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A statewide bicentennial celebration of the Louisiana
Purchase is slated for 2003. The “greatest real estate deal of all
time” nearly doubled the size of the U.S. in 1803. The “initial
point” – the origin of the surveys of this vast uncharted
territory- was placed in eastern Arkansas.
Surveyors of Arkansas – once again - have been asked to play
a significant role.
Planning for the celebration began in 1996 in the
Secretary of State’s office. Beginning
in the fall of 1999 many state agencies and private citizens are
meeting several times a month at the Capitol.
A Project Administrator has been hired by the Secretary of
State’s office to give everyday administrative support to the
Project. This office will seek state funding in the next General
Assembly for the following items:
1. An AETN video
focusing on the historical events,
cultural legacy, and historical impacts of the Louisiana
Purchase. Surveyors will
be asked to provide input for the script and filming of re-enactments
of period events. Your
chance to be a star.
2. An education curriculum for fifth graders will be developed
and distributed to teachers in 2001, including interactive CD lessons. A short historical video is also planned. The teacher will
link survey history to present day technology by way of an interview,
question and answer session, or schoolyard demo by a local surveyor.
Surveyors in every community are asked to visit their schools as
professional resource people for 5th grade teachers
(not much preparation required).
3. Improvements
are planned to enhance the State Park at the “initial point” in
order to increase public awareness and tourism.
Improvements at the site itself may involve field work and/or
research by surveyors.
4. Improvements to
Capitol Avenue in Little Rock will provide a route to the State
Capitol building which permanently reminds visitors of the territorial
history of our State.
5. A gala
celebration at the State Capitol in April 30, 2003, will commemorate
in a public way the date of the funding of the Purchase.
Surveyors of then and now will share the media spotlight as the
State reflects upon its rich history.
The surveying profession will benefit from this
publicly funded focus upon the importance of surveyors - both past and
present. If you can contribute your skills to any of the items listed
above, please let me know. (501-376-3633
or weruck@garverinc.com)
BOARD OF
REGISTRATION FOR PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS AND LAND SURVEYORS REPORT
by Tom Webb, PLS
I
have the following items to report on:
1)
Dr. David
Knowles, PLS has been elected Board President.
2)
Mike Marlar,
PE/PLS is our new Board member who was appointed in August.
3)
The Board has
been working with the State Surveyor to speed up the complaint
process.
4)
Current law
requires complaints against engineers to be heard within 90 days of
being filed. There is no
similar requirement for complaints against surveyors.
The result is that engineering complaints must be given
priority. In this
legislative session the Board will work to remove the 90 day
requirement and put all complaints on equal footing.
5)
The Arkansas
Board will host the annual conference of the National Conference of
Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors in Little Rock in August 2001.
This is a real honor for the surveying and engineering
profession in Arkansas.
You will be receiving a Board Newsletter in the next
few weeks with more detailed information.
Visit the Board at the State Government web site at
www.state.ar.us. The Board's Executive Director is Joe T. Clements,
Jr. The Board office phone is 501-682-2824.
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
If you would like to advertise a position
available or an item for sale, send complete information to the ASPS
office, 835 Central Avenue, Suite 423, Hot Springs, AR
71901. There is
no charge to advertise under the classified ads section of this
newsletter!
NOTE
FROM THE EDITOR
by S. Amber Weida
“2000
Fall Short-course Highlighted A Great Choice Of Topics”
Such
were the comments received from the attendees at the fall event in
Jonesboro on September 22 and 23, 2000.
Our thanks go out to all the speakers for donating their time
and efforts to ASPS. Certainly
our Secretary/Treasurer, Charlie Storey, and our President-Elect,
Mickie Warwick, put much work into pulling the program together.
And our District 2 Director, Dan Mulhollen, contributed to the
organizing of the facility details.
One hundred forty-six ASPS members attended the 2 day event
held at the ASU Convocation Center.
The students at
Petit Jean College would like to extend their thanks to Ed Gray of CEI
Engineering, Inc., Ivan Hoffman, Jr. of Hoffman-Prieur &
Associates, Inc., and Calvin Mulliniks of Mulliniks Surveying for
sponsoring them at the Short-course.
