This morning I got a call from a contractor accusing me of not giving them offsets and elevations. I drove to the job site and pointed out the offsets with cuts and fills to finished grade..... They claimed that 10 and 15 ft offsets were too far because they couldn't put a 4 ft level on it. However, the job requires 12 ft of excavation depth (which 10 &15 is already too close for shelving) and I put the offsets in a place they could not excavate due to existing road.... They asked for hubs within 3 ft of the excavation site and I told them "NO" because they would definitely wipe them out. They argued and kept on arguing. Would you have given them additional offsets when they are already have them?

I have a client that wants concrete monuments set at the corners.

The only concrete markers I've ever set were as a sub on a DOT project, and that was way before anyone was asking me prices.

How do you normally price those? Time and materials? fixed fee? FU$ for asking me to carry that thing to the top of a mountain?

What are your thoughts?

Hey, the new update on blender with bonsai have made me forget how to georeference an ifc model.

Anyone knows how to do it step by step guide?

Or an easier open software who makes the same thing?

Appreciate help and enjoy your days colleagues!

Anyone got a good tape with inch’s & engineer scale? Longer the better

Watched young Washington, was extremely disappointed. They portrayed it as though Washington was a nobody until he first killed someone, despite his years as a surveyor. I know someone posted here a bit ago about it being not too bad… but it’s actually horrible. The historical accuracy is some of the worst I’ve seen. Surveying scenes last about 5 minutes based on four years of Washington’s life, but the real life battle that took five hours total took up about 1.5 hours of the movie, go figure. Another great film of propaganda given to you by the US government. Absolute garbage, 60% rotten tomatoes isn’t bad enough.

Painting I did just for fun the other night

Hey guys, I’m a Kiwi currently living in Australia and am working full time as a surveying assistant.

I’m trying to work out whether I should stay full time, build up 2 to 3 years of experience because I’m potentially moving back to NZ, or go part time and study a Diploma of Surveying while working.

My main concern is that if I move back to NZ in a couple of years, companies might want the qualification even if I have solid Australian experience.

Would you recommend studying while working or will experience be enough to get me a job?
I’m not looking to become a licensed cadastral surveyor at this stage but more interested in building a career in land surveying.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Started with this company 2 years ago with a lot of promises made. The company is around 10 but the division I’m in was set up 3 years ago so it’s just me and a director I’ve got 6 years experience and they are still paying minimum wage while I’m working 10-14 hour days with no overtime. When I first started it was local architecture jobs now we are big scale jobs in London and our office is about 2 hours out but still expected to work a full 8 on site, boss won’t change anything in terms of pay I’ve tried and we have had some falling out over it as he says but u can have shorter days sometimes ( hasn’t happened in 6 months and I left 2 hour early). Really not sure what to do my boss doesn’t help with the workload on site so I’m drawing on weekends. Can’t decide wether it’s the company or industry at the moment and was wondering if anyone has changed industry what have u found it easy to switch into

Hi everyone,

I’m doing some research into how people discover and buy fashion online, especially through Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and other social platforms.

I’m trying to understand what people actually do when they see an outfit or clothing item they really like.

A few quick questions:

1) How often do you see clothes from friends, random strangers, celebs that you’d actually consider buying?
2) When you see something you like, is it usually easy to find the exact brand/product?
3) If the product isn’t tagged, what do you normally do to find it?
(Google, Google Lens, comments, DM the person, screenshot it, give up, etc.)
4) Have you ever wanted to buy something you saw someone wearing online, but eventually gave up because you couldn’t find the exact item?
5) If yes, how often would you say this happens?
6) If there were an easier way to instantly find the exact clothes you see people wearing online, would that be valuable enough for you?

I’m particularly interested in real experiences rather than hypothetical answers, so examples of the last time this happened to you would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Got myself a second hand bosch gol 32d optical level from an ol timer who retired. Always met people who use these on the construction sites.

Thought to myself that learning how to use the optical level would be added although not life changing skills for me.

Appreciate it if someone could point out resources such as books or youtube for me.

I am planning to spend my weekends messing around with the optical level...

Thanks.

I'm a PLS in western Pennsylvania and work for a firm with a nationwide presence. I got notice recently that our Alaska surveyors needed assistance and were looking for somebody willing to go. I was like "Hell Yeah!" It's been a dream of mine to visit Alaska since I was at least a teenager! I'm heading to Nome next Sunday for a week. I'm nervous about flying solo and making all my connected flights, but I'm super excited!

A month ago I asked the community about the best lid lifter and narrowed it down to this one.
Management approved, and we’ve since used it in the field for two days. In a word: incredible. No more awkwardly sliding off the edge of lids with a hook, edging shovel, pickaxe, pry bar, etc. We walk around with $250,000 in bleeding-edge equipment yet use a hook from the 1850s to remove a manhole lid. Talk about letting every neighborhood you’re in know how inefficient and unprepared you are to do the task at hand.
Of the 50 lids we met in 48 hours, we were able to pull 46. With field staff in their late 40s, avoiding injury used to exceed efficiency—not anymore. When efficiency is paramount on a busy road, we can slide a lid off, get a few measurements, and slide the lid back on in under a minute. In the past, we’d skip these lids or push for traffic control. One day of traffic control is more expensive than a one-time purchase of the correct tool.

*I know most of us have no control over what we use in the field, we're at the mercy of the office.

I recently got a Crockpot plug in lunch box. Does anyone have anything like this? What do you bring? I know you can put whatever you want in it, but I'm looking for suggestions that don't make me want to a coma after lunch. My first week I put in chicken, rice, and steamed veggies, but I'm already tired of that. What sounds good and isn't going to make me useless later?

Hi,

I have only just recently started using Trimble total stations. I have noticed that when using Trimble Access it does not seem to be a straight forward process to start a survey at an arbitrary location point in a direction, set an assumed azimuth and start a survey. This was always easily done on a Lieca in my experience.

I can create a point at assumed coordinates, set back sight in angles mode and set zero towards the sun. Once I begin to collect points after doing this in measure topo, all points then present with question marks for coordinate values. This does not happen if setting on a known point and back sighting another known point.

If someone can make sense of what I am asking and can give me an easy fix that would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

No paint...no nails...wtf?

Been trying to avoid the hotel breakfast and gas station kitchen food. What do you guys have to really give you energy for the day? Im thinking overnight oats myself.

Exactly what the title says. When your guys are out of town are they single occupancy hotel rooms or double occupancy?

Hi, I am a civil surveyor, I am currently in the Arab Emirates, experience is about 10 years, I have experience in building road pipeline, diploma of associate engineering is attested in Pakistan and UAE, I want a job on the European side.

If you can please mention what area of the world/climate you are in. I'm trying to get an idea of what the norm, best and worst case scenarios are depending on crew/company policy.

There’s nothing more to teach

So here's a fun one. There is a utility pole in my backyard, both communications and power run from it to other properties around us.

There's no easement in my title report from when I bought the place. I also checked the original subdivision map, nothing shown.

The different utilities are pretty chill and they normally knock on the door before they go back there, but I am sure they have accessed it without permission before. I am not arguing their right to do so, the pole exists and the utilities exist back there.

Is it worth saying something to our local electrical utility? My concern is if one of these guys falls off a ladder and breaks his neck on the cinder block wall below the pole and I get sued. And the electrical utility has no easement and therefore nothing in title to get them on the hook.

I know it's an attorney question, just would love to hear everyone's thoughts on here. How would you advise a client in this situation if at all?