How are surveyors treated/thought of around the world? I've heard from the elder surveyors of times when surveyors were top of the rung. Treated like true professionals. Charged the earth and won arguments. These days we seem, atleast in Australia to be much further down the heap, basically at the bottom, we answer to all the other crews. Scrambling over each other, charging pittance and treated accordingly.
What went wrong or is it just in Australia?
This is also the case in the United States. Surveyors were once very highly respected. I love what I do and I'm personally very proud to be a surveyor but we are now at the bottom of the pecking order in most companies. It's really sad actually
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What happened? I guess recently everyone considers themselves a surveyor because they have a gnss chip in their phone but it was long before that, that the tables turned and surveyors fell from grace. Engineers and architects seem to have managed to hold on to some amount of superiority but surveyors have plummeted while electricians, carpenters and concreters have surpassed us. Like you I survey because I love it, I'd never do it for the fame, fortune and public affection.
To some extent it's all due to Health and Safety. Once Engineers and Architects had to be formally qualified and insured, since if their works fall down people get killed, then the rot set in. The surveyors work might be just as important, but it tends not to have such immediate drastic consequences. With much of surveying not requiring a professionally qualified surveyor, then down the rung we all go.
It is starting to get to the stage where some clients will appoint the "surveyor" only on the basis of the Health and Safety qualification they have, not on the knowledge and ability. We recently saw an example locally where a local authority let a topographical survey of a busy road intersection to a firm of asbestos surveyors, because they were the only "surveyors" on the council list with the highest level of H&S certification.
Education , education, education. When everyone understood what surveyors did we were a respected bunch. Now we're all cloaked in secrets that no one understands "what we're taking pictures of." When people saw a guy with a transit they knew exactly what was going on, they could see us measuring, turning angles, etc. Now, people see us with gadgets, and have not been educated in what a surveyor does. Remember when every kid knew that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln were surveyors? Now they probably aren't really sure that they were presidents!
(edit: I'm not informed on Aussie History to comment on our down under friends issues, but I bet it's related!)
A large part of the problem in Texas is the direct result of land surveyors having made their services a commodity to be purchased by "consumers" at the lowest possible price for delivery at the earliest possible date - that and working as employees of engineering organizations.
If you consider marketing practices, you'll find firm names that have no connection with actual practitioners and that with a minor change would work as the names of oil change shops and carpet cleaners. Jiffy Stake, Super Pro Surveying, and Universal Associates, if not presently in use, almost certainly will be.
I don't think it's the public who require education about what surveyors do. It's obvious: surveyors market themselves in the same way that oil change shops do and hide out behind some corporate-sounding image as if they were a franchisee of some fast food chain.
Some are wearing a thong....
This is the case everywhere. I was in Serbia and asked about meeting some surveyors. What, those drunks? Why would you want to meet them?
We need to get away from the attorneys, civil engineers and architects. The laser scanning community respects the PLS. We understand how their equipment works and can certify their efforts.
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ÛÏYou know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.' For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions, and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting what manner of man he is.Û
-Epictetus
I was recently berated by a fast food employee for my setup blocking her way to the dumpster. For the record, there was plenty of room for her to get by.
I work in an Engineering firm. If this Company is any indication, things have improved dramatically in recent years. We are respected and given everything we need to succeed. Were that not the case i wouldn't be here.
thebionicman, post: 417773, member: 8136 wrote: Were that not the case i wouldn't be here.
That's the key. I have an empty box in the corner of my office and the managers I report to know that I'm not afraid to fill it up with my possessions and walk out the moment I decide I don't like the working conditions.
Stop providing 'bids' would be a good start. That just makes us sound like we're trying to be the cheapest and we want you to hire us becasue we are cheap. Know what you are worth and price accordingly.
