@rover83 when a young person can have no work experience and start out at a gas station or Target in a nice air condition or heated environment making more than a seasoned crew chief or cad tech . This makes attracting the younger generation even tougher. Because when they have to fight tics briars hills swamps ?ÿand dodge cars for a lot less money even more difficult. We are in trying times. I see some young people get excited like a new car smell excited seeing all the cool technology we now have. Robots, drones, GPS etc. ?ÿpretty colors on the computer screen. ?ÿBut thats just it its a shiny object and the new car smell eventually fades. ?ÿWhat keeps me coming back to surveying and I do love technology. But what keeps me coming back is the History, the science, and seeing what those that came before us accomplished with mere basic equipment compared to today??s. The mentoring that a person put into his personal to teach and train and educate. I see less and less of that today vs when I first started. ?ÿI interviewed today and well the bottom line all they wanted was a tool. There words a body to gather data. I said thank you but I am not a good fit. The manager said i can pay you X. I said its not the money. The owner called me asked how it went. I was honest. He said somewhere he had lost the ability to attract those with a teacher??s heart and now he is paying dearly. ?ÿWe must get the profession back to basic leadership and not just good management somehow. There are a lot of natural leaders on this forum. You can tell by their passion and desire to help total strangers for the profession and its just in them. I have faith that they will rise to the top and draw some of the best to the profession. I just hope its soon.
Six months now I've been looking for a field assistant, someone with a genuine interest in surveying, hungry to learn and work hard and show up every day. At times it feels like I'm looking for a unicorn. Only resumes I've gotten have been from felons, equipment operators and a girl currently working at an ice cream shop. None have even the slightest experience or even know what surveying is and I just don't have time to show someone how to set up a tripod a dozen times.?ÿ
Take a chance. Hire someone with no experience and the desire. Get an old tripod and a old tribrach. Show them once how to just set it up and level it. Don??t worry about it being over a point just to be able to level it. Send it home with them. Give them a week. Then ask them to do it in front of you. ?ÿIf they are quicker and look smoother show them the next step. Maybe setting up over a quarter and be level. Repeat send it home and a week later see how far they have come. Tell them as they progress if they continue working on their own time learning and such you will continue to teach You will soon find that person who wants to learn. And then you will have to teach. I use to practice on our lunch time. Sandwich in one hand and kept practicing until my crew chief met me one morning and said you are running the instrument today. He invested a little and saw i was as well. Win win.?ÿ
The system is broken.
When I was young it was possible to afford apartment and transportation on an entry level job. Now mid level people have a hard time achieving that. It is an unsustainable situation.
Young people just don??t see a future in an extremely difficult job with an insufferable boss. ?ÿMaybe the boss is a good guy but still, are they expected to live in Mom??s basement forever?
@bstrand I love it. Great write up. However the 2nd PLS I worked for was the biggest a$$ hole he would cuss you like a dog make grown men cry. I was warned as a young buck if I could last only 1 year working for him I would learn more in that year than probably from anyone else. He came from the plane table days and he was almost 70 when I went to work for him. I was hired as an I-man. I was issued a milk crate with a large bottle of rubbing alcohol 2 boxes of q-tips large box of handkerchiefs windex armor all old t shirts and paper towels. And my instrument. And data collector. He said see how clean everything is . I said yes sir. He said it better stay that way. He would show up on the hottest driest dusty jobs ?ÿand inspect the equipment. Inside and outside the case . Crew chiefs feared him. But i did as i was told and slowly rose to a crew chief as he saw i cared for his equipment so he taught and mentored me. Often times after work he would say are you in a hurry to get home. I would say no sir. He would bring me to his office and set me at the drafting table and start showing me manual drafting and reading deeds etc. 4 years later he helped my first wife and I find a job in Colorado so I could go to college. Now besides my drill instructor in the USMC he was the meanest and biggest a$$ hole but also the biggest influence for me desiring to learn all I could about surveying. ?ÿBoot camp was easy for me because of him ?????ÿ
There isn't the path to mentor anymore. It's all one man crews and office work. The days of I-man, R-man, Crew chief are loooonnnnnggggggg gone.?ÿ
The system is broken.
When I was young it was possible to afford apartment and transportation on an entry level job. Now mid level people have a hard time achieving that. It is an unsustainable situation.
absolutely correct
In 1968 when my sister married, both she and her new husband were employed.?ÿ She was probably making $2.50 per hour and her husband something like $4 or $5 per hour.?ÿ They bought a new Chevrolet car and a nearly new pickup.?ÿ Two years later they purchased the house and 20 acres they had been renting.?ÿ Just short of four years of marriage, they had their first child.?ÿ Everything was paid for except about another five years on the mortgage.?ÿ Plus, they had purchased about 15 head of cattle from me on a monthly payment basis that came in very handy for me to pay my monthly rent while going through college.
