Most of my surveying experience has been in the field. I've had office jobs and they drove me nuts. My field orientation has provided me a special relationship with my employees. I know when it's hot or cold things don't happen as fast as they might on better days. I know that field conditions have a great deal to do with the speed and quality of the work. I've been there and done that.
But unlike some old surveyors I don't lord over my employees with all the fantastic stories of monumental accomplishments in the face of adversity. And I've always been proud of the fact I won't ask an employee to do something I wouldn't, or couldn't. Staying humble and being realistic about expectations seems to foster a good rapport between an employer and an employee. And I learned that a long time ago.
Back in the early '80s I worked for an engineer that had spent some good time in the field as a party chief. He was an intelligent man but was way too overwhelmed with his own accomplishments. If it was cold outside, he had worked in colder. If we were having trouble clearing line we were just a bunch of slackers. He always had a surveying story that made us seem like we were mere palsied amateurs; it got old after a while.
I was working on topo for a large sanitary sewer outfall line that ran on for about four and a half miles. A lot of it had run through clear pastures and along existing roads but the last half mile was a bitch. That last bit fell in the snakiest briar patch God had ever turned his back on. The alignment had already been predetermined and had probably 75 PIs. We'd hack through the brush and set a point, bring the gun ahead, wrap an angle and then hack on through to the next PI. Progress was slow.
Ed, the engineer, thought we were slacking due to our slow progress. Early one morning he showed up with his starched khakis, vintage knee-high lace-up snake boots and an antique vest complete with a rubber ball full of hub tacks hanging from the vest on a tether. He was going to ride herd on us and "get something done". I remember thinking I'd probably rather be doing something enjoyable...like a root canal or a prostate exam from a doctor that use be a college football linebacker. But we all packed up and away we went.
I could tell Ed was a little surprised by the rough field conditions, but we hacked and chained just as we had all the previous days. After lunch the wind seemed to have left his sails. He wasn't helping clear line anymore and had taken to hanging on to the plans and the field book. After we had set an angle point and brought the gun forward, Ed had calc'd an angle to proceed on to the next point. Being relieved of my PC duties for the day I didn't care one bit. I was actually having fun being reduced to running the instrument.
I turned the angle Ed had figured and we started cutting and hacking ahead. And although this job had it's problems with keeping tight control, we had the route super-imposed on a black and white aerial at 100 scale. We used scaled distances to visible topo features on the aerial to keep us heading in the right direction. This particular run was a long one, almost 500' through the brush to the next PI. According to the plans we should then be close to breaking out into a clearing and should be about 70' from a prominent fence corner.
At the end of two hours of ugly brush clearing we wound up 150' from the fence corner. Ed immediately accused me of turning the wrong angle. It didn't take long to figure out that wasn't the case. He checked his math and had made a 10 degree bust in his penciling. We got the correct line figured out and re-cut the line in the right spot. By then it was late in the day and we all packed up to head in.
As we trudged through the cut back to the truck Ed stopped to wipe sweat from his forehead and to catch his breath. Everybody else was well ahead, I was the only one with him. He turned and told me, "If I ever tell you I want to come back out in the field, remind me of this afternoon".
We finally finished the topo and Ed never razzed us anymore about our fieldwork. I've remembered that all these years and it's kept me from meddling too much into the field crew's progress. Sometimes the best place for someone is in the office where they belong. 😉
I never ask a field crew to do more than I could. I'm no Ted Dura Dura, but when my crew seems to be slacking and I can take my fat old *ss out to the field and outperform them, then . ... I'm going to give them a ration of sh** because I'm not that great or in shape. but I can cut brush and I can hand chip a hole on asphalt to find a monument .
I was lucky. The majority of my field experience came from working for a boss that never talked down to me or my crew. If we were moving slower than expected, he would show up at the job with his bush axe and cut line ahead of us, all day if necessary. He lead by example and somehow made you want to get better, stronger, faster without making you feel bad about your slow progress on a tough job. That was also in the 80's, and it made a big impression on me. I try to provide that same work environment to my crews. I've tried to throw a few jobs to my old employer as a thank you gesture, but he always assures me he has plenty of work. I don't have to wonder why.
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Seems like the moral of the story is that sometimes the boss needs to get out of the office in order to stay in reality.
It is too easy to assume that things should be going much faster unless one somewhat routinely goes to the field to relearn why one shouldn't be so optimistic.
Truthfully, the same goes with putting together the final plat. Doing it right is worth the extra effort.
It is always clear and wide open on paper.
Bob Freeman, post: 402025, member: 460 wrote: It is always clear and wide open on paper.
And Flat
And off the cell phone. Or as I have seen in the past the party chief will start leaving the phone in the truck
party chef, post: 402008, member: 98 wrote: Seems like the moral of the story is that sometimes the boss needs to get out of the office in order to stay in reality.
good point.
These bosses are probably estimating jobs and how long it will take without visiting the site.
