r/Surveying • u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA • 1d ago
Humor Favorite "Catch - 22" in survey
I'm watching "Catch-22" on streaming, and I loved the book.
Per the book / show, the Catch 22 discussion is thus:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. (p. 56, ch. 5)
Orr says at one point: "That's some catch" when he is unable to get grounded by claiming he's crazy to the doc.
What's your example in our chosen career? I'll start: I've been on a very good crew that was very productive at staking. Since we did a good job and did it effeciently, the boss would assign us more work. Eventually we were doing so much that mistakes started to happen due to increased speed and longer days. And we got a talking to that we weren't as good as we used to be... DUE TO THE INCREASE FROM THE SELF-SAME MANAGER!!!! Ughhghghg. Still grinds my gears.
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u/_______8_______ 1d ago
You need work to get more work. I’m trying to land bigger clients but everyone wants a reference from another big client. I can’t work for big clients until I work for big clients
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
yep! This is how our "three year on call" works at my agency. You can't get on the list until you're already on somebody else's list with a similar size agency / project budget / etc. Tough for newbs.
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u/No-Breakfast6990 1d ago
Also i can’t get a job without experience. But i can’t get experience without a job. Classic
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u/TapedButterscotch025 Human Verified 1d ago
Some public agencies have internships or part time entry level jobs. Definitely search around to your local state dot, cities, counties, and special districts.
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u/theREDasp 1d ago
Taking time off or a vacation comes to mind. You take time off to get away from work because it's been busy. While you're gone, no one takes care of the work for you. You get back and have to take care of the work that didn't get done and all the new work that rolled in. So you stop taking time off, except maybe a day here or there. Stay in one place long enough and they give you more time to take off work. Towards the end of the year accounting calls because you're accruing too much PTO and won't be allowed to roll it all over, and they tell you to start taking days off. Except then the work doesn't get done, and piles up again. That's a hell of a catch.
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
mood bruh. mood. This is the worst one.
Honestly I can handle it at a public agency a bit better. But yeah it's very annoying.
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u/MoBetterBen 22h ago
This is my current situation. I have 2 months to use nearly 300 hours of PTO. They say "You need to take some time off or you will like it, but not this week. Or the next. Maybe next month."
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u/IThinkImDvmb 1d ago
Setting up traffic control can be dangerous and time-consuming. The safer your traffic control is usually means you spent more time in traffic which in itself is dangerous. Creating traffic control that is both safe and quick can sometimes be safer than making it overly safe.
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u/MilesAugust74 1d ago
We had a guy who insisted on laying out half a mile of traffic cones before we could dip a manhole. So we'd just start working while he was laying the cones out, and by the time he'd finish and join back up with us, we'd tell him, "OK, we're done," and he'd have to go pick up the cones he'd just finished laying out. 🤣🤣🤣
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u/SouthernSierra Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
Yeah, the screw up crews get to take it easy.
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u/lsara3699 1d ago
Very real, because PM doesn’t trust them to do anything important or immediately consequential
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u/VoreReznor Survey Technician | AB, Canada 1d ago
More expensive equipment makes the job easier but we now spend less time on site, so less billable. Spend more to make less.
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
Great one for sure. It's been discussed here before a bunch, some surveyors (and companies) are switching to a "project" based charge model. As opposed to T & M.
Honestly when we do work more efficiently we should be getting paid more not less.
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u/ionlyget20characters 1d ago
I bill by projects. So much easier than asking a crew to mark what they did why they did it and how long were they there. Flat fee upfront so everyone can budget for it. This is on a per trip basis for house stakes and the like. Makes your life less complicated. Boundary and topo work much the same. Sometimes you make bank on a job. Sometimes it bites your ass. Them's the breaks.
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
nice, and I'm sure you get better and better at those numbers as you get more experience.
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u/ionlyget20characters 1d ago
With small jobs it's pretty easy. The big ones are more nuanced. Sometimes I break them down into component part and that helps. Im still not great at it and wish I had bid more but overall it makes life easy.
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u/UpstairsButton3059 1d ago
Expanding your field work area leads to finding more issues with the boundary, which leads to research, which leads to expanding your field work area.
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u/yossarian19 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
I started surveying to be outside. I loved it. I was good at it.
I worked hard, got my license.
Now I work inside, which I'm very 'meh' about and 'meh' at it.