Most miserable locate, what was yours?

[ProfessionalLocator]

My most miserable locate

Ticket for marking a road widening, had to mark a gas main in a cornfield.

What made it miserable? Winter!!! About 15 Fahrenheit degrees with a steady wind blowing for a wind chill factor of hell has frozen over.

There was no connection point for the gas line so everything was by induction. Since the crop had been harvested the corn stalks were cut off a couple of inches above the ground. With the corn stalks frozen and the ground frozen rock hard it was like walking on a lumpy concrete parking lot with lots of rebar sticking up.

I had to keep two cans of paint on the dash of the truck with the motor and heater running. Two more cans of paint kept inside my coat and one in the paint stick. I could spray maybe half a can before it froze up and I had to switch to a warm can from inside my coat. The third can did not freeze up before the batteries in the transmitter gave out due to the cold. Then it was take all my equipment and paint inside the truck and heat it all up. I was barely more functional. I did this process maybe six times.

I forget how much footage that was but it was a long run.

[Mke]

I can't decide.

Marked a secondary for 1000' in the pouring rain, which is bad enough, but when you add in the fact that it was through a muddy pasture, made it difficult. The first step into the Mud it got worse. The mud went up to just below the knee. So, I mucked through the mud and got met with an amorous Cow that wouldn't leave me alone....and no i'm not talking about the homeowner. I marked the line through the pasture, and proceeded to the barn to wash off my legs and found no water anywhere. Got back into my truck where the heater started to bring out the scent of the mud and manure mixture. ahhhh great times.

The other was two test pits. Two seperate areas, both were about 10ft by 10ft. Took me 12 hrs to complete them both. The First was up on a Ridge in the Gorge, we were in 5ft+ of snow(deeper in the snow drifts). My work rig got stuck about 500ft up the logging road, put my gear in the sheriffs rig. He got stuck about 2miles up the logging road, where then we were chained to the Track Hoe and the Hoe pulled us up the remaining 3 miles going at about 5miles an hour. We got down the hill at about 3 in the after noon. The second site was Guaranteed not to have that much snow, and they were right, however it was covered in Ice, and the wind kicked in and was a constant 35miles an hour, with gusts up to 60mph. we got off that hill at about 7:00 at night frozen solid.

mke

[[HAF]Foxtrot]

My worst was a two mile stretch of road called in on one ticket for replacing the water mains. I spent all day on the hottest part of the summer locating it and after I got done, I got on google earth to count how many houses I located in total. Came up to about 150 houses in a 8 hr period.

If I was on piece-rate and had 1 ticket per house, I would have made bank that day. But seeing it was 1 ticket for all that, I was in a bad mood when I got off work.

[sling'n paint]

.

[[HAF]Foxtrot]

it wasn't a valid ticket, it was solved later on. After my sup caught word, typo at the one call center. Contractor needed a X street to X street located, but that ticket stated from X rd to X rd both sides of the road and in the road for possible bore. Them two roads happened to be the entire length of Lexington Ave, which is around 2 miles.

That was about a year ago though, already been taking care of, but I wont never forget that locate.

[yahoo]

lately .........every locate is the most miserable.....got to where i cant stand the job anymore....just working to pass the time these days

[MOJO]

lately .........every locate is the most miserable.....got to where i cant stand the job anymore....just working to pass the time these days

Hang in there, Yahoo.

[ProfessionalLocator]

lately .........every locate is the most miserable.....got to where i cant stand the job anymore....just working to pass the time these days

Locator burnout, it happens. People just do not understand that this job is stressful more than physically demanding.

If you location is having winter layoffs and you can volunteer to take some time off then do so.
It would be better to keep the money coming in but getting out of that bad feeling is worthwhile.

Consider taking time off and then taking a really crappy job for two months, that will make you appreciate locating again. Low pay plus a crappy job makes locating look real good.

