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:-$.
Heck, 160 miles is a commute, that's not working away from home...lol. I've been 9000 miles from home for over 8 years working 84 hrs/week. I see my house twice a year. My husband is finally getting tired of it, as am I, and I am trying to land something in Denver - only 300 miles from home. We consider it the same as "me being home". Would still like something that will provide some travel opportunity. I've got a couple of good leads being pursued - fingers crossed.
But I will say a lot of problem I have is the mindset that some people have toward the technicians. The techs seem to get no more respect than many engineers show for licensed surveyors. There are some good people out there who want to be field techs but managers treat them like the gum on the bottom of the shoe. Think they own them because they pay them. Yes, the money is not everything, but respect is.
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328296, member: 9801 wrote: 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
I enjoyed your dad's article, thanks for the link. The big problem is that there are no longer internships. The 8 person, or even the 3 person, survey crew is a thing of the past. I have mentored several techs and pushed them upward in their career but it often required losing a little money on a job so the two of us could be in the field, or I would take two GPS rovers and run the job in parallel. It's just a lot harder to enter the field today.
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328296, member: 9801 wrote: 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
I agree. The degree requirement coupled with the less than competitive salaries is part of the problem. Those without a degree will put in the time and effort, for low pay, if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and they are eligible for licensure. But take that away, and you also take away some of their incentive to stay in the profession.
And college students, why wouldn't they go for majors other than surveying, that offer higher pay and more perceived potential?
JPH, post: 328336, member: 6636 wrote: ...And college students, why wouldn't they go for majors other than surveying, that offer higher pay and more perceived potential?
Although I was licensed through examination, there was no requirement for a degree at that time. It would probably have been a deal breaker for me.
Hopefully there will still be a number of them which, like me, enjoy the work and truly become entranced in surveying. I look back at the low pay and miserable working conditions with which I apparently became oblivious. I remember my "early" years when there was a slowdown in work and I feared having to "do something else" for a while. I simply loved surveying, bad pay and all.
The best we can hope for is eventually there will be so few of us the demand will naturally generate higher fees.
Same here, no degree requirement when I first got licensed.
I love this line of work, and couldn't imagine doing anything else.
I hope you're right, and there will probably be a renewed interest in the profession if you are.
College students frequently go for majors that do not offer great job opportunities upon graduation. See Degree, Liberal Arts.
In British Columbia, where I started my career, it is much more difficult to get licensed than in any of the American states I am now licensed. It is common for a BCLS to be supervising a rather large team of very experienced technicians.
Norman Oklahoma, post: 328350, member: 9981 wrote: College students frequently go for majors that do not offer great job opportunities upon graduation. See Degree, Liberal Arts.
In British Columbia, where I started my career, it is much more difficult to get licensed than in any of the American states I am now licensed. It is common for a BCLS to be supervising a rather large team of very experienced technicians.
Very experienced technicians that become the lowest paid person on every construction site they go to. I kind of feel bad when we call up the survey company on day 1 to place the building, we never see them again, but on that day the laborers are not the lowest paid workers on site.
Norman Oklahoma, post: 328350, member: 9981 wrote: In British Columbia, where I started my career, it is much more difficult to get licensed than in any of the American states I am now licensed. It is common for a BCLS to be supervising a rather large team of very experienced technicians.
Maybe that is the answer. In your opinion does that system work better? Perhaps if that's how it is the technicians make a decent salary. Licensure shouldn't be for everyone, but as of right now it seems the only way to make a good living in this business (at least around here).
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328296, member: 9801 wrote: 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
Nice article! Toward the end, there is a phrase with perhaps a Freudian slip (which got past the editor) about surveying being a descent living. Maybe a reference to the race toward the bottom ...
powman, post: 328363, member: 8761 wrote: Very experienced technicians that become the lowest paid person on every construction site they go to. I kind of feel bad when we call up the survey company on day 1 to place the building, we never see them again, but on that day the laborers are not the lowest paid workers on site.
How bad is it out there? Here in Northern CA most construction jobs are union and the party chiefs get paid around $35/h plus health and pension plan last I checked. Non union shops are probably paying 20% less without the pension plan. Seems pretty good to me. It must be a different world in many parts of the country. Where are you at and what does a party chief make where you're at?
NJ Prevailing wages:
Field Engineer - Rodman or Chainman
36.65 29.48 66.13
Rate Fringe Total
Lead Engineer, Foreman Engineer, Safety Engineer (minimum)
46.81 29.48 76.29
Rate Fringe Total
My estimation is that a non-union party chief is making somewhere between $25-32/hour depending on the type of work and experience. I don't think most of the union guys work a full 12 months, so it's not like they make the prevailing wage 40 hours per week 52 weeks per year. I work at a non-union shop, but we do a lot of public work which is subject to the prevailing wage requirements.
I think the construction work pays better. Most party chiefs working for consulting firms that I know are in the $20-30 range. The PLS salaries vary even more. Some guys are willing to take $60k a year and some won't settle for less than 6 figures.
