Surveying's Not for Softies

Attended a good marine RICS lecture on Thursday night. Glyn Hunt is a land surveyor who now works offshore; primarily in support of the Oil and Gas industry. His well illustrated talk was an insight into life away from the comfort of terra firma.

Life on an oil rig is full of surveying challenges and by the end of his talk I crowned him the Boy Scout of surveying. I don't think he knew how to take it but I was trying to encapsulate his job offshore. If anything breaks or goes wrong when you're on a rig/platform then you can hardly pop down to PC World and get a new one or find someone to fix it. You are on your own and if you can't fix it you hold up the job (and time = money). He has learnt, since moving offshore, how to work a myriad of various receivers, antenna, software packages etc. He's also discovered 1001 uses for packing tape.

Surveying offshore is not for softies. If you can't cope with the weather chucking anything at you, having poor comms at times, shifts, working remotely, not seeing your nearest and dearest for weeks/months at a time, having everything delivered by ship/helicopter (weather depending) and being ready for anything I suggest you stay land based.

Oh hark at me, this is from a woman who works from a desk at Taunton.