@mightymoe I only do a one-man crew when the budget is busted and I know how to end it. That's a pretty rare day. We are building our replacements here.
In 1969 my family moved to Vancouver, B.C. My parents balked at buying a house in the "Point Grey" neighborhood, were my grandparents lived and my mother had grown up for $40,000. Today the median home price in Point Grey is $4million. That's $4million Canadian, which is about $3.2 million US. But still a very nice appreciation, wouldn't you say??ÿ ?ÿFor comparison sake, the current value of $40k 1969 dollars per inflation alone is about $320,000 today.
In 1968 when my sister married, both she and her new husband were employed.?ÿ She was probably making $2.50 per hour and her husband something like $4 or $5 per hour.
Those numbers, adjusted for inflation, have your sister and BIL pulling down 6 figures between them in 2022.?ÿ?ÿ
@norman-oklahoma I've been in six figures for a bit, and a house with 20 acres paid off in nine years is unlikely (at least no house my wife would move into)...
In 1969 my family moved to Vancouver, B.C. My parents balked at buying a house in the "Point Grey" neighborhood, were my grandparents lived and my mother had grown up for $40,000. Today the median home price in Point Grey is $4million. That's $4million Canadian, which is about $3.2 million US. But still a very nice appreciation, wouldn't you say??ÿ ?ÿFor comparison sake, the current value of $40k 1969 dollars per inflation alone is about $320,000 today.
True, but if they'd invested 40k in the S&P 500 index, it would be $9.36 million today.
Edit to say:?ÿ The consumer price index is fatally flawed and obviously not reflective of actual inflation.?ÿ?ÿ
My 2 cents: we cannot attract new people into that profession that:
- fails to present a professional appearance at every opportunity in the public's eye
- in many states, does not allow the opportunity for that individual who has worked hard, learned our profession and study hard to obtain a license unless they paid some institute of higher education for a piece of paper to hang on their wall
I find it ironic that you list these two things. Dismissing someone's formal education as piece of paper just screams unprofessional to me.?ÿ
@bstrand I've been a PLS for 30 years and I can tell you for a fact that the professional working relationships are a two way street.?ÿ I've been involvedin running Land Surveying & Engineering firms sonce the early 90's and I can promise you that the mere fact that a PLS is in a supervisory role for a business in no way amounts to being trained enough or exposed to the business aspects required to be in a leadership role.
I currently run six two man field crews and have a support staff of another 12 people working under me.?ÿ We have a very "family" environment and culture throughout the entire company.?ÿ Every one of my people have my personal cell number and I make it clear that I am available to take their calls 24/7, regardless of what it is that they want to talk about.?ÿ
Perception on the part of some employees, especially from some of my crew members, can be a big problem.?ÿ Sometimes I want a job done in a specific way, for a specific reason and a few of my people catch an attitude when I relate that to them while giving them the why's of why I want it done that way.?ÿ Other's fear authority and they know that I own a part of the business and that itimdates them, while they assume that I am a millionaire.?ÿ Some, when they run into a problem in the field, will call every other crew chief looking for advice while others will call me first looking for advice.?ÿ It's a complex situation and I believe that most of the attitude in the field arrives from ill conceived misconceptions about my position and role while they assume their five or tenyears in the field makes them know more than my 40 years experience has taught me.
Take some time and read the postings in virtually any survey related FB group.?ÿ There are some that post asking questions in the interest of learning something new, a ton of construction stakers calling themselves land surveyors while not doing any title work at all and not being capible of calculationg anything that the office staff does not feed them, the person with 10 years in thinking they should be making $100K a year on a 40 hr. work week and the Chief with 30 or 30 years experience with a huge chip on their shoulder because they never made the effort to become licensed and are bitter that somebody who has done that is their supervisor.
Their excuses run the gammit but the fact of the matter remains that if the PLS is a D*** Head, no real company is going to tolerate that, it might take a while to find a replacement for the DH but in today's climate, any company that wants to retain their valued employs will make every effort to weed out the DH.?ÿ That's a fact.
If your are the PLS and don't mentor or have an open door policy, you simply don't belong in that role but don't come on social media and complain about your own situation if you have not made the effort to improve it.?ÿ There are not many companies in the USA that aren't looking for experienced people right now.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
Dismissing someone's formal education as piece of paper just screams unprofessional to me.
??There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.?
-Isaac Asimov
?ÿ
Knowledge, of course, can never be obtained through an institute of higher learning. Now that would be crazy.
If your are the PLS and don't mentor or have an open door policy, you simply don't belong in that role but don't come on social media and complain about your own situation if you have not made the effort to improve it.?ÿ
Amen.
When I was managing 5 field crews my policy was to have them call me after they spent 30 minutes trying to figure it out themselves. ?ÿI wanted surveyors not point staking monkeys.
