Several states have a prohibition on a surveyor running more than one office without employing another surveyor. I believe the purpose of this rule is to keep unlicensed personnel from not having enough supervision. In other words, you can't adequately supervise two groups of employees in two different towns.
Surveyor Fred lives halfway between two towns. He has an office in Town A. Town B has three times the population. Recently the main surveyor in Town B retired. Fred starts getting surveys in Town B. He decides that he needs a place to meet with clients when he comes to town. So he rents a small building with a sign out front. This building has no phone. This building has no personnel in it when Fred isn't there. The only way you can order a survey at this location is to call Fred on his cell phone and have him meet you there. Is this an office?
I would not consider it an "additional" office. But I've got my own view of our Oklahoma Version of that law.
Basically our Board was mulling over updating rules and regs and tried some verbage to discourage "satellite" offices. Well the engineers bitched and moaned so much they dropped out the "engineer" wording.
So in Oklahoma an engineer can transmit (and supervise) jobs electronically between multiple offices without being on premise...but a surveyor can't. I don't see this one staying on the books much longer.
>... So he rents a small building with a sign out front. ...
I think that the sign may be significant here. If Fred doesn't put the Town B address on any of his marketing materials, or otherwise advertise his presence in Town B, I think he would be all right having a "field office" in Town B.
As you say, it's going to be a state by state thing. You should contact your state board.
The way it should be answered is "Who is doing the work in town B?". The answer is Fred. The other question is "Who is doing the work in town A when Fred is in town B?" The answer is the work is sitting on Fred's desk until he gets back so it's still Fred. But that's not how the state will look at it. If Fred had a crew that met at the office in town B every morning then I would agree with the state that it is a violation.
Don't call it an Office, call it a closet or a break room. Have Fred's wife put a trinket on a shelf with a $1000 price tag and call it "Fred's Wife's Gift Shop", but don't call it an office.
James
> .. "Who is doing the work in town A when Fred is in town B?" The answer is the work is sitting on Fred's desk until he gets back so it's still Fred.
Fred's unsupervised crew / staff is doing it.
Fred is his own office. All calls go to him.
> Fred is his own office. All calls go to him.
Transcendent! I like it. Just as the church is the people and the cathedral is only the building. The cathedral is the church when occupied by the church. I think maybe Joseph Heller wrote a book about this...
I do not believe that there is any law against anyone owning or renting more than one office space.
If he is not hanging his shingle in more than one place, he is not operating a surveying business in more than one place.
I've used many associates location to meet with clients, plus all those coffee shops and roadside eateries for a roof overhead and a park bench from time to time.
B-)
In that case, there is no way to properly supervise a field crew unless you are in the field with them.
I make my office staff accompany me to the men's room lest they do something unsupervised in my absence.
At my office we have removed the walls on the stalls for this very reason. Some sloppy surveyors forget that suprvision must be direct.
Another of the endless cases where the bureaucrats or politicians didn't write the law they intended to. I would agree that the purpose must be to avoid inadequately supervised crews. In that case, what they wanted to say might be:
"To be properly supervised, all crews must report regularly to the PLS at the location where the PLS spends the majority of their office time, or meet with the PLS at the project location on which they are working."
That would allow field offices if the PLS goes to the site instead of bringing the crew to the office. It leaves "regularly" up to interpretation, but I think it implies that they can't work independently.
While the Cats Away...
> At my office we have removed the walls on the stalls for this very reason. Some sloppy surveyors forget that suprvision must be direct.
I've never seen your office but it doesn't sound like a great place to work.;-)
Fred could be a special talent that can spread himself very thin and still be effective. Fred could also be the sort that fails to provide supervision even when he is there full time. That's irrelevant. What matters is what the rules are in the state Towns A and B are in.
The rule in Oregon and Washington is that a PLS can only be in responsible charge of one office. There may be also be a project field office, intended to service a single project, which does not have it's own PLS. But no marketing out of, or advertising of, the project office is allowed.
In this case, if Town B were in Oregon or Washington the proposed use would be in violation of the rules since its intended use is to market professional services.
It is true that these rules were written in the days before internet, Skype, email, and cell phones. But they are still the rules.
> It leaves "regularly" up to interpretation, but I think it implies that they can't work independently.
Rules that are subject to interpretation are almost impossible to enforce. They might as well not exist.
> If he is not hanging his shingle in more than one place, he is not operating a surveying business in more than one place.
But he is. Literally. There is to be a sign on this Town B office.
To expand on this, what if Fred instead had an RV and a vacant lot with a big sign? Someone would call him wanting a survey, and if they were in Town B, he'd meet them on the lot in the RV.
> > It leaves "regularly" up to interpretation, but I think it implies that they can't work independently.
> Rules that are subject to interpretation are almost impossible to enforce. They might as well not exist.
That line of thinking brought us Zero Tolerance Policies with kids being suspended for eating pop tarts in the shape of guns.
In Virginia you can be in charge of more than one office provided that the professional in charge of each office is resident at each office location for the majority of the hours of operation at each location.
I have two offices, one is open during normal business hours, the other is open by appointment only. So I am resident at each location for the majority of the time they are open.
With your scenario in Virginia, Fred would be ok provided he is there for the majority of the time each office is open. He can even have an office phone.
I'm pretty sure that's what happened in Florida. We used to have some sort of law or rule about that, but do not any more.
> I make my office staff accompany me to the men's room lest they do something unsupervised in my absence.
I do the same, but to be fair, we sometime's attend the women's room too.