Petit Jean College Surveying Club – from left
in front, Casey Gifford, ASPS
Immediate Past President, Ivan Hoffman, on the left visiting with Pat Proctor, Kennith Hazelwood, from left in
back, Toby Barton, Mickie
District Director No. 4, Mike Granderson. Warwick, Evert Turnage, and Shelly Griffin.
From left,
Speakers Jason Kuhlman and Dr. Robert Weih visiting with
ASPS Secretary/Treasurer, Charlie
Storey.
Everett Rowland assisted by Randy Jones and
some stud-
The weather was beautiful for the fish fry dinner at the Pine
Grove area of the ASU ents in preparing the fish fry meal on Friday
evening.
Campus.
The ASPS Luncheon on Friday at the ASU Convocation Center.
ASPS Luncheon on Friday. From left, Tom Webb and David Knowles with the From left, Immediate Past President Ivan Hoffman, NSPS
Board of Registration for PE and PLS, Secretary/Treasurer Charlie Storey, Governor Jim Scott, Dist. Director 1 Jim Ramsey, Dist.
President-Elect Mickie Warwick, and President Ken Cotter. Director 2 Dan Mulhollen, and Dist. Director 5 Bart Hight.
REPORT FROM OUR
DIRECTOR OF
LEGISLATIVE
AFFAIRS
This issue finds us less than thirty days from the
general election. I am
optimistic that the renewed energy of ASPS in the election process
will be beneficial in the upcoming legislative session.
Mullenix & Associates has worked closely with the ASPS
Board and Legislative Committee on a number of legislative races
across the state. Some
members have pledged to make contributions on behalf of ASPS.
If you would like to contribute to a candidate in your area,
please contact Mullenix & Associates’ office and we will
coordinate all our efforts for maximum benefit to ASPS.
We continue to monitor all races and travel to different areas
meeting candidates. In
the next issue, we will provide you with the elected house and senate
members.
Legislative
Budget hearings began October 10, 2000 at the State Capitol in Little
Rock. The hearings
certainly will be very interesting as the legislature prepares to make
recommendations to the full general assembly in January of next year.
The governor is seeking a $3,000 per teacher pay raise and is
recommending that raise come from existing funds.
As you can understand, this puts a real tight squeeze on all
funding. We indeed have a
real task ahead in providing funding for the four-year degree program
at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
The time has arrived for all of you to mention to your
respective state representatives and senators that we want permanent
funding for this very important program!
Talking points include:
(1)
the program
is up and running with students enrolled and attending classes;
(2)
it is the only
four-year degree program in SIS/GIS in Arkansas and one
of few in the region of the United States;
(3)
it is the
only GIS/SIS degree program located in a School of Forestry in the
nation;
(4)
the Governor
will be pushing a technology bill in the legislative session that will
create positions for GIS degreed individuals.
Please
inform your local Representative and Senator!
We continue to have productive meetings on
legislation to be introduced in the next legislative session.
Meetings with the legislative committee have focused on key
issues that will enhance the surveying profession.
Our legislative package is very close to being finalized.
Look for more details in the next issue.
Please contact Ted Mullenix or Julie Grinder at
Mullenix & Associates when we can be of assistance.
Mullenix & Associates
1301 Central Avenue
Hot Springs, AR
71901
Office: (501)
623-7300
E-mail: tedmullenix@arkansas.net
Fax:
(501) 623-1580
We welcome
your comments or suggestions!
ASPS BOARD
UPDATE
The
ASPS Board of Directors met on Thursday, September 21, 2000 at the
Ramada Ltd. Hotel in Jonesboro. The
Board heard a number of reports.
Some of which included:
·
Administrative
Assistant, S. Amber Weida, reported that Membership was currently at
351. A motion was made to
accept the 16 new members who had applied for membership.
The motion passed.
· Secretary/Treasurer, Charlie Storey, presented the Board with a financial statement of ASPS. Storey also informed the Board of an invoice received from Mullenix and Associates for Southern Legislative Conference Expenses in the amount of $465.00. A motion was made to approve the payment of said expenses. The motion passed.
·
The President
presented the Board with a proposed budget that would put ASPS
expenses at 111% by the end of the year (an improvement from the
proposed 124%). A motion
was made to accept the President’s Proposed Budget as is.
The motion did not pass. A
new motion was made to accept the President’s Proposed Budget with
the exception of the changes to payroll and payroll expenses for the
Administrative Assistant. Payroll
Expenses would stay at $2,700, and Payroll at $20,000.00.
