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Telsa Cola posted:If you have a BA in anthro there is a fairly good chance a CRM firm will overlook the field school, especially if you explain the situation and have some archaeological experience. What area of the States are you in? Firms around me in the southwest are loving starving for techs. I'm in Indiana; that said, I don't mind traveling if needed. As far as archaeology-related classes go, I've had a freshman/sophomore-level intro class, a methods/techniques class, and an osteology class. Unfortunately, the only actual direct experience I had in the methods class was processing lithics; all the other lab/field activities got shelved when the pandemic hit in March and classes were moved online for the rest of the semester, replaced with alternate activities (we had to write up a basic Phase I report given a few parameters to work with, and some practice taking field notes, soil analysis, etc.; all fairly basic stuff that could be done around one's home). I am used to working outside in all weather conditions, however; my previous job was in groundskeeping, and I'm still fairly fit even though I could stand some improvement.
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Aug 3, 2020 05:33
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Meaty Ore posted:I'm in Indiana; that said, I don't mind traveling if needed. As far as archaeology-related classes go, I've had a freshman/sophomore-level intro class, a methods/techniques class, and an osteology class. Unfortunately, the only actual direct experience I had in the methods class was processing lithics; all the other lab/field activities got shelved when the pandemic hit in March and classes were moved online for the rest of the semester, replaced with alternate activities (we had to write up a basic Phase I report given a few parameters to work with, and some practice taking field notes, soil analysis, etc.; all fairly basic stuff that could be done around one's home). I am used to working outside in all weather conditions, however; my previous job was in groundskeeping, and I'm still fairly fit even though I could stand some improvement. Shovel bumming (traveling for CRM gigs) can be good and necessary sometimes but I'd try to break into something localish if at all possible first. Some companies are not so great on travel pay and you are going to have an easier time getting hired locally. Lithic experience is good and you should be able to find resources on basic ceramic identification concepts. I would also really recommend you look up information on historic cans and bottles and get familiar with HIT cans, HIC cans, and glass company maker marks. I know you mentioned that your methods class had lots of things shelved but were you able to get some mapping/compass experience? If not, its okay, in my experience people are more than willing to show you the ropes. Its definitely something thats nice to have before hand though. Good to hear you are used to working outside, definitely mention that. My advice to you is to see if your professor or any classmate of yours has contacts with any CRM firms and try to get your foot in the door8th that way. I would also apply to various CRM firms in your area and just be honest about your situation with regards to the fieldschool poo poo. Generally companies keep three lists. They have a greenie list of people who have applied and have never worked a project, a white list of tried and true techs who have worked with them before and basically get hired asap, and a blacklist of fuckups. Unless you get in via networking you are going to have to get on the greenie list of a bunch of companies and hope they need techs. Once you get some experience under your belt you basically get on every companies whitelist (archeology is a small community and everyone talks). Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Aug 3, 2020 |
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Aug 3, 2020 08:32
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I'm licensed to record, collect, and tow around smelly raptor corpses until I can get to a freezer at the lab, and I'm posting from the field to complain about the cruel circumstance that has me only finding them the first morning of an 8 day stint.
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Aug 4, 2020 00:50
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treat posted:I'm licensed to record, collect, and tow around smelly raptor corpses until I can get to a freezer at the lab, and I'm posting from the field to complain about the cruel circumstance that has me only finding them the first morning of an 8 day stint. So you toss them in a cooler until you hit the lab or?
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Aug 4, 2020 01:19
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Or, I tie it to the back of the UTV and try to drive faster than the wind.
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Aug 4, 2020 01:28
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treat posted:Or, I tie it to the back of the UTV and try to drive faster than the wind. Ah, hows that conversation go when you run into people in the rear end end of nowhere?
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Aug 4, 2020 01:30
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treat posted:Or, I tie it to the back of the UTV and try to drive faster than the wind. Wind farm mortality surveys?