Try the midnight shift stocking store shelves. Low pay, work hours restricted to keep you on the rolls as part time, some weeks you only get to work two days, no benefits, work harder than the day shift people, no matter what you do the manager shows up in the morning and complains about your work. I know a guy that does this, has to work for two different stores to get enough hours and pay to just get buy. He says the job is so bad the employment application only asks for conviction of felonies for the last five years. If someone just gets out of prison after more than five years they get hired because according to their application they are crime free. He says at least on worker on the shift is wearing a gps ankle bracelet so the parole officer can keep track of them.


Heck, so few people want the job that in one store he works at you have to be late more than 20 times over the last 12 months to get disciplined. Takes something like 24 lates to get fired.

Do what it takes to get rid fo that bad feeling.

[Dave72]

Consider taking time off and then taking a really crappy job for two months, that will make you appreciate locating again.

(at least for us in the northern climates..) Is that like taking your winter vacation up in the Alaska ? Then you dang well appreciate the 'reasonable' cold you have to work in during the winter !!

Yes, a change is as good as a rest.. I dunno if I would suggest some crappy store-stocking job to help one's inner health though.. lol
Figure the skill set and responsibilities you guys have.. how about something like a limo-driver ?

[Wingfoot]

People just do not understand that this job is stressful more than physically demanding.

A couple years ago I had a 2 mile road widening project with new water, sanitary and storm drain mains. It sucked from the initial survey to the kicking out of the last roll of sod when the project was completed.

This 2 mile stretch had an underground Southwestern Bell (SBC) Controlled Environment Vault, a conduit package that was getting moved to the opposite side of the road, a pair gain cabinet, 3 V-rads, 2 slick huts, 5 crossboxes with multiple fiber and copper cable runs on both sides of the street to be widened. The CATV had 1,000 feet of buried fibers and multiple trunk crossings. Phone lines, CATV lines, gas mains, high-voltage power poles and buried 3-phase power primaries all had to be moved to the new right-of-ways. Every road crossing had to be lowered. I was constantly marking the old with the new.

The general contractor had deep digging crews stretched out from one end of the project to the other, all the while each utility was moving their lines out to the new right-of-way. It took SBC 6 months to lay in a new conduit package with it's new laterals. That's when marking the old with the new wore me out.

Keeping this street widening project painted and flagged for the general contractor and all his sub-contractors was definitely physically demanding. But that ain't shit compared to the stress that went with it.........

During my locating for the initial soil borings, I discovered I had a mile of a sheathless 432 strand SBC exchange fiber on one end of the project and 1,000 feet of a sheathless 24 strand SBC V-rad fiber on the other end. That's a problem that won't be resolved within the 48 hour locating response time. The soil boring crews did not wait the 6 weeks it took for SBC to blow drops to be used as tracers for the sheathless fibers. Even though I'm not Catholic, I used up all my 'Hail Mary's" when I correctly guided the boring crews to safe locations to drill.

I experienced the new SBC conduit package getting cut twice and crushed once! I had 3 working SBC fibers pulled to a sharp point but still work! I had the same V-rad electric service cut 3 times! All but one of my SBC fiber hand-holes were crushed by sheep-foot dozers.

I had a 6" steel gas main get scratched hard and later, a 4" plastic main get zig-zagged by a track hoe bucket! I also had a 6" plastic gas main gouged deep by a backhoe bucket tooth!

I had 11 CATV trunks and 2 CATV fibers cut in half! I had a CATV hand-hole (my access to my TV fibers) have the lids crushed, to later have the sides folded to the top of the fiber splice and later still to be buried under 4 feet of soil.

On every damage, I was accurately marked with flags. The excavator never pot-holed utilities in conflict. The foreman always said, "All the utilities know I'm digging deep. It's not my fault that line isn't deep enough." When the CATV company sent him a $42,000 invoice just for the cut fibers, the foreman had the ballz to ask me if I had any influence with the TV company to get the bill dropped. My response, "Sorry, Pal......"