The motion passed.
·
Ivan Hoffman,
Chair of the Legislative Committee, presented the Board with the
committees projects, one of which was electronic plat filing.
An outline of the functioning of the proposed system was
presented along with what actions are required to implement this plan
and what legislation and policy
ASPS
Board Update continued from page 7
changes
will be required. Mullenix
reported on his progress on this subject, as well as the location and
condition of the State Surveyor’s Office.
Mullenix showed a chart of recommended Senators and
Representatives that ASPS needs to contribute to.
There was a motion to allow the Legislative Committee to pursue
ASPS legislative goals in regard to the electronic plat filing with
alacrity. The motion
passed.
·
Tom Webb,
with the Board of Registration for PE and PLS, provided the Board with
a draft newsletter of the Board of Registration, “PELS News”.
He reported on disciplinary hearings, meeting dates, and
changes to the Board of Registration.
He also noted that there are now four registered land surveyors
on the Board. Webb
advised the Board of Directors that the Board of Registration was
going to be working on revisions to some statutes (i.e. act 645).
He advised ASPS to stick closely to the Board with its
legislative pursuits. There
was a discussion on the need to make a degree a requirement for
surveyors.
·
Administrative
Assistant, S. Amber Weida, re-ported that there were currently 142
registered for the Fall Short-course on September 22 and 23, 2000.
Income may not be as high as last year due to the large number
of student, LSIT, and personnel registration, and therefore full
paying registrants were fewer.
·
Jim Scott
brought the matter of the proposal from NSPS before the Board again
for consideration. The
proposal would involve raising ASPS dues by $70.
Benefits would include free membership in NSPS.
ASPS members would be able to belong to two surveying societies
for a reduced rate. It
was decided that the Board would seek the opinion of the membership on
this.
·
Bill Ruck,
ASPS Representative on the Louisiana Purchase Celebration Team, gave a
report on the progress of the four committees dedicated to the
celebration.
·
President-Elect
Mickie Warwick reported on the research she had done on getting a new
web site going for ASPS. There
was a motion to set up the web site at the initial $500 fee and
proceed from there. The
motion passed.
·
President Ken
Cotter passed out a handout on his thoughts in regard to
improvements/guidelines for the Nominating Committee and election
process.
·
The next
meeting of the Board of Directors was scheduled for Saturday, December
2, 2000 at 9:30 a.m. in Mountain Home, Arkansas State University
Campus.
SHOULD A
SURVEYOR HAVE A COLLEGE EDUCATION?
Rather than in an academic discussion, the answer lies in the reality of our modern daily life.
There probably is little argument that the largest investments made by an individual are the purchases of real estate and a home. The entire chain of legal paper documentation starts with a physical ground survey based on the integrity of a surveyor, often later to be followed by a fence between adjacent property owners. When a dispute arises, a surveyor is called upon to “follow in the footsteps of the original survey” by either locating existing survey monuments on the ground or following the paper documentation. As part of his duties, a surveyor may have to research private and public records and become an expert witness in a potential legal litigation. With the increasing cost of real estate, and the subdivision of land into smaller and smaller parcels, the surveyors find themselves and their expertise in more demand than ever.
Another aspect of surveyor’s responsibilities is in the public sector with costly projects, such as the construction or widening of a freeway. Many hours are spent on the surveys of existing properties on either side along possibly miles of right-of-way; to be followed by the construction surveys for roads, bridges, etc.
It is true indeed that in the past most surveyors learned by on-the-job training, because the work pace was relatively slow and the equipment unsophisticated. It is still true that it is possible to train anybody to ‘brainlessly” push buttons on modern electronic surveying equipment. It is however, simply not possible to learn on-the-job how the satellites of the GPS system can yield meaningful answers, and how the curvature of the earth has to be flattened in order to display a survey on a computer screen. Anecdotal stores and half-truths result in very costly litigations for both private individuals and public entities. Expressed another way, it is absolutely necessary to have a formal education in mathematics, geodesy, principles of law, etc. in order to work effectively and knowingly with the modern surveying technology and provide upward mobility of its workforce.
In these days of “bottom line” and “lawsuit” mentality, it is prudent to have the education when avoiding but one lawsuit against the State would probably pay an appreciable amount toward funding the surveying program.
