Entire Property

[Mr.Cynical]

Is it just me or does it seem that every ticket says "Entire Property" regardless if they are planting a single tree or driving a stake? It means the difference between two hours or ten minutes at times and to be honest I don't seem to have the luxury of spending half the day at a single address ticket anymore.

[sprayandpray]

It's common down here. Also the reason I tend to put more paint down at the area I deem is the most likely where the work will take place.

[Mke]

Happens here as well. I found out most of the time this stems from the one-call agency asking the caller if they would like the whole property marked, and most of the time they say yes.

I have the same issue when a gas company asks for both sides of the street, when its a short side install....

mke

[paintitnow]

It has become very common. I get it all the time the homeowner asking me why i am marking their yard and when i explain it they are like I am only getting one tree and it is going out front or back. they changed the julie laws in Il and now only the original caller or the foreman onsite can change it, i use to have the homeowner sign a meet sheet to change the extent. With one of the gas companies in IL they would audit your locate and if you only marked out the rear because the that was where the tree is going you fail their audit.

[headcipher]

One call centers have a single button that says "Locate Entire Lot" or something similar. Sometimes they will talk callers into letting them just push their little button.

[Goldenboy]

90 percent of Landscaping tickets call for the entire property. And appr. 90 percent of the homeowners on them tickets ask me why are you marking the entire lot when they are only doing this or that.

[yahoo]

all the tickets that I absolutely do not want to be "mark entire property" are mark entire property and as said above, that takes me alot more time..............which is good for me since I get paid by the hour!!!

[nopaint4you]

The one call is quilty also when it comes to this. I had a ticket for --repairing fence locate the one side of the yard where the fence and post are--. I go there and homeowner says "im replacing these two posts". "they said to mark them so the locator knows where to locate" The ticket did not have this info on it!!!!! The one call wrote the extent as having to locate the whole side of that house and the length of fence!!!! Just how much of this,, is lazy One Call personel making jobs harder. Answering phones is just so tuff i understand..... but what little details they leave out can affect us the locators dramatically. The homeowner actually marked the fence posts!!!! My God!! we have a hard enough time getting them to mark site when the ticket says its going to be marked!!! BUT!!! Keep pushing for production!!!! You'll Get It!!!

[big boots mcghee]

In Illinois it's even worse when the contractors or homeowners complete their one call tickets online. The options are very limited when completed electronically, and given the technological advances made in general just the past few years it's almost as if the Illinois one call center scored some sweet online setup that was all the rave....ten years ago. Seriously, I ran on one ticket that was sent in online by a homeowner that said they were installing a basketball pole, to locate both sides of the driveway, and that the dig area would be marked. The dig area wasn't marked so I knocked on the door only to have the homeowner tell me he was installing a chin up bar on the side of his home in the backyard. Basketball pole...side of driveway = chin up bar...side of house? Think it's any easier or better clarified to file online for a landscaping ticket or bore job? Think again, and there have many cases where a homeowner or contractor has told me they asked only for a specific location to be marked only to have the operator overrule them and say they'll just do entire property....WHY?!

[RD_Wrangler]

I happen to have an acquaintance who was a one-call phone rep for awhile. They DO have the magic "Mark entire property and all easements" button as one of their function keys. The sad thing is they are encouraged to use it. It's MUCH easier for them to hit that, than to take the time to type out instructions as they are given to them.

The theory is, this reduces the amount of time for each call, thus allowing each individual rep. to handle more calls, thus reducing the number of reps needed, thus reducing overhead, thus reducing the cost for the utility companies that fund the one-call centers...

...sound familiar?

It all comes down to individuals in upper to mid-level management positions making decisions that SHOW reduction in costs on THEIR side of the equations, in order to justify their own positions within any given company.

"Look boss! By making these guys hit the "magic button" instead of doing the RIGHT thing, we can save "X" number of dollars in overhead!" ... "Yeah, I can see how that would affect field workers and make their lives difficult by causing them to work 2 hours at a job as opposed to 15 min., wasting their man-hours and increasing their over-head, but those locate companies are contract anyways, no cost increase to us, and I gotta justify MY position, *I'M* important!" ... "Integrity? Whats that?"...

You guys should be used to that mentality. Most of the contract locate companies have the same type of individuals in THEIR mid-level positions.

[UULC]

Let me give everyone some info. I am a former sup and locater for USIC. I worked for a construction company working for Bright House for two weeks as a Damage Investigator and calling in tickets using Internet Ticket Entry (ITE). I would receive the packet for installation or maintenance on cable. The mgr for the company I worked for never went to the job site. I had to look at the print and decide where and how far they were going, which side of the the street and where they were crossing. I would then log in into ITE and enter the info. In the locate field they have drop down boxes. They also had an area to type in info. I was told to call in both sides of the street when they were just going to cross the road and go to a ped. After the first day I would call in a bunch of tickets because I know how some folks get paid piece work or need the tickets for production.
This company would dig or HDD across high pressure gas line before the tickets were due. I pointed this out and the new laws that go into effect in Florida on 10/1/2010 that mandates fines. Any time you cross or work around a HP gas line you are to have a representative on site.

So some of the problem arise from contractors using the internet to create the tickets.

A week ago this past friday I was let go for not being compatiable with the company. The owner did not like me speaking up or calling in enough tickets to help out the locators. I told him they were going to kill someone. I was hired as a damage investigator and to call in the tickets and when I tried to do my job I get canned.

So it is not always the One Call Center who create this problem. It is the contractor who has never been to the site and they just call in the ticket.

I will get off my soapbox now. I am mad at this company for playing with people lives and they will get someone hurt or killed and then I will speak up.

[Mr.Cynical]

Hey RD Wrangler you just confirmed what I have been thinking for quite some time now. I and couple of other guys decided to keep track of how many times the homeowner would come out and say I told that lady all I wanted was the east and west sides or someting along those lines and they reply" I will just have them locate the whole property." It might be a city lot or 5 acres in my area. I don't have a problem doing my job but how best to protect the utilities in the area rests squarely on my shoulders, not someone who wouldn't know the difference between a Rycom or a Metrotech if it was rammed up their backside.

[alsoran17]

I absolutely love it when I show up to a locate, usually a landscaping ticket, and let the homeowner know that I am there and what I am there for, and they want to yell and get hateful with me about me marking the entire property. Or when they don't answer the door and see me in their backyard and come out screaming. "All we are doing is putting a tree right there," pointing to a corner of the house where there are no utilities. I just inform them that I have to locate the entire property per ticket request from their landscaping company, and I encourage them to call their landscaping company and inform them their displeasure with having the entire yard marked. I guess it helped a little since one of the landscaping companies here is always entire property, now they add a note to please do not use flags.

[lmnop]

What were the circumstances of the original locate? How did the first locator mismark or overlook this conduit? There is another lesson to be learned here besides "don't re-paint somebody's marks."

[Bad Robot]

This year more than any other I have been yelled at, threatend and actually chased off of a locates by irate homeowners. Many of these have been landscaping tickets. I have witnessed first hand a homeowner call a landscaping rep and unleash a torrent of profanity after I informed said homeowner that the landscapers asked to have her entire lot marked. This was so satisfying to me. I truly almost felt guilty as I walked back to my truck over a steady stream of " You inconsiderate MF's" !!!