I can't really blame the guy for his unrealistic attitude. I had been working there for 3-4 months before I finally ran into the COO of the company in the firm headquarters. Upon being introduced, his first words to me were "You surveyors are f***ing expensive!"
I don't see how anyone with a functioning brain couldn't understand, and accept, how a team of surveyors and their gear are far more expensive than an engineer or designer sitting at their desk running Civil 3D.
The real "f***king expensive" cost is the overhead from corporate and, to a lesser extent, middle management. Rate multipliers can be pretty eye-opening...
@midsouth-surveyor?ÿ
1. Is your PM a surveyor? If not, convince him/her that you need to be involved in the estimating.
All the PMs I've done work for so far have been licensed surveyors, yep.
@rover83?ÿ
The real "fking expensive" cost is the overhead from corporate and, to a lesser extent, middle management. Rate multipliers can be pretty eye-opening...
Yeah, I think this stuff is what the actual problem is.
I remember having an interesting conversation with a supervisor at one place I worked.?ÿ He made the comment that a major financial burden comes from long time employees-- he kind of pointed a finger at engineers in particular, but I'm sure tenured surveyors aren't much different.?ÿ He called these guys whales and described how their pay goes up every year but their productivity plateaus well before they retire.?ÿ And yeah I'm sure there's something to be said about the experience they bring, but I think even experience has its limits.?ÿ Anyway, the implication was that if we could get rid of some of the whales then projects that weren't profitable before would now be making money.
I would like to be a PM or at least be able to see how the numbers work behind this stuff because it doesn't make sense to me how I can spend 8 hours (hell, even 10 or 12 hours; 1 day) at a $4000 project, for example, and destroy ALL of the profit on the project.?ÿ There has got to either be a ridiculous amount of unnecessary people involved in the process or the multiplier has got to be so high that it's impossible to make money on anything that isn't a pork-barrel government project.
The thing that is most ridiculous about it all is how they come after the 1 guy in the entire food chain that is sweating their ass off in the middle of summer hacking through blackberries getting cut up and stung by bees while trying to avoid getting skin cancer.?ÿ It's like really, there isn't someone else with their finger in the pie that doesn't need to be there?
You lost me at, union.
Throw all normal working relationship behavior out the window when you throw unions into the mix.?ÿ
In my opinion, it throws the normal hierarchy upside down.?ÿ I've seen situations where the laborers on the job are dictating to the site supervisor.?ÿ
Sorry, but I'm not going to live well in that world for long.?ÿ
@rover83?ÿ You are point on with all of your observations and opinions on this.