Gaby M. Neunzert
– Professor Emeritus
Reprinted from
Side Shots May 2000, the publication of the Professional Land
Surveyors of Colorado, Inc.
ROBERT’S
RULES OF WHAT?
Henry M. Robert, although he may have had good intentions, really did a great disservice to the cause of orderly procedure. I am referring to the author of “Robert’s Rules of Order,” that ominous-looking book which most people regard as the best cure for insomnia that they know. I suspect that very few people have ever summed up the courage to open it, not to mention actually read or study it. The newer editions have a summary center section, but even that would be intimidating except to the heartiest of souls.
What Mr. Robert and his progeny overlooked in their attempt to be thorough is that 99% of all meetings tend to be amiable, informal affairs which do not attempt to address the great unanswered questions of Western civilization. The most sophisticated of parliamentary events is usually an amendment to a motion. One percent of the rulebook would nicely take care of 99% of the meetings. But by making Robert’s Rules of Order so long and complicated, people are intimidated from learning even the one percent. As a result, they often learn zero percent and, even worse, they learn a lot of things that just are not so.
Like the alleged fifteen minutes of fame that everyone supposedly enjoys once in his or her lifetime, almost everyone is called upon to preside over some kind of meeting sometime. Those in more natural leadership positions may find that they are called upon a number of times with civic clubs, chapter meetings, association meetings, and whatever other organizations they belong to. Because most people know little or nothing about the rules of procedure, they try to cover it up with pseudo-sophisticated parliamentary words and phrases, some of which would be totally unknown to Mr. Robert and his heirs and, as a consequence, they end up making something that should be relatively simple a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
Sometimes, in fact, it gets down right funny. My favorite parliamentary faux pas is the avoidance of using the word “no.” When conducting a voice vote, the proper thing to say is “All those in favor, say ‘aye’ (or ‘yes’); all those opposed say ‘no’.” Very simple, to the point, no confusion. But somehow “no” doesn’t sound quite sophisticated enough. (The chair nervously wonders whether if he asks people to say “no” when they want to vote “no”, the fact that he never read the rulebook will be exposed.) So instead, the chair comes up with a substitute. My favorite is “like sign,” as in: “All those opposed, like sign.” What does that mean? Does “like sign” mean that you are supposed to say “aye” even if you are opposed? Or will any sign do, even a sort of sign not usually appropriate in polite society? Or should the audience take the chair literally, and shout out “like sign” when they are opposed to something? My second favorite is the chair that asks those who are opposed to vote yes? If the chair is moving things along, what happens is that the “yes’s” from those who really want to vote “yes” have not yet faded away before the chorus of “yes’s” really voting “no” begins to be heard. So no one knows who is really voting “yes” and “no” because everyone is voting “yes” even though some really mean “no”.
Then there is the person who loves to yell out “call the question.” Actually, he is really a little tyrant in disguise without even knowing it. What he is attempting to do is unilaterally shut down debate, all by himself. The person who yells that out (and there is one at every meeting) is, in effect, saying, “I am bored and I really don’t want to listen to anyone else’s opinion. So I will shut you up.” There is no such motion as “call the question.” It doesn’t exist, because Mr. Robert, while perhaps a bit verbose, was no tyrant. There is a way to shut off extended debate, although it should rarely be necessary to use it in most meetings. Better to suffer a bit than to take away someone’s right to speak. But if it is absolutely necessary, the motion is “to move the previous question.” And that motion takes a two-thirds vote to pass, reflecting a proper bias in favor of free speech. Two-thirds is a lot more than the one vote of “call the question” guy. There are even some people who think that you can’t even have a vote unless someone says “call the question,” just like there are people who think that nominations cannot end until someone moves to close them. But neither is true. The presiding officer, when no one else wishes to speak or nominate someone, simply says, “there being no further discussion (or nominations), we will not vote” or words to that effect.
The bottom line is that simple is usually correct. You don’t need to know the whole book. By learning a few simple rules – and unlearning a few other fictional ones – you will be surprised how much more you will be in command of a meeting. Most important, knowing a few simple rules will enable you to act like you know what you are doing. Most parliamentarians, if they are honest, will tell you that they don’t know all the rules either, but they act like they do and no one ever knows enough to dare challenge them.
