Long History

Apparently I have a much longer history in surveying than I realized.

Ghetto Story

It was early one August morning in a part of town that is a little scary. The monsoon clouds were parting, the smog was thick, every other car that went by was blasting some sort of rap tune and there I am with one of the best eye men on earth doing an ALTA on a massive commercial building.
As the morning progressed we had gotten our control, I was running the GPS and he was drawing the building. Eventually it came time to measure the building. This thing was pretty big and we were using a 200' foot chain to do it.
We came to a covered part of a patio with a walk way and pulled a distance. I turned around saw a mound of blankets and cardboard on the concrete wedged oddly between 2 columns and at the far end of the mound appeared to be 2 feet sticking straight up in the air.
Needles to say this startled me a little. I approached the mound and heard nothing, my stomach sunk and I called to my eye man "I think we have a body here". Right when I uttered these words the mound instantly stood straight up and began to shed cloth and cardboard while blurting profanities.
This scared the ever loving crap out of me and I backed way off in a big ass hurry.
Out from the mound pops this little white guy that smelled like a vat of vodka, he looks at me all bleary eyed, realizes that I mean no harm and proceeds to tell me how he got totally wasted the night before and he had no idea where he was and this was not him, that his wife had left him and he went an a bender.
You should have seen the look on his face when I informed him that he was 30 miles +/- from home and even more when he figured out where he was. He was broke, had lost his wallet and apparently a good chunk of his dignity. Did I mention he was missing 1 shoe?
When he asked I promptly gave him 10 bucks and he went to the convenience store on the corner and got a big bottle of water and then got on the next bus out of there.
Normally I would have told the guy to pack sand but I felt bad for him and as I watched he did exactly what he said he would do with the cash.
Word of advise. Always approach a mound of blankets and cardboard that smell like piss with extreme caution.

City surveying on a Saturday morning

I have to tell you that one of the best times to survey within the congested city is Saturday morning.
Why do I say this?
Simple, there is little traffic, people are sleeping and not in a mad rush to get to a job, after 7am most of the drunks are off the road, cops and code officials never give you a second glance and the only one that cares what you are doing is the dog next door.
Last Saturday I did a boundary survey in Scottsdale. This job would have been a 4 hour deal +/- but only took me 2 because of all of the factors above and then some.
Does working on Saturday suck? For me just the opposite. I am one of those that takes advantage of circumstance and Saturday morning is really cool for my bottom line. Jobs take less time and I make more money.
Being a business owner I can take off just about anytime and work anytime, so I am free do to as I please. I often will work on Saturday albeit in the office or the field because I get things done quicker without all the Monday-Friday BS to deal with.
Economics and BS dictate a lot of things in my world.
One side note. Ghetto surveying on a Saturday morning is the polar opposite and I will be doing a piece on funky areas in the very near future. It will make you laugh!

Awesome!!!

This is part of a comment posted by a follower and I think this is one of the greatest things I have ever heard. I believe I would have paid a little money to see this.

Hey Mr. Muth. Would you choreograph the re-enactment for film? I would love to put it on here.

My question is this. What do you do when you see this happening? Do you look at him and simply say, Really? Really? Aside from laughing your ass off of course.

See below. Thanks!!!!

"And my personal favorite, watched a ranch hand try to use his rope and horse to pull a section corner. When the horse hit the end of the rope the cinch broke and the ranch hand "landed with a thud".

Crazy things

Today I was thinking about the crazy things that have happened to me or I have witnessed while out in the field and the most far out things are induced by humans. I do not have an order of importance but here are a few.

Found what I believe to be the tip of a finger in a hand hole.

Been chased by a bum that claimed he had aids and was going to bite me.

Found lots of dead dogs in alleys.

Found a large snake cut into lots of pieces and placed in a ritual fashion.

Walked upon the aftermath of a satanic ritual. Pentagrams and carcasses??

Been scoped out by block watchers in the ghetto.

Been asked for money.

Had a bum stand next to me and tell me that used to survey before he went to the street. (Encouraging)

Had the cops called on me for standing in the public right of way.

Been flashed. Seen lots of boobs!!

Been propositioned by an attractive 40 something housewife with a cat obsession and lots of other women, some awesome and some not.

Been  propositioned by a gay couple.

Had a flag taken out of my hand by a moving car.

Almost been hit by a car and then I chucked a cone and hit the guys door and he proceeded to lock up his tires and got to listen to me hurl profanities at him and challenge him to get out the car. He left.

Employees physically fighting.

Employees getting so sick from the heat that they curled up in a ball and pooped and peed themselves.

Had a guy go into a DT seizer.

Been preached to by the random Jesus freak.

Been approached by LDS on a mission.

Been told to FO because I turned down a Tangelo.

Been accosted by a guy in a wheel chair with a piss bag tied to his leg asking for money and then threatening to throw the bag at me when I declined.

