These are not exactly fun times to be a civil engineer in Michigan. Actually, it's pretty tough being a civil engineer anywhere right now! It's not so much an issue of losing customers to competitors but of our customers just not doing many projects right now.
It's easy to find yourself moping and crabbing about this, and I am as guilty as the next person, but none of that will change the near-term outlook. So I have decided to use this time to have some fun testing the waters on new ventures, finding creative ways to cut costs yet more, and checking out new avenues for civil work.
First, I finally went through the tedious but productive task of getting my credentials on file through NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, see
www.ncees.org). It's one of those things I said I should do, but never had time for before. It was really pretty funny, after twenty-five years in the business, trying to come up with phone numbers and addresses for places I worked more than twenty years ago! The fun of it was that I picked up the phone and found that at certain places, like the City of Huntington, Indiana where I was once City Engineer, there were actually still co-workers there that remembered me. Anyway, once I got through all the paperwork, it is now easy to get licensed in other states. Easy, but not cheap! So I should shortly be good to go in Ohio and Indiana which opens up more doors for me.
I have also had more time to work on my other love, which is family history research (see my website at
www.ancestryhelper.com). I am trying, and loving, working freelance for heir tracking firms. Here's something I quickly learned...for heavens sake, make a will! Almost all of the cases I have worked on are estates where single people or childless couples have gone without leaving a will and the courts are left trying to figure out where second cousin Whosit is or what happened to Uncle Alfred after he went to Alaska. It's fun for me trying to answer those questions, but not so fun for the courts!
As to cost-cutting, hey, I was from a family of nine, so that was second nature to me, but still it is tough to do after a certain point. Some of the simple things I have done are: 1) Cut down the number of phone lines; 2) Rexamined where I advertise by looking at where my work really comes from and cutting ads where they don't pay off; 3) Ditched my storage shed and try to keep survey supplies that were stored there on a just-in-time inventory basis right in the office; 4) Renegotiated my existing lease with the landlord ; 5) Recycle everything I possibly can; 6) Sold some extra items on Ebay.
Happy Easter!!