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Aug 4, 2020 01:52
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Dude, raptors are Serious Business in my profession. I had a coworker find a dead Northern Spotted owl and basically, it was as though he had actually found a dead body. First thing that showed up was the law enforcement officer. Then the vegetation program manager (my boss's boss's boss), and then finally, the biologist and a FWS biologist showed up to confirm that yes, this is in fact a dead bird that died of natural causes and not the activities of my [major West Coast utility]. So this poor guy had to basically spend his entire shift camping out next to a smelly corpse of a bird as various people rolled through to see the dead bird. The response time was kinda nutty too. I've had trees across lines before and had to wait for 12 hours before the tree crew showed up to address it. It's also kind of annoying because if a bald/golden eagle is out doing their thing on a lake(which is rare in my area but not unheard of), basically any tree work that isn't emergency work within a half mile of the nest is over until the nest is vacated. So you can walk through and do all your listing for work, and it creates this weird cycle of going out to do emergency work over and over because actually just doing the normal routine tree work is verbotten.
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Aug 4, 2020 14:20
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gently caress bald eagles. The level of “oh poo poo, must not disturb at all costs!!” that managers, legislators, and the public go to when one is around, or god forbid, nesting, is obnoxious. They’re lazy trashy scavengers that will nest anywhere there’s water and a big tree. Maybe expend some of that effort on riparian habitat so we can have actual cool raptors like Cooper’s hawks and ospreys around.
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Aug 5, 2020 02:45
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“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. “With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country… “I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”
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Aug 5, 2020 12:22
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:The thing I’ve found about a lot of employers of technicians in natural resource disciplines (myself included), is that an ability to do field work in lovely conditions, live in relative discomfort a lot of the time, work independently and manage a project successfully, and not need babysitting from a supervisor is more important than a specific kind of scientific knowledge or schooling. Now, I do recreational trails and bridges including both non wilderness and wilderness work, and its a decent amount of heavy equipment use nowadays, but I can always teach some dude how to use an excavator or safely run all the equipment we use. But if the highest skilled guy needs to go back to an apartment or hotel room every night or can't use a little problem solving when I'm not around its never going to work.
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Aug 6, 2020 09:16
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Likely going to be working out of Boulder for the forseeable future with a 6-8 man crew, the amount of money they can throw at projects is astounding. Reminds me of stories from old timers in the USFS, talking about 60-man trail crews and massive trail projects that are basically unheard of today.
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Aug 19, 2020 15:14
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I'm coming at this from a pretty different angle, working in the eco-tourism field, basically. I'm a canyoning or canyoneering guide (name varies by country), which means folks pay me to throw them off waterfalls. I've been an active guide for about 7 years, but didn't work the last couple summers from burn out and 'rona. A lot of other guides mix it up with white water rafting, snowboarding or skiing, or chase summer from north to south hemisphere and back, but I'm a simple IT guy now, which pays more than I ever made guiding, with no 5am to 10pm days.
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Sep 7, 2020 10:45
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There's an A/T thread asking bout wildland fire for all you hotshots out there. I'm just a militia engine slug so don't really wanna get into it but I'm sure some of ya'll could shed some light on the subject: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3940064
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Sep 30, 2020 20:10
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I'll be working out of Boulder CO next year doing two jobs simultaneously, a 4 mile multiuse trail around Eldora ski resort and Rollinsville, and a high level rockwork trail for the city with a good sized crew. Gonna be a busy summer.
