Part of the perception problem is that we are rough folks by the nature of our work, partly due to the years of being outside . So the public see us as an outside working person and assume we are all blue color, uneducated yokels from the hollers and hills of dale. I always tell my wife when we meet someone new, there going to think, in my best valley girl speech pattern "OMG he works outside", . Its true from the blank stares and landscaping references etc.
Precision-geo-inc, post: 327781, member: 9801 wrote: I have to disagree with this, at least here in CA. It may not be the be all and end all, but you get to work outside, play with high tech toys, make a good living, and be part of a niche industry where more often than not you are in demand if you're capable. There is also a fair amount of flexibility. Most employers love having someone they can use in the field or office.
I began surveying when I was twelve helping my dad out and learning on the job. I'll never forget how heavy that HP 3800 and battery were to carry up and down the hills of Sonoma County as a kid. He started me at $10/hour which was more than any of my friends made and seemed pretty good at the time. Before long I got a job as a part time chainman for another local surveyor and started making $15/hour. I would save money and go travel the world and when I came home I never had a problem finding a job at a higher wage than the last. I worked in the Union for a while making excellent pay and benefits. Moved on to office surveyor and drafter. Did freelance CAD work charging $50/hour. Got tired of staring at a computer all day and went to work for a Leica dealership doing tech support and training, then sales. Got laid off that job when the Great Recession hit (first time in 10 years) and started surveying for the film industry charging $2,500/week plus equipment rental. Had a kid and decided I didn't want to keep traveling and working 12 hour days so I started an equipment dealership of my own and make a decent living. I count my lucky stars for having the opportunity to get into a great industry like this, especially when I see my friends with their advanced degrees and mountains of student debt struggling to make it.
To those considering getting started in this profession I say go for it. It's been good to me.
What surveying did you do for the film industry?
Steve Gilbert, post: 327902, member: 111 wrote: What surveying did you do for the film industry?
I've seen surveyors in movies, commercials, TV, and PGA golf matches. My Dad was a Prop Maker and never mentioned this 'nitch' of our Profession. I am very interested.
DDSM:beer::beer:
I've tied on a LOT of hats along the way but my experience working on survey crews as a teen made me realize I'd had more fun doing that than any of the other things I'd tried. Enough to motivate me to return to college and earn a degree and later my license. Hire a teenager and get them hooked. Worked for me.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Steve Gilbert, post: 327902, member: 111 wrote: What surveying did you do for the film industry?
Dan B. Robison, post: 327905, member: 34 wrote: I've seen surveyors in movies, commercials, TV, and PGA golf matches. My Dad was a Prop Maker and never mentioned this 'nitch' of our Profession. I am very interested.
DDSM:beer::beer:
It's funny because I never realized there was any opportunity there either until I trained a guy at Dreamworks Animation Studios on how to use a total station and he told me about how surveying is used by the visual effects department for something called matchmoving. It's basically the art/science of making computer generated content fit properly with live action footage. When I heard this I couldn't believe it because I had always been interested in film and photography and had even worked as a production assistant on a film pro bono just for fun. He said to let him know if I was ever looking for a career change and he would put my name out there.
After I got laid off of my job at the dealership I gave him a call and sure enough shortly thereafter got a job working on "Fast Five". It was a steep learning curve working on set. No one understands why you are there and why you're always in the way. They think you can just pick up and move the tripod anywhere after you are setup, and I found it was almost guaranteed that wherever I set up they would decide to put a light there. The other annoyance was that they would constantly bump the tripod legs with their cables and other equipment. Sometimes it was very difficult to get the shots I needed before they decided to move everything, but overall I had a lot of fun doing it. It's nice to have craft services available, and there was never any lack of pretty girls to chat with in between setups ; ). The last big project I worked on was "Guardians of the Galaxy". Maybe you guys saw it if you have kids...