The way we produce surveyors has some of the fault. To become a surveyor in times not long ago, one had to study under a surveyor, to learn not just the math, but the skills to research, to learn how to look for where corners might be found due to challenges of the terrain, search out old traverse points to help recreate the survey. There were not really "Big Box" survey firms, where 20 crews might go out for a day, bring in their work for a tech to reduce, then slide across a "licensed surveyors" desk to review and sign. In most cases, the Licensed Surveyor was the leader of the crew, the chief finder of the facts, on the ground, during the actual survey work. Yes, I know many on this forum still go on the ground. But we are talking about surveying as a whole, and it ain't us guys giving surveying the poor reputation it is going through. Kent also points out, we have surveyors pricing their work so low they eventually price themselves out of business, yet fail to see that they are hurting the profession as a whole by trying to offer their services cheaper.
Don't be so insecure as to pin your value to other people's ignorant opinion of you or your profession. Don't be too arrogant so as to discount knowledgeable criticism either.
I don't feel disrespected at all. Hopefully in every project with which I am involved I perform my services with excellence and add value to related fields. If it is a boundary survey, I hopefully bring something to the transaction that helps round out the title examiner's responsibilities. If it's an engineering or architectural survey, hopefully I help them to see something they may not have considered. If it's a construction survey, hopefully I'm helping the contractor to make sure he doesn't miss something in the layout. I believe this builds respect amongst related fields. I also believe that being a problem finder and problem solver builds respect.
If I am not adding value through my involvement in a project and this is brought to my attention, then I need to be humble enough to consider the criticism and take corrective action.
I know that locally there was a time when surveyors allowed themselves to feel inferior to title attorneys and engineers and architects. I saw it when I was young, but I don't see it so much anymore. I believe that if you conduct yourself with professionalism and excellence that those things will be recognized by your peers. If you conduct yourself from a defensive posture, always walking around with an inferiority complex, you'll be recognized as such. For those whom you may encounter that do not value professionalism and excellence, their estimation of you should be irrelevant anyway.
Fees and price and how they are derived have absolutely nothing to do with "respect"
Who do you respect more:
Doctor A - who makes $X working for a NGO in a third world war zone, or in the US military, or on a reservation for the Indian Health Service
Doctor B - who open a plastic surgery practice in Beverly Hills and makes $30X on face-lifts for vain aging rich women.
Respect is easy; like John Houseman used to say in the Smith Barney ads....you earn it. (Edit - also feel free to demand it)
Shawn Billings, post: 417780, member: 6521 wrote: I know that locally there was a time when surveyors allowed themselves to feel inferior to title attorneys and engineers and architects. I saw it when I was young, but I don't see it so much anymore. I believe that if you conduct yourself with professionalism and excellence that those things will be recognized by your peers.
Spot on Shawn. 😎 Another key to professionalism.
I will say this though; my perception is that the US is becoming a much more class driven society, all the lip service to liberty and equality aside. And a lot of this is based on rural/urban bifurcation and the drain of younger college educated individuals from rural to urban areas. You could have a PhD in surveying (or even something fancier like geomatics :)) and charge $500/hour, and there will always be a growing percentage of the population that sees you working outside and looks upon you like a medieval peasant.
But screw them... my attitude is, as the Aussie's say, FIGJAM (google it)
Kent McMillan, post: 417765, member: 3 wrote: A large part of the problem in Texas is the direct result of land surveyors having made their services a commodity to be purchased by "consumers" at the lowest possible price for delivery at the earliest possible date - that and working as employees of engineering organizations.
If you consider marketing practices, you'll find firm names that have no connection with actual practitioners and that with a minor change would work as the names of oil change shops and carpet cleaners. Jiffy Stake, Super Pro Surveying, and Universal Associates, if not presently in use, almost certainly will be.
I don't think it's the public who require education about what surveyors do. It's obvious: surveyors market themselves in the same way that oil change shops do and hide out behind some corporate-sounding image as if they were a franchisee of some fast food chain.
I'm curious on your thoughts Kent on how working for engineering companies degrades the profession. Can you expand on that?
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Somewhere along the line people got convinced, (by realtors, developers?), that the physical location of their biggest purchase isn't really that important. They were too willing to believe that paying $1000 or more was was way too much money, was totally totally unnecessary, and somehow became satisfied with someone else giving them an unqualified, vague demonstration of where their corners are.
It's only when the other shoe drops, and someone starts using what they were told was their land that they then see the need for a survey.
I was told once that no one wants a survey till they find out that they need one, and by then, it's usually too late.