So here is a bit of what you need to know (or to avoid). Memorize these fourteen points of parliamentary procedure and you will do just fine:
1. In most formal settings, it is not necessary to have a motion on the floor to discuss something. The rule is impossible to enforce, so don’t try.
2. Before you vote on anything, however, there needs to be a motion, which in turn needs to be seconded.
3. Any time a motion is made, it needs to be acted upon.
It can be voted up or down, tabled, postponed, referred to a
committee, or whatever, but it just can’t sit there.
You have to do something to it before moving on to something
else.
4. A motion can normally be modified or withdrawn by the mover without anyone else’s permission at any time before any action is take upon it.
5. A motion to table something is not debatable, and only lays aside the question for a time. To actually kill a proposal, it is necessary to make a motion to postpone indefinitely. It is debatable, and if it passes, the main motion is defeated. If the motion to postpone indefinitely fails, then the floor is again open for discussion on the original motion and it still must be voted upon. In other words, the defeat of a motion to postpone indefinitely is not the same thing as approval of the original motion.
6. A motion can be amended, and it takes another motion to do that. First, you vote on the amendment and then, regardless of whether the amendment passes or fails, you vote on the original motion as amended (if amended).
7. There can be an amendment to an amendment, in which case you would need to vote three times; first on the amendment to the amendment, next on the original amendment, and then on the original motion. An amendment to an amendment (called a “secondary amendment” or an “amendment in the second degree”) must be germane to the primary amendment. There can be as many amendments as the assembly desires, but pending amendments must be disposed of before new amendments are offered.
8. An amendment to an amendment to an amendment (sometimes called an “amendment to the third degree”) is out of order (and also probably out of control).
9. When conducting a voice vote, ask those in favor to vote “yes”, those opposed to vote “no.” Don’t forget to ask for the “no” votes, even if you are sure there won’t be any. Being presumptuous is discourteous and undemocratic (it’s not very Republican either).
10. Always announce the results of a vote, such as saying “the ayes have it; the motion is approved.”
11. Tell the creep who keeps saying “call the question” to buzz off.
12. Nominations do not require a second.
13. You can vote on nominees without having to first close the nominations. A motion to elect someone “by acclamation” sounds impressive, but a simple vote will accomplish the same thing.
14. Use common sense, be fair, and act like you are sure of what you are doing, even if you don’t – and no one will ever know.
Reprinted from
The Oregon Surveyor, April/May 2000
Why
Did the Chicken
Cross
the Road?
It
depends on whom you ask:
John
Locke: Because the
chicken was exercising his natural right to liberty.
Darwin:
Chickens, over great periods of time have been naturally
selected in such a way that they are not genetically predisposed to
cross roads.
Richard
M. Nixon: The chicken did
not cross the road. I
repeat the chicken did not cross the road.
Bill
Clinton: There was no
improper relationship with the chick across the road.
Martin
Luther King, Jr.: I dream
of a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads.
Saddam
Hussein: This was an
unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50
tons of deadly nerve gas on it.
Plato:
The chicken crossed the road for the greater good.
Aristotle:
The chicken crossed the road to actualize its potential.
Immanuel
Kant: The chicken, being
an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.
Grandpa:
In my day, we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road.
Someone told us that the
chicken had crossed the road and that was good enough for us.
Colonel
Sanders: I missed one?
Albert
Einstein: Whether the
chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on
your frame of reference.
Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.
Ernest
Hemingway: Why did the
chicken cross the road? To
die, in the rain …
Dr.
Suess: Did the chicken
cross the road? Did he
cross it with a toad? Yes
the chicken crossed the road, but why he crossed it I’ve not been
told.
Reprinted
from the Missouri Surveyor – September 2000
“Dear Client” Letter
contributed
by Wray Childers, PLS
Following are excerpts from a letter I recently found in and old file. The letter, although dated April 20, 1976, may still have some relevance to some of the problems facing land surveyors today. The original author of the letter is now deceased and we have edited the letter to protect the innocent (or the guilty), depending on how you might look at it.