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[Goldenboy]

Wingfoot the job you described seems to describe the job that started yesterday for me. This job is a road widening project and they are replacing everything(sewer,water,gas,elec, poles,peds,manholes,condut,xboxes). There is literally nothing staying because they are lowering the entire road. Here is a pic from yesterday. The utility crew started potholing all the lines. They are getting ready to shoot the bore for the new conduit and they are shooting 10 feet deep and pulling a 24 inch backreamer.

I'm guessing this will be my worst job to date. The area I work seems to continually get crap work so nothing seems too bad to me. I just look at them all as a challenge.

[fockerson]

Yep, I couldnt even comment. I'm repetedly placed on season long locates(road projects). Mostly miles long. I have to admit I've assisted goldenboy with only some of the B.S. he has to deal with daily. 10 contractors at 1 time on 1 project that spanned about 2 miles. Double utilities at the beginning of it. I rarely left this job for the entire season. It did get easy with painting the same things countless times and I did find time to gather my senses occasionally. We all put up with unappreciated work too often(almost always). Unfortunatly its what we are signed up for. Lets try to be happy We have a job in these times. Every job has room for improvement. I'm happy for mine because I've worked so many others. I guess I commented anyway. Things really could be worse even though it seems hard to believe.

[Wingfoot]

Goldenboy - fockerson - All the vets out here - We all know that doing the physical locating a step ahead of the digging is the easy part of this job. The stress comes from the phone call we get from the contractor, or the utility rep, or our boss letting us know something big is hit that is our responsibility to protect.

If we are at-fault enough, on something big enough, we will be done, sure-nuff. We locators are automatically guilty until we prove our innocence. Stress is knowing we are just one hit away from the Obama soup line.

Years ago as a Noob, my mentor was the investigator on all my hits. During the investigations, he would watch my stressful reaction as I walked up to the cut. Turns out, 99.9% of all my hits were not my fault. His best advise to me to handle stress:

"If you do your best on every locate, you will never have to worry about another hit."

Truer words were never spoken...........

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[Mke]

I beg to disagree. I've been locating for close to 8 years. I give each locate 110% of my time and attention and I never loose the stress. I worry about everything. "Why?" you may ask? Because I've seen enough Kooky stuff in my time locating to realize we can't locate everything. Eventhough, the Inspector 007 can "locate" it all, my equipment can't. I've seen a 480v feed to a well head dissapear when the pump was activated. The only way to locate this feed was to have the electricians turn off the panel it fed from. Utilities shadowed by other utilities. I've also have had utilities that were not supposed to be locateable, locate. All this has jaded me to the point where I always worry. My only goal is protect the utilities, and if I can't locate some, that means I can't protect them.

I guess thats why God gave me broad shoulders... that and to accomidate for all the back hair.

mke

[yahoo]

Locator burnout, it happens. People just do not understand that this job is stressful more than physically demanding.

If you location is having winter layoffs and you can volunteer to take some time off then do so.
It would be better to keep the money coming in but getting out of that bad feeling is worthwhile.

Consider taking time off and then taking a really crappy job for two months, that will make you appreciate locating again. Low pay plus a crappy job makes locating look real good.

Try the midnight shift stocking store shelves. Low pay, work hours restricted to keep you on the rolls as part time, some weeks you only get to work two days, no benefits, work harder than the day shift people, no matter what you do the manager shows up in the morning and complains about your work. I know a guy that does this, has to work for two different stores to get enough hours and pay to just get buy. He says the job is so bad the employment application only asks for conviction of felonies for the last five years. If someone just gets out of prison after more than five years they get hired because according to their application they are crime free. He says at least on worker on the shift is wearing a gps ankle bracelet so the parole officer can keep track of them.


Heck, so few people want the job that in one store he works at you have to be late more than 20 times over the last 12 months to get disciplined. Takes something like 24 lates to get fired.

Do what it takes to get rid fo that bad feeling.

glad you mentioned that ...going on vacation soon....thanks