On the Lighter Side

OK so my first 2 posts were a little heavy and preachy.. It was that kind of day.  Today I will be enjoying a relatively quiet morning in the office doing the usual office chores until this chill is out of the air.  Then I will head to field.

I spent the first 5 years of my career working for my father.  For those of you who through the years ever got to know him will understand why I call those years "Basic Training".  Not only because of what I learned but HOW I learned it.  Those of you who picked this profession up outside of the family business will never understand.  Lets just say that the patience and tolerance level for new hires outside of the family is much greater than the other.  Working for my father was to say the least an education way beyond text books.  Don't take this to me that their is any deep seated resentment or a forth coming Dr. Phil moment.  I am just saying I had a lot of growing up to do in a short amount of time.

Being a party-chief while attending high school was great.  It meant 2 things.  First I always had cash, which went  along way.  Second it meant I had keys to survey rig.  Third I learned to enjoy both without abusing either.   I enjoyed it.  I also enjoyed being a teenager going to Conferences with my father and meeting other surveyors and hanging out with other party chiefs who didn't mind having a kid around.  My favorite was a Conference in Tucson; we found a longerie show in the hotel.  Lets just say that when I got back to school, I never looked at high school girls the same.  So the basic training was tough but not without reward.

The next 15 years I spent seeking employment, education and knowledge outside the family.  I had fun, learned a lot about how other practitioners work, and achieved status in the Engineering Office environment.  This is where I figured out that supervising surveying is not the same as actually surveying.  The air conditioned  sanitized environment of the office is no replacement to the fresh smell of the morning or the rush of a good hike.  Let alone the excitement of finding an original monument.  So I got to thinking.....

One day I am sitting in the office and the phone rings.  Its the old-man.  He says "I am getting tired, you can have the business, or I'm selling it."  Needless to say; I was homeward bound.  My wife was key to helping me take stock in the situation.  I was 35, with a wife, a one-year old child, and a new born baby.  I was packing them up to run my own business.  Leaving the security of a management job for the independence of self-employment under these conditions says that I either had balls that clank or shit for brains.  You be the judge.  Going 7 years, and loving it.