I just recently turned down an opportunity to go to Kiev, Ukraine for two weeks. It was a hard choice, but I didn't have the heart to leave my little one year old for that long. He still hasn't let me forget when I left him for three days to go to Montana. It's the perfect kind of work for a young unattached guy looking for adventure, but for most established surveyors it's not really practical.
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Now that's cool. Are you required to on-set and on-call during the entire filming process or were there only specific scenes?
Never saw Fast 5, but I'm sure a large percentage of the movie is fake computer generated.;-)
imaudigger, post: 327929, member: 7286 wrote: Now that's cool. Are you required to on-set and on-call during the entire filming process or were there only specific scenes?
Never saw Fast 5, but I'm sure a large percentage of the movie isfakecomputer generated.;-)
You are required to be on call during your entire contract which is usually just for the stuff shot in the green screen studio. Typical contracts last from two weeks to six months. You are not required to be on set the whole time, only for the VFX shots. There's usually plenty of down time to process data, get fat grazing craft services, and make friends, but when it's go time you better be fast and be able to pick up and resect yourself back onto control before you miss what you were hired to do. No one will wait on you to get what you need. The VFX department gets no respect and they are about the only workers on set not represented by a union. God forbid your robot does a power search in the middle of a romantic dialog. Made that mistake before! "Sorry guys!" ; )
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andrew_ellicott, post: 327778, member: 10216 wrote: Where I work we use an old HP48gx with a Wild T1000. The crew chief said he will quit if they try to make him use anything else (and he is only in his 40s!). I thought he was joking, until I saw his reaction one day to having to use a new piece of equipment. We had to get some interior corner shots in a high school and so our boss rented a Trimble total station (can't remember what model) that was capable of "reflectorless" measuring. The PC had quite the hissy fit and he almost went home. It took close to an hour just to calm him down and get him out the door.
Just crazy. We owe it to our profession and clients to investigate and use new technology when and where it is available, required and fit for purpose. With an attitude like that, maybe he needs to be handed a chain one day to highlight how silly he is being.
flyin solo, post: 327677, member: 8089 wrote: I have three guys now (may be adding an rpls in the coming days):
Hey flyin solo, I hope the OP forgives me for hijacking the thread, but I'm in the area and seeking employment. If the position hasn't yet been filled please give me a shout: patrick.yglesias at gmail.com. I've also started a conversation with you but it doesn't look like it's been noticed.
Thanks!
to be honestly realistic about expectations or to think out of the box when it's the only way something can be completed.
I have never hired a college degreed technician that I thought shouldn't have actually gone to school until AFTER being educated in the field for a year or two ...
Sometimes surveyors are almost mediums, fortune tellers ... time travelling in one's mind, trying to connect to a long dead surveyor's thoughts and imagining what he thought or did when he stood where you stand today ... you don't teach this in school and you don't get an engineering/surveying degree for this type of thinking.
Schools cannot, probably will never be able to teach the very essense of the type of thinking surveying involves. Schools teach "absoluteness" ... everything being reduced to black & white and no gray ... even in psychology ... just ask a student what happens in a psychology class if a student doesn't agree with the professor.
Because you don't pay well.
I graduated 5 years ago with a degree in geomatics engineering technology. Had to join a small 3 person survey company up north beause nobody was hiring. Fortunately I learned a lot at that company and since it was up north the pay was actually good.
I tried to move down south and was getting job offers for 16-20 dollars an hour (a single persons cost of living is 17), so I just joined a construction company as a field engineer at 40/hr with no travel required and I get to sleep in my own bed every night.
I would have loved to join an actual surveying company, but you don't get much over 30 an hour even though your entire life ends up being on the road. It is just not worth it.
powman, post: 328200, member: 8761 wrote: Because you don't pay well.
I graduated 5 years ago with a degree in geomatics engineering technology. Had to join a small 3 person survey company up north beause nobody was hiring. Fortunately I learned a lot at that company and since it was up north the pay was actually good.
I tried to move down south and was getting job offers for 16-20 dollars an hour (a single persons cost of living is 17), so I just joined a construction company as a field engineer at 40/hr with no travel required and I get to sleep in my own bed every night.