Boys, let me tell you. My dad could, in his day, run flat circles around nearly all crews today, and most crews of the time. Working in the woods produces a different type of PC. One hardened to the elements. We don't deal with extreme cold, but in 1981 and 1982, we had weeks beneath 20å¡. I've got the field book and can see the progress he made with my uncle. He earned the right to razz us to a certain extent.
Fast forward to me getting to about 25. He was 54. He had lost enough steps that even working smarter, wasn't getting around me. Lately at nearly 70, when we go to the field together, I tote everything and wait on him more and more. I know at some point, some one will get me, but at 39, he better bring a sack lunch. We cut brush every day all summer for so many years, that while I HATE it, I'm good at it. I have a rhythm and a pace I can maintain all day. The advent of GPS, robots and data collectors, while EXCEEDINGLY efficient and productive has, to quote Top Gun, causes us to lose some of our dog-fighting skills. I'm lucky enough to have trained the old way. That makes a HUGE difference when you need to call an audible and work smarter. Sometimes working smarter is cutting brush and running the gun vs. using the new tech.
Interesting that we all have the same saying. I've always told my guys that I won't ask them to do something that I haven't or won't do. I point the new guys to my avatar picture and say, if I tell you to get waist deep, you better believe I'm right behind you. However, if my guys tell me the brush is bad, I understand. Prices go up and time frames go down as the mercury changes. Gotta listen to your guys in the morning about the way things have been going. Sometimes, the boss just has to go to the field to get it done, even if you have the best crews in the world.
Great post Paden.
I agree whole heartedly and it's a great lesson for many, including me. I'm just beginning the whole venture into the boss arena. I do all my own field work and office work right now.
I'm still a young buck (33 years old) but I won't do what I did a decade ago, such as throwing myself over pricker bushes to hold them down so the instrument man can sight over it, and I won't ask anyone to do that (I was just nuts)
But sometimes it does work the other way.....
My father, an old timer in his later 60s, is training our new guy (been training him for a year) he's training him basically his older ways with the newer robotic equipment that I taught the young guy to use. I've gotten very accustomed to the new equipment and my methods differ greatly than those that were used with a transit etc. They are easier and many times much better imo, sometimes admittedly not.
I digress..... but while I won't come in and rag on them for not working in the blistering down pour of the afternoon like I once or twice have, or throw themselves over prickers to get a shot, sometimes they come in and do things that should have been done.
For example... a corner wasn't searched for by a road bc a 'big bush' was there. A quick Google Earth street view shows the Bush was nothing more than a small bush (no thorns) that wouldn't take more and a few minutes to search.
Just yesterday I got back from doing a job that my father scouted earlier and when the rear corner came up, I said I didn't find anything but it was near the tree. He said he didn't look bc he didn't want to have the guy 'hop that fence that looked like it was falling apart'......
This was a time I scoffed because the fence was a split rail fence, 'hopping' is a stretch word, and it wasn't in that bad a shape. It was easily 'steppable'
The problem I had with both of these situations isn't even that he didn't want to take the time to look, it's that this is teaching a potential future chief that corners shouldn't be searched if a bush looks too big or that there's no need to bother looking for a corner if you don't feel like 'hopping' a small split rail fence.
Both of these above jobs when I went back to I not only hopped the fence, I also found a nice old pipe in the 'big bad bush'
paden cash, post: 401994, member: 20 wrote: At the end of two hours of ugly brush clearing we wound up 150' from the fence corner. Ed immediately accused me of turning the wrong angle. It didn't take long to figure out that wasn't the case. He checked his math and had made a 10 degree bust in his penciling. We got the correct line figured out and re-cut the line in the right spot. By then it was late in the day and we all packed up to head in.
Ouch. Was your tongue bleeding?
Thursday would have been an excellent day for this boss to have stayed in the office. Especially after standing all alone on the top of the hill next to the total station at 18 F with 25 MPH breezes for over an hour. It was a fantastic turning point location that worked for lots of shots. Two more layers of clothing or a survey chariot to jump into for a warmup would have improved my state of mind considerably. It didn't help that they client caught the rodman in action and had to slow him down a bunch. When they were completely out of sight for about 15 minutes straight I thought about radioing to ask that when they came back from the bar that they bring me a beer.
Holy Cow, post: 403384, member: 50 wrote: Thursday would have been an excellent day for this boss to have stayed in the office. Especially after standing all alone on the top of the hill next to the total station at 18 F with 25 MPH breezes for over an hour. It was a fantastic turning point location that worked for lots of shots. Two more layers of clothing or a survey chariot to jump into for a warmup would have improved my state of mind considerably. It didn't help that they client caught the rodman in action and had to slow him down a bunch. When they were completely out of sight for about 15 minutes straight I thought about radioing to ask that when they came back from the bar that they bring me a beer.
This. This is why I'm grateful I got a robot. No more 'standing alone at the top of the hill' to me that was the worst part. So boring standing there operating a TS for an hour or so in the same spot.
Now jobs take half the time and feel like they take no time at all as I'm constantly engaged walking around.
(And when the client comes, it's unfortunately me who gets caught up, but I'm no longer sitting there watching, waiting for them to bring me a beer)