Saw a guy on a Harley wipe out and slide through an intersection in front of me.

Saw 2 black ladies in an LTD avoid our traffic sign and then proceed to spin a 360 in the middle of

16^th street

and Thomas.

Had a concrete shoot take out a level.

Had a rod run over.

Seen a mob of Mexicans chase a snake through the desert trying to kill it with rocks.

Saw a painter drop a ladder on my eye man.

Had employees arrested while on the job.

Had a crew chief threaten to kick my ass.

Had a crew chief get pissed off and throw everything box included out of the truck and then tell us to pick it all up and make it better than it was.

Had a rod snap in a sewer main.

Gotten 15 cholla balls stuck in me at once (self induced)

This list goes on. I am sure I will remember much more later on.

The Career Crew Chief

I want to take a moment to speak about the career crew chief.

When I was coming up there were a whole bunch of them, working men who cared about their job, loved their job and would never consider doing anything else.

At the time it all seemed so impressive to me to see  30 to 60 year old guys out there barking orders at his crew, cutting brush, holding a rod over his head in the trees yelling for line, methodically calculating the deflections of a curves and writing it in the field book etc.

These guys where always 30 minutes early for work and expected the same out of the crew. They expected all batteries to be charged, the truck to be fully stocked, fueled, the tires to be aired properly and a jug of cold water when he walked out of the office at exactly 5:30 am.

These men are still one of the most impressive things I have ever seen to date. They all did things a little different but all ended up with the same result, they all gave 110% to the companies they worked for and never complained about a thing, they just accepted things at face value and did the job. 3 men, a transit and a chain.

Today technology has killed that sort of a man. It’s a little sad but it is the evolution of a profession which has to happen.

I am very fortunate to have worked with men like this. They are all most likely retired now and probably never regret a thing about what they did with their lives and careers.

One day around 2001 I was out with a guy, I was breaking down a section on my laptop when these two 60 year old guys whipped up in a truck and talked to us for a while. I immediately recognized what kind of men these where and showed them an immense amount of respect having been reared by the like.

The guy I was with was less cordial and after they left made a comment along the lines of how he could not believe that they had no desire to do anything different, to advance to become and LS. He was baffled and I blame that on a serious lack of education regarding the human condition.

I just listened and chuckled and proceeded to explain that not everyone wants to be an LS, some guys prefer to take the easier route with less responsibility and just love being a worker bee.

Without the worker bee I am nothing as a business man. I love guys like that and am bummed that they have become far and few between. I will most likely never hire anyone born after 1976 for any kind of major responsibility because after that, exposure to this kind of man is very limited. I actually prefer 40+ in an employee.

These men are true survey hero’s and all of you my age and older will remember that guy that actually taught you more than realized at the time. If you where anything like me you where just a shit ass kid that just took the old guy with a grain of respectful salt (because you feared he would kick your ass), but you always did exactly what he said when he said it. Respect was what they demanded and they got it.

So thank you career crew chiefs for everything you taught me.

Labor Burden

Once a year I print out individual labor burden reports and hand them out.
The reason I do this is that employees often fail to realize that they actually make a lot more than their hourly rate.
You business owners and budget people will appreciate this. It helps keep everyone in check, builds loyalty and reduces complaining and I use it for bids as well.
It's a little staggered but you will get the idea.

												Total
Annual	Gross	Gross	Ben	Ben	Benefit	Net	Net	Hlth	Wkr	Trk	Cred	Burden
Dollars	Hrs	Hrly	Days	Hrs	Dollars	Hrs	Hrly	Care	Comp		Card	Rate
100,000	2080	48.08	21	168	8,078.00	1912	52.30	3.90	0.50	2.60	12.50	71.80
60,320	2080	29.00	21	168	4,872.00	1912	31.55	3.90	0.50			37.70
64,480	2080	31.00	21	168	5,208.00	1912	33.72	3.90	0.50	2.60	3.80	44.52
31,200	2080	15.00	21	168	2,520.00	1912	16.32	3.90	0.50			21.62
47,840	2080	23.00	21	168	3,864.00	1912	25.02	3.90	0.50	2.60	5.00	38.87
45,760	2080	22.00	21	168	3,696.00	1912	23.93	3.90	0.50	2.60	3.80	39.23
20,800	2080	10.00	21	168	1,680.00	1912	10.88	3.90	0.50			15.28
Benefit Days: 10 vacation + 6 holidays + 5 sick days for a total of 21 days
Benefit Hours: 21 benefit days paid at 8 hours per day
Benefit Dollars: Benefit hours divided by gross hourly
Net Hourly: hours left in the year that employees work
Worker	Holiday	Vacation
	Benefit	Benefit	Sick	Health	Liability	401k	Vacation
			Leave	Insurance	Insurance	6% match	Holidays
	6	10					Illness
			5
	6	10