 can be a stickier subject depending on what kind of jobs you are working on, how confident you are with your control, along with many other factors. The Surveys I provide have a note that I have met the minimum standards for that type of Survey. Personally I look at it as the next Surveyor's problem if they lay out something based on my control and they haven't done their due diligence to tighten up the control to meet their minimum standards for staking. When I am on the other side and working from someone else's survey, I make sure to re-run over their control and tie into enough monuments to feel comfortable for staking based on MY REQUIREMENTS.
To each their own, but it is frustrating trying to tie into another Surveyor's topographic survey to update an area or add to it without control, no monuments shown, and the only 2 benchmarks on site are hub and tacks set in the woods 5+ years ago, and their CAD is at N=10000 E=10000. I can establish the boundary myself, but have no way to accurately get onto their datum. This is a specific example I have from this year of a job I received where the previous survey was performed by a large company.
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Why jump to the conclusion that there was a malicious intent, or that the surveyor who asked for your points was responsible?