Building smart processes to streamline the workflow can make the work easier and the results more reliable, which keeps my head above water and my clients happy.

There are lots of ways to design a workflow - for instance, some land surveyors book their notes by hand, and some use electronic data collectors. Every firm has its own unique way of arriving at the end product. However, from a licensed land surveyor, the product should always be of the same high quality.

It's easy to be hard on ourselves, but the important thing is to turn a mistake into a learning experience.

In general, salary for land surveyors is often similar to that of a professional engineer or lawyer - surveyors are often "comfortable" but not "wealthy."

There's a popular misconception that property boundaries are based on coordinates that surveyors can simply "walk to" with our instruments. The reality is that, while physical coordination of monuments is easier than it's ever been, property boundaries often need to be determined based on evidence and plans that are old, decrepit, and done with different technology and expectations than we have today.

Some field days can be tough. I've worked inside fuel tanks with 3 foot ceilings, in -42 to +42 Celsius temperatures, in snow and smoke and hail, and I've dug through snow and ice and pavement to find legal evidence. I've worked clear through the night by headlamp, and I've flown in a rickety long-islander with propane tanks strapped into the other seats. I've jury-rigged missing equipment, broken into my own truck, and cut out an emergency helicopter pad with a machete. I've been hungry, cold, tired, lost, injured, and downright hopeless!

I was attracted to the direct connection with history that land surveyors experience in the form of plans, field notes, and from surveying monuments from decades or even centuries in the past.