These numbers might seem high to some of you guys, but here in the garden state somebody has got their hand in your pocket every time you turn around. Real estate is expensive and the property taxes are the highest in the US.
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328373, member: 9801 wrote: How bad is it out there? Here in Northern CA most construction jobs are union and the party chiefs get paid around $35/h plus health and pension plan last I checked. Non union shops are probably paying 20% less without the pension plan. Seems pretty good to me. It must be a different world in many parts of the country. Where are you at and what does a party chief make where you're at?
To get a perspective on these wage numbers, if you are on your own here, you need 17.50 an hour just to live cheaply.
The rates for union construction workers are very good here. Experienced carpenters make 37+, laborers make average 27, the surveyors who work directly for these construction companies end up getting started at an experienced carpenters wage level, which is what I think we deserve.
But the second you want to work for an actual surveying company and not the construction company itself, they want you at sub 30 to start, I had companies wanting to start me at 16, and you don't get much more then 30 after years of working with them. The jobs almost always mean you are traveling all over the place as well, instead of sticking to 1, or a few, construction projects nearby. The fact that you need to travel should mean higher base pay, not lower. They only have to pay you overtime after 10 hours a day and 191 a month so the over time of traveling is not even that great.
Unfortunately it also means that the higher I go in the company the less and less I have to do with surveying at all. At this rate I am not sure that is a bad thing though. The only reason I was actually able to get on my feet is because I shipped myself off to the oil sands for three years for some savings and experience. Otherwise surveying for a surveying company is only an option right now if you want to be poor for a very long time.
Another great thing, is since there is starting to be a big migration to using BIM for project modeling and coordination, it also means that the stereotype of using bottom of the barrel surveying equipment is gone as well. My equipment is better then almost any real surveying company's equipment.
The second the wages of technicians reach that of the wages at a construction company, I would love to work for, and with, other surveyors.
I am in Southern Alberta
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328373, member: 9801 wrote: How bad is it out there?
In North-Central Florida for survey crews working mainly in the private sector, Party Chief $16-20 per hour, Instrument Man $12-15 per hour, Rod Man (if you can find that position any more) $9-11 per hour. Benifits are sketchy if any.
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 328424, member: 6939 wrote: In North-Central Florida for survey crews working mainly in the private sector, Party Chief $16-20 per hour, Instrument Man $12-15 per hour, Rod Man (if you can find that position any more) $9-11 per hour. Benifits are sketchy if any.
Wow, that is bad! A decent waiter makes $25/h around these parts, but the cost of living is also probably a lot higher. Are survey techs represented by a union around there? In my experience it's the union pay scale that the non union companies try and compete with.
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Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 328424, member: 6939 wrote: In North-Central Florida for survey crews working mainly in the private sector, Party Chief $16-20 per hour, Instrument Man $12-15 per hour, Rod Man (if you can find that position any more) $9-11 per hour. Benifits are sketchy if any.
My son got paid a Party Chief wage driving a trash truck in western Colorado. Our cost of living is about the same as Orlando. So you are paying a Party Chief what a trash collector is paid (non-union). I can see no incentive to become an I-person with a desire to be a party chief.
geonerd, post: 328448, member: 8268 wrote: My son got paid a Party Chief wage driving a trash truck in western Colorado. Our cost of living is about the same as Orlando. So you are paying a Party Chief what a trash collector is paid (non-union). I can see no incentive to become an I-person with a desire to be a party chief.
I can surely say that if I had to choose between party chiefing and a trash truck driving at the same pay I'd go for the party chiefing.
Pay rates in Oklahoma and in Portland are roughly the same. PC in the $25/range, +/-$5/hr DOE. With benefits.
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 328424, member: 6939 wrote: In North-Central Florida for survey crews working mainly in the private sector, Party Chief $16-20 per hour, Instrument Man $12-15 per hour, Rod Man (if you can find that position any more) $9-11 per hour. Benifits are sketchy if any.
As far as the benefits, the reason I say sketchy is that benefits my be offered but they are often not available at no cost to the employee. At the last company that I worked for which was a small to medium sized engineering firm, they got 2 weeks paid vacation with paid sick days. However the retirement plan with some matching was only if you contributed to the plan. Most of our techs couldn't afford it, so they basically had no retirement benefits. Same deal with healthcare, it was available if you kicked in on the cost of the premiums. Again most techs couldn't afford it, so they had no healthcare benefits either.
Precision-geo-inc, post: 328429, member: 9801 wrote: Are survey techs represented by a union around there? .
I'm in the South, what's a union?
Unions must be mostly a California and NY/NJ.
Yea and the result is that we pay $154,552 per mile of state highway maintenance (the next highest state is California at $102,889).
Well they must do a really good job then right? - Wrong! Our state highways are ranked 48th out of the 50 states. Alaska and Hawaii are ranked worse.
http://reason.org/files/21st_annual_highway_report.pdf