April 20, 1976
Mr. John Doe
XYZ Company
101 Main Street
Anywhere, IA 55555
RE: Any City, Any County, Iowa – Property Survey
In reply to our telephone conversation this afternoon in which you complained about our bill for surveying services on the above-captioned job, I seem to get the opinion that you do not think you got your money’s worth. I realize that surveying work is not cheap anymore, and when you only have services to sell and no materials, supplies, etc., you actually have no markup.
If we clear $1.00/hour/man on a job after we pay wages, salaries, social security, unemployment insurance, life insurance, professional insurance, workmen’s compensation, and three or four other taxes and deductions, and then pay office rent, heat, light, electricity, telephone, janitors, and then do all of Uncle Sam’s bookkeeping and collecting, and furnish trucks, equipment, transits, chains, taxes, etc., then we don’t have much left as far as profit on the help is concerned. And our workers do not consider the total pay. They only consider what their take home for pay is. It gets pretty disheartening to us to have to get the work, do the work, try for perfection, finish the work, make out the bills and then wait and wait for our money, and no one is happy.
Then we have to have the know-how, the records, and all the rest of the things it takes to put the job together and turn out a complete job.
Actually, my engineering and surveying life began when I was a water boy on a fence gang (digging post holes, carrying lumber, nailing and doing a man’s work for $1.00/day, and glad to do it). That was in 1916 on the old Hawkeye Highway. Since 1920 I have been in Civil Engineering in college and summers, and 12 years of experience in every line of Civil Engineering before I went into full time practice. As a result I have accumulated and kept in order for almost instant use my records since 1925. No one had anything like it, but when we work within a radius of 65 miles of our city we have to have records because there are no orderly public records anywhere. And if you don’t think so, just ask your local surveyors who come in whenever they need to know something about property and subdivisions in and around our city. We furnish they any and all of our secret records and hourly assistance without cost to them or to the XYZ Company for prints or services, and we are glad to do it to help them out. Or they could spend hours and hours trying to secure information elsewhere, and then not be sure. And we have been doing this for the local companies for almost forty years. We have never asked for a dime or charged the XYZ Company for our time or print costs, and I can say in all honesty, none was charged to any of your jobs or this job or any other job. We just let it go as an expense to do business and trying to help people.
I can see where people think we are expensive. But what if you started out from scratch on a property survey and didn’t know where to start or what to do. And you were doing it on a busy highway with traffic going 65 to 70 miles per hour, and you are in the middle of a 24-foot-wide pavement, and you had to go almost a mile for a U.S. Coast and Geodetic elevation for a bench mark. Then you had to make property plats, take elevations, make a site plan, write certificates, secure answers for all the items on a site requirement sheet which all had to be reliably secured and be true and correct. You would also have to deal in locating the closest electric lines owned by two power companies and no one close to work with. If you had to do all this to make a living, meet payrolls, expenses, etc., you wouldn’t think our price of
“Dear Client” Letter
(continued from page
10)
$1,296.89 was so expensive. Our actual cost for the type of work you got was $924.59. I would say that I have discussed the actual surveying work over the phone with at least four or five of your company people between Dubuque, Waterloo, and Des Moines, for which I doubt if I even charged. In addition to all this, you have put me on the spot to prove I was correct and right.
If you want good surveying work, you have to spend the time to do good surveying work. There are no reliable shortcuts.
Today, I got the price on carpenter labor from a building contractor. I have to pay $15.00 per hour for a man who belongs to a union, never went to high school or college, and has no records – just a tool box. And after he puts in his 8 hours per day he has no worries or problems or deadlines or responsibilities. And later if his job goes sour, no one asks him to pay back for his mistakes. Meanwhile, we pay $6,600.00 for professional insurance, and have been doing so for 20 years, and never had to use it, thank God. And the premium was due the same day our income tax estimate was due. Neither the professional insurance nor the Internal Revenue take time payments.
Your brought up overtime of 2 ½ hours and who ordered it. No one ordered it, not even me. But when your men turn in overtime and you don’t pay it, you have Wage and Hour Division from Cedar Rapids right down to see you the next day. I could cost you up to $10,000.00, whether you are honest or dishonest. They got ‘ya. So we cannot quibble. Even your own employees, who you sometimes treat like sons, will cut your throat if they see an extra dollar. Sometimes I feel like one should screw people any way you can, like sometimes I get screwed by well meaning people who don’t know a good thing when they see it. But I can’t be that way. I have to try to do things right. That was how I was brought up and trained by our poor parents. Please do not consider anything in this letter as personal. It is just the facts of life.
