u/quicky321

I recently started at a company and they do NOT store their staking shots. They have a hand written cut sheet and that is their record of staking. My last company would store our points. Honestly, I think it’s a bit bonkers to not store them. If that cut sheet gets lost (which they do), or miswritten, or someone pulls out the stakes, there is zero evidence that it was even staked or staked correctly. I feel the benefits of storing them heavily outweigh the effort to literally just click “store” when they reshoot it to get the elev. You can drop the points in CAD as another check to see it was staked correctly, have a concrete record that can’t get lost or altered. Idk seems like common good practice to store them to me.

I’m tryna convince the owner and all the party chiefs to store them but everyone is set in their ways and I’m just the new guy basically. Is it worth my effort to voice this?
Thoughts?

I use Carlson, Intellicad 2026.

In surface manager, There’s a couple things that don’t quite work how I would like or expect, maybe bugs or I’m not using it correctly.

- When I accidentally cross a break line, it asks if I’d like to overwrite it. Seemingly, when I choose yes or no, sometimes it kicks me out of the manager and I lose all my progress from that session.

- some triangles are made not on points. Sometimes there’ll be a triangle right next to the point or even kind of far away from the nearest point and I wonder how the surface decided to put a triangulation point there.

- similarly, I’ve seen a surface triangulate all along a curb between shots, like every foot. Is that because of a 3d poly line or is there a difference using 2d or 3d poly lines? Those shorter intervals between triangles seem to draw a more accurate surface following the curb as it slopes up, if that makes sense.

- I’ll make a point group using the points I want to use for the surface and sometimes the triangulation will skip points. I know for sure that point was in the point group used to make the surface and there aren’t any triangulation on it and I’ll have to “add point” to include it.

- Break lines, in a perfect world, I’ll select all my break lines before running the surface but inevitably some break lines over lap because my field crews aren’t perfect ya know? Like the lip of gutter will fall into the curb and that will cause an overlapping break line. Any way to avoid this without moving the point? I’ll typically just trim the line for aesthetics sake. Or is this a field crews not being accurate issue?

Last thing, thoughts on using “add point” to bring the surface to the edge of wall, for example, keeping the nearest elevation shot. I’m talking a couple tenths max. since it’s impossible to shoot a perpendicular edge all the way up to a wall or curb in the field.

In surface manager, There’s a couple things that don’t quite work how I would like or expect, maybe bugs or I’m not using it correctly.

- When I accidentally cross a break line, it asks if I’d like to overwrite it. Seemingly, when I choose yes or no, sometimes it kicks me out of the manager and I lose all my progress from that session.

- some triangles are made not on points. Sometimes there’ll be a triangle right next to the point or even kind of far away from the nearest point and I wonder how the surface decided to put a triangulation point there.

- similarly, I’ve seen a surface triangulate all along a curb between shots, like every foot. Is that because of a 3d poly line or is there a difference using 2d or 3d poly lines? Those shorter intervals between triangles seem to draw a more accurate surface following the curb as it slopes up, if that makes sense.

- I’ll make a point group using the points I want to use for the surface and sometimes the triangulation will skip points. I know for sure that point was in the point group used to make the surface and there aren’t any triangulation on it and I’ll have to “add point” to include it.

- Break lines, in a perfect world, I’ll select all my break lines before running the surface but inevitably some break lines over lap because my field crews aren’t perfect ya know? Like the lip of gutter will fall into the curb and that will cause an overlapping break line. Any way to avoid this without moving the point? I’ll typically just trim the line for aesthetics sake. Or is this a field crews not being accurate issue?

Last thing, thoughts on using “add point” to bring the surface to the edge of wall, for example, keeping the nearest elevation shot. I’m talking a couple tenths max. since it’s impossible to shoot a perpendicular edge all the way up to a wall or curb in the field.

New to California surveying and I’m wondering what the market looks like here for rodman/chainman, party chiefs, CAD technician, etc. What are the current union rates and do non union companies stay competitive with that?

Also, is there typically a big bump for LSIT (don’t have that where I’m from, just LS)? Is LSIT worth getting, do companies look at LSIT as important or just a cert. on paper?

I’m basically trying to gauge what I should be getting paid out here.

Resume:

Grew up surveying in a family business, started in the field as young as 10yo. Spent 6-7 years in my adult life from Rodman to PC to CAD/Calcs. I’m mostly in the office now. Drafting topos, calcs, prepping for field crews, researching BMs, Corner records, CL mons. We do mostly construction, few lot surveys so not too much boundary work. My main role is to churn out topos and make sure field crews have everything they need. Construction plans, calcs, control, etc.

What should I be asking for? No LSIT or LS.

Btw, I get paid (a little bit) more when I go in the field as a chain man rather than stay in the office. Which is mind blowing to me, seeing as a monkey could be a chain man and you couldn’t fill my office role efficiently without years of experience. Not to mention soft skills, working with veteran party chiefs and managing personalities, which does count for something. Being humble enough to hear feedback and confident enough to provide accurate work.