Alright.
First thanks to everyone that voted on my latest post question.
With an overwhelming 13 yes to 1 no vote, the surveyor in question has been found guilty by this blog and those who read it.
Now the big question is what am I going to do??? Will I turn this person in or let it go???
I have decided to let it go.
Just seeing what my fellow surveyors think is good enough for me and hopefully the person in question (you know who you are) is reading this and has reflected on things and will most certainly act in a more professional manner in the future.
Something a little funny about this is, I actually found a bust on an ROS this person did, (someone blew a GLO Lot calc) and informed them of my findings right away and told them why I think it.
Huh? What a concept.
In a comment to my BTR post someone mentioned getting turned in recently along with 9 others and never received a phone call, email, nothing.
What I want to know is how do 9 guys get turned in at the same time?
Is there some sort of underground surveyor gang wreaking havoc on the valleys monuments? Pulling out lathe for kicks? Painting random flight crosses??
How does this happen?? Do you people not have each others back? That is (hopefully) 18 eyeballs looking around.
Bottom line is we all need to work together. Even if you hate the other surveyor they are still a colleague and deserve professional courtesy. Pick up the phone. Stop trying to be the only surveyor in the universe. There are a lot great minds in this business. Use your own brain and use theirs to, you'll surprised at the progress you can make.
Turning another surveyor in is not always an easy thing, even when they've blatently screwed up a survey. We recently came across one that a local surveyor had done (he beat our price by more than half!). We have a lot of respect for his work and since he's a one-man show, we figured he could do the work with less overhead. When we saw a copy of his survey though, we were stunned. This guy has a history of doing fine work, but this one looked like it had been done by someone who was clueless as to how to survey and/or prepare a proper ROS plat. Incorrect information was shown; misspelled words all over the place; sloppy linework, etc. So we were faced with a question; do we talk to this guy personally, turn him in, or what. We opted to not turn him in because he hadn't been given a chance to correct his errors. Talking to him is going to be harder though because of his past work (generally excellent) and the fact that he's a respected friend. How do you tell someone their baby is ugly and not sound horrible?
ReplyDeleteLots of stories are out there and we all have war chests full of them.
Let me address something that I've preached about locally, and at the state level for years. Getting sanctioned by the BOTR, or for some of us, getting a slap on the hand. (I've been before the Board on two occasions in the last 30 years. Both times were for very minor things and I came away unscathed, more or less).
ReplyDeleteThere's no incentive for some guys to follow the rules and do a good job. What's the worse that could come of it? You get called before the Board; you admit your guilt, or not; get a slap on the hand, a relatively small fine and your name in lights in the next Board newsletter. There's a local surveyor in the area where I work who's notorious for rejecting damn near every monument he finds, capped or not, and for setting his own monuments right next to them (sometimes, within hundreths - yes, we found one case where his monument was so close to another capped monument that he had to cut off part of the other guy's plastic cap and we couldn't get ribbon between the monuments). This surveyor rarely files his surveys. A few years back, the entire group of surveyors from this area wrote a letter that we all signed and told him he needed to 1) Record all of his surveys for the past ten years that should have been recorded had he followed the rules and 2) Start recording all his surveys from this day forward (holding to the Minimum Standards Rules for recording). He ended up recording about 12 surveys for the ten year period and is back to his old practices of not recording.
But, I digress.
My point is, if we want this sort of shit to stop, the Board needs to grow some balls and start handing out HEFTY fines and sanctions. Say, a thousand dollar minimum fine per violation. Yes, that's steep, but my guess is, if someone gets popped, they'll never get nailed again because of the expensive lesson they learned. And, they'll be more inclined to be watching the other guys to make sure THEY are following the rules.
Impose the hefty fines and you'll eventually see a lot less complaints filed. It will take time, but the word will get out and those who are cutting corners will either come in line, bow out, or will be paying out so much in fines that they can't stay in business.
My two-cents for now.
I was a party to the group turned in by one surveyor (7-9) in one month...... He actually contacted me after he turned me in and wanted me to surrended NY AND ALL INFORMATION I CAME ACCROSS IN THE PAST YEARS WHICH COULD BE TURNED INTO A COMPLAIN so he could turn them all in. What do you think of that?!
ReplyDeleteI am totally miffed. And I do not know if other surveyors fed him any information for his turn in.... He told me.... " I don’t turn in everyone, just
ten for now, rest assured I have another 30 or 40 sitting here on my desk.
Do you have time to sit down with me and approach these 30 to 40 situations?"
I seems to me somone is going to turn in a record number of complains in the near future....
What does anyone have to say about this stuff.... Do you want to know who is behind it? There is MORE than one.
Guess Who
Sounds to me like there is a surveyor out there that needs to concentrate on surveying rather than being a PI. Turning someone in that needs to be turned in is ok...... running around being a nark in a down market is unprofessional!
ReplyDeleteTrying to work through our differences rather than just turning each other in is what we should be doing! Surveyors often complain about not being treated and paid like professionals well this is why. Start communicating with each other to RESOLVE problems instead of treating every other surveyor like he is an idiot! We create more problems for our profession when we do this. Or you can just keep thinking that you are the only surveyor out there that knows how to survey and the rest of us are the idiots.... what ever makes you feel good.
Just remember....... it's not if you make a mistake it's what you do about it when it's brought to your attention.