When I was 17 and a senior in high school, my mother handed me a brochure from a community college and said "pick something" with a voice that meant one of the programs being offered was going to be my choice. Since "Locomotive Engineer" was not one of the choices, I picked "Surveying" as sort of a process of elimination.
Go back about five years earlier and I was riding my motorcycle along the right-of-way of the nearby railroad when I stopped to ponder something unsual. It was USC&GS bench mark "G 127". I went home and got out the dictionary and looked up the word to figure out what this thing was all about.
(5) My dad is a surveyor, now my boss. I was a welder after High School, like to use my hands and build things from nothing. Then my dad, tired of busting his hump for someone else decided to buy the firm that he used to work at. The field hand that came with the company wasn't worth a mag nail (another story all together). So, I decided to help him out and 6 years later here I am. I guess it was destiny though, I used to help him when I was little, holding the rod when he would do side jobs. I always wanted to put the rod up when it didn't call for it. 😛 Now I'm in too deep, I can't think of doing anything else.
:good:
2 & 5. I enjoy history. I feel like Surveying is a good link to the past of this country. Really enjoy it!!
>... i found a job where someone paid me to wander around in the woods. that job was as a tail chainman.
>
> been doing it ever since, and have been blessed/lucky enough to make a living and raise a family.
>
:good:
10th grade education, time in military working on guns, ranch hand, commercial fisherman and truck driver. Top of my occupation quickly with limited future. Getting married and knowing that I did not want to be married with little chance of staying home. GI Bill provided the means for Community College, near graduation time with an Associate Degree in Civil Engineering Technology, a local firm needed help on some USACE cross section work, later turned into flood plain data, they liked my work and abilities so kept me. I am a surveyor because of some bad choices, mixed with some good ones along with luck, sum it all up as an accident.
jud
Because I want to live a life of death and danger!
It would have to be number 1, the money.
Where else could I make this kind of money (+) and keep the hours (-) I have?
Second Generation.
Started the summer between 8th grade and Freshman.
By the next year I had decided to become a Registered Surveyor.
B-)
Poll - You guys are too kind
I may actually have told this story in the past, I can’t remember so, stop me if you’ve heard this.
In 1968, I found myself on a “farm” in Milpitas, California, as a guest of the Santa Clara County Sheriff. I had fallen in with bad companions. (Not really, the bad companions didn’t show up until after I got into surveying :-))
Really, it was a result of participating commercially in an activity that is now, 45 years later, legal in two states.
Near the end of my stay, I was given an opportunity to enter a work furlough program. I found an adult education program that offered training in a variety of job skills and I enrolled in a drafting class.
My first choice would have been television repair, but some of the other guys at the farm gave me a bad time about being “Sancho the T.V. guy.” Sancho is the gentleman that entertains women when their men are in jail.
The drafting course was interesting and fun and I stayed with it after my release. At the end of the course, our instructor announced that the Santa Clara County Surveyor was looking for some bright, young people to train on survey crews.
I met half the criteria so I applied and became a shiny, new Junior Engineering Aide on a four man crew. Of course, I fell in love with surveying and never learned how to do anything else.
Well, that actually wasn’t so long after all, was it? It was just a LONG time ago.
Don
The mix of office and field work does make for quite a nice change of pace. I personnally fell into the profession because a family member worked as a party chief. It is a fun job too. So I would be 2, and 5.
Poll - You guys are too kind
Pounding hubs in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won.
I kid because I care 😉
Definitely not because of the money.
My father became a surveyor in 1973 just 2 years after I was born. When I was 12 he told me, "Matt. You'll need to know how to work when you get to working age. I don't want you to be one of those kids who are learning how to work. I want you to know how when you need it." The issue was not to teach me surveying necessarily. He wanted me to know how to read a tape, take orders, do a good job and be the kind of employee everyone would want to hire. Surveying soon became the only thing I really knew about. I went to college and earned a degree in teaching English at the high school level. I soon tired of rotten kids who didn't have a clue about anything. I was only a substitute, but I could see where this was heading. I was not looking at a career I would be satisfied doing until retirement. Each year you teach the same thing you taught last year unless some new, ground-breaking research revealed a new way to teach Shakespeare to teenagers. I decided that there was only one profession that would provide me with countless years of new issues and problems that needed solving. My brother and I worked out a plan for me to get a license. He, unfortunately, passed away before he could see me through it. My dad helped me the best he could. I slipped in under the wire of education requirements and spent 5 years taking tests.
I am a land surveyor because I like to solve problems. I like working in different areas most of the time. I get to meet great people out there. I also meet some not-so-great people too. I like my job and I think there is some level of status that goes with it. Plus, it's the one thing I'm fairly good at. I still dangle my participles and my punctuation isn't all that great; I try to keep my writing to a minimum.
5. 42 years(in March) ago I needed a job. Went to work for a high school friend's Dad. Did not find anything I liked better. A few years later I woke up one day and decided I liked this crazy job. I must have to keep at it this long.
> Why are you a land surveyor?
> 2. Job is Fun
I was conscripted and Shanghai'd.
It was like getting fish-hooked.
Don't let your friends talk you into it! RUN.
I can't stop myself!
Actually #2.
Did not like dodging bullets, so I thought I would dodge cars!:-D
Because all the positions for Explorer and Pathfinder were already filled.
I graduated from college in 1972 with a degree in applied math hoping to be a systems analyst in the aerospace industry. Boeing let go thousands of aerospace engineers a month or so before graduation. I chased a girlfriend to Boulder, Co and answered a help wanted ad in the newspaper for “Surveyor’s helper wanted, no experience needed will train.”
So number 5 is how I started and 2 is why I’ve stayed.
Holy Cow expressed it very well I think.
> ...and answered a help wanted ad in the newspaper for “Surveyor’s helper wanted, no experience needed will train.”
Hey, that same ad was in the Washington Post in early 1988 after I had just turned down a job with the Dole campaign and was running low on beer money.
2 & 5. My brother got me into this in 1982. He was an instrument man. I was dirt. We worked well together and I have worked with some of the best folks I have ever met. Fortunately the company I worked for was diverse in work...the S in MSA was the best surveyor I ever worked for, worked with and partners with. My hats off to him and everything he taught me.
Land surveying (other) can be applied to many different things if you think out of the box. And we did by taking on projects no one else at the time would.
I'm glad I never changed my mind about things. The outdoors, the different locations, the different challenges...I could go on but won't.
Good post BL!