I would have loved to join an actual surveying company, but you don't get much over 30 an hour even though your entire life ends up being on the road. It is just not worth it.
You have hit the nail on the head my friend. Collectively as a profession we have probably ran off more good help than we know. I was middle-aged before I had a salary that I thought was commensurate to my abilities. Hell, a journeyman plumber with 5 years experience probably makes more than 99% of the survey techs out there.
It is definitely the 800 lb. gorilla in the room...
I worked for a few engineering/surveying firms, and now work for a construction contractor. This is the first time I feel I'm being paid fairly.
Dan Patterson, post: 328227, member: 1179 wrote: I worked for a few engineering/surveying firms, and now work for a construction contractor. This is the first time I feel I'm being paid fairly.
It appears as though we need to be working for the same company, and right beside, the carpenters, electricians, and plumbers that we are directing in order to get a comparable wage.
Good Pay isn't everything. After 3 years of working away from home (160 miles away) the old lady said move home soon or become a bachelor:-$.
Kevin Samuel, post: 327769, member: 96 wrote: Good employees are just as hard to find as good employers. It has to be a good fit for company and employee.
Until the survey profession at large learns to charge for the value of our service (not just the hours worked) the earning potential will never attract talent.
If entry level employees get laid off every couple of years and have to go on a rice and beans diet they will change their career path.
Carry on.
This is the one thing I cannot figure out. If there's less of us, how on Earth have rates not risen? Now, from 03-08 I saw a HUGE increase in what we were charging for survey work. Now, we are back at pre-2000 money levels. I cannot believe the bottom feeders out there that will travel an hour to do a lot survey for $250. How do we get rid of these guys and in turn make our profession more lucrative and attractive. Hard to do much boundary work if you can't pay a decent wage for a party chief and a rodman. That's why I think the solo surveying is taking off like it has. If I'm only going to "x" amount of dollars, then all of that should go in MY pocket, not 3 other dudes and then leave me the scraps (if any) to have at the end of the day. I'm waiting for this to happen, and my professors were always pounding this down our throats (I have a degree in Geomatics as well), but I've not seen it.
Ravelode, post: 328233, member: 9551 wrote: Good Pay isn't everything. After 3 years of working away from home (160 miles away) the old lady said move home soon or become a bachelor:-$.
I was working on pipeline projects around Australia. 28 days working (12-14hrs every day) and then 7 or 9 days off. I had quite a number of times my break was trimmed a bit because the boss (of the project that is) wanted to get something organised so when the main construction guys came back from there break, they were right to go.
I would get home for my week off and collapse and eventually SWMBO told me to get out before I really ran myself into the ground. It wasn't the bachelor speech but if I had of gone for a few more years, I'm sure that would have been raised. My pay went down about 60% but I had stacked money away whilst I was working away so that helped the house mortgage.
hlbennettpls, post: 328234, member: 10049 wrote: This is the one thing I cannot figure out. If there's less of us, how on Earth have rates not risen? .....
I would say that rates have risen, for me, in the sense that I'm getting what I'm asking for without a lot of argument. There is a lot more concern with the what and the when and not so much about the how much.
I've never seen this as a problem of how much people are willing to pay. I've always seen this as a problem of how much Surveyors are willing to charge. Until we ALL have enough self confidence to charge what we are worth, we will be dragged down as a whole by those who don't.
I'm sure you've all read this one before, but Mr. Brown really had some things to say that I think really speak to the problems we seem to be having in hiring and retaining good people. It isn't just money, it is perceived value, which requires that we have confidence that we are worth something.
http://lsacts.com/documents/Curt%20Brown%20ACSM%20Article.pdf
This conversation brings to mind an article my father, Gregory R. Haynes LS4609, wrote last year and published in the January 2014 issue of American Surveyor. He also believes the push towards the four year degree has endangered the profession.
http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_Haynes-NotesFromHisDecrepitude_Jan2014.pdf