Sincerely,
ABC Consulting Engineers & Land Surveyors
P.S. I just wanted to show you the other side of the picture. Whether you know it or not, the little guy in business is becoming extinct. Not enough good surveyors are being trained in Iowa to keep up with the retirements. No one wants to take the mud and dirt and wet and responsibilities, and the continuing education, and all the problems.
Show this to my friend, Mr. Smith. He will get a kick out of this. Sign off time 9:47:30 p.m.
As far as your criticism of our charging you for 2 ½ hours overtime, we can’t help it. When the men are 15 or 20 miles out of town they don’t want to quit until they are finished, instead of coming back another day and loosing the traveling time each way, and starting time which comes close to one hour when you are distant.
Reprinted from
Random Lines, SLS of Iowa, July 2000
New
Insight on Men, Women and Maps
For those who follow the science news with an eye to the offbeat: A report speculating, with provocative insight, on why men are more reluctant than women to ask for directions follows.
That wasn’t quite the question the National Geographic Society had in mind when it commissioned a look at why girls have been so rare among contestants in its annual geography bee (and rarer still among the finalists – two out of 120 in the contest’s dozen-year history). The society has a general concern that American students don’t learn enough about the physical world around them, and a specific worry that schools are short-changing girls on geography.
The research, conducted by a psychologist and a geographer at Penn State, found the gender disparity arises largely from differences in how males and females see their surroundings. Girls do more poorly than boys on tests of spatial skill; not surprisingly, they also like geography less than boys do, and boys don’t like it much. Boys and men are generally more adept with skills of mental rotation, enabling them to visualize a map or diagram from different angles. ( A woman might say this explains the vacant stare that comes over him as we circle to block for the third time.) Girls and women compensate by turning the map or instructions around to match their orientation (and, a man might say, she’ll still need help figuring it out).
It’s clear from testing that most schools could do a better job of teaching geography to young people of both sexes, and ought to. But it’s just as clear, the Penn
New
Insight continued from page 11
State researchers say, that schooling can’t erase the gender gap with maps and globes.
Is that a terrible thing? The days are long gone when intelligence was thought of as a single quality, reduction to a single score. There is more appreciation today for the multiple intelligences – mathematical, linguistic, musical, mechanical – that are scattered unequally among individuals.
There is recognition, too, that differences among people, and between genders, can be complementary. Bending the pop observations about men being from Mars and women from Venus, it may be that men are more adept at forming a mental picture of the two planets’ orbits, while women can better recount the mythologies of their god and goddess namesakes. That makes for a richer conversation when they’re out in the car, enjoying the summer day, trying yet again to find the turnoff to the lake.
Reprinted in
part from a Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial, May 2000
Other Observations
The surveying profession across the nation has made some progress in reaching a better gender balance. Much more needs to be accomplished. Depending upon your personal opinion, if men and women mentally process geographic data (thus survey data) differently, so much the better for our profession and the public. The real issue here is what surveyors can do to achieve a better balance. When promoting our profession in schools, we need to reach out to everyone, regardless of gender, race or age.
Reprinted in
part from Minnesota Surveyor, Summer 2000
In
Memoriam
Oscar Maxey “Red” Hall died on September 15, 2000.
Max was a registered Land Surveyor in Arkansas.
He worked for the Highway
Department and with various Consulting Engineering firms in
Arkansas and Tennessee.
Awarded Surveyor of the Year in 1975, he was selected for his work in forming the Northwest Arkansas chapter of AARLS, and for assisting in the development of an associate degree program in surveying at the University of Arkansas.
Max was elected President of AARLS in 1976. He served as an excellent president and will be missed.
Food
for thought
there’s
a hitch to it!
With his thumb, a hitchhiker says, “You furnish the gas, car, attend to the repairs and upkeep, supply the insurance and I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, I’ll sue you for damages.”
It sounds pretty one-sided, but one wonders how many hitchhikers there are in many organizations. Many members seem to say, “You go to the meetings, study the issues, contact the legislators and take care of things that need doing and I’ll just go along for the ride. If things don’t suit my fancy, I will complain, criticize and probably get out and hitchhike to another group.”
Hitchhiker or Driver .
. . which kind of member are you?
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