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Nov 4, 2020 20:03
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I've been missing this thread, so I checked up on it to find that it's been 1.5 years and I left replies hanging.HenryJLittlefinger posted:Wind farm mortality surveys? No, I'm a plant/fire ecologist, I just collect cadavers when I happen to roll up on them (which is rarely but invariably on the first day of an 8 day hitch, every time) for our resident bird dude, so he can figure out how they died and eventually drop hot potatoes like this big loving deal: Groundbreaking Study Finds Widespread Lead Poisoning in Bald and Golden Eagles California Condors are relatively geographically isolated, hopefully this is the writing on the wall we need to pass some legislation that will reimburse people for giving up their old lead bullets, or the not-really-that-funny comedy option: to organize the bird gestapo to go door-to-door confiscating them. Telsa Cola posted:So you toss them in a cooler until you hit the lab or? I did eventually toss it in an extra cooler and stop in town to buy ice during that trip, then I washed the cooler 3 times when I got home, eventually I gave it away because it's not a stink that ever leaves you. Telsa Cola posted:Ah, hows that conversation go when you run into people in the rear end end of nowhere? Rapidly. A Festivus Miracle posted:Dude, raptors are Serious Business in my profession. I had a coworker find a dead Northern Spotted owl and basically, it was as though he had actually found a dead body. First thing that showed up was the law enforcement officer. Then the vegetation program manager (my boss's boss's boss), and then finally, the biologist and a FWS biologist showed up to confirm that yes, this is in fact a dead bird that died of natural causes and not the activities of my [major West Coast utility]. So this poor guy had to basically spend his entire shift camping out next to a smelly corpse of a bird as various people rolled through to see the dead bird. The response time was kinda nutty too. I've had trees across lines before and had to wait for 12 hours before the tree crew showed up to address it. We once found a golden eagle on the side of the road in bumfuck NV--which could be most of NV but generally north central, near the Ruby Mountains IIRC--tangled in baling twine with truck tracks in the gravel pulling back onto the highway from precisely the spot the corpse was found. It was like a murder scene. Unfortunately, I realized we weren't authorized to collect in NV so we just called USFWS and dropped a hot tip and bounced like we were stoned 14 year old kids who witnessed a homicide. We're running on grant money man, we can't afford to lose a whole day to this poo poo. I wish I could find the photos but digging through 3 years worth of photos (because I can't remember when this was) and 18 different cameras (because I can't remember which one I used) while remoting into the server where thumbnails take 30 seconds to load is maddening. I do really appreciate all the precaution and regulation governing interactions with threatened species, though. It's their home, and they can't just move into low rent housing when we start to gentrify their neighborhood. I mean, I guess we can't really do that anymore either but you get what I'm saying. You only have to spend so much time out in the wilderness to realize that wilderness doesn't really exist anymore. I can't imagine how depressing doing this sort of work East of the Mississippi would be. I have gnarly run-ins with landowners regularly (many guns have been pulled) and I live in a state that is close to having the most federal land in the entire US. I'm mostly in the process of transitioning out of field work into more straight research, but currently I'm the only field going body we have at the moment so I'm really loving lonely and wish I had more people I could talk to about the cool poo poo I find without making them jealous about being work-from-home deskbound, bring this thread back. Here's a slightly janky panorama of one of my favorite spots at the top of the Owyhee front  Those peaks directly behind the foreground are Piute Butte on the right (near the UTV) and Dryden Peak directly to the left of Piute. treat fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2022 06:25
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treat posted:I can't imagine how depressing doing this sort of work East of the Mississippi would be. I work monitoring shorebirds and sea turtles on a tourist beach that has a nudist colony. I get my rear end chewed by boomers wearing nought but a thong more often than I ever want to remember  Inevitably we get a wiseass that thinks “those birds aren’t even on the endangered species list!!!!” is a savage and witty retort. migratory species act, you dumb morherfuckers e: Florida though. Where “YEA I FUCKIN’ GUN, WHAT OF IT?!!!!” is something that comes up when law enforcement is trying to measure your lobsters during mini-season 
Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2022 14:34
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Anyone else in on the latest round of mass hiring with the Forest Service (recreation and archeology)? Interviewed this morning and I'm hoping that an arch position comes through for me in my corner of south-central Utah. Currently a resource assisstant with the FS but wouldn't mind unlocking some better pay and a TSP.
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Jun 9, 2022 22:17
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Longshoreman X posted:Anyone else in on the latest round of mass hiring with the Forest Service (recreation and archeology)? Interviewed this morning and I'm hoping that an arch position comes through for me in my corner of south-central Utah. Currently a resource assisstant with the FS but wouldn't mind unlocking some better pay and a TSP. Not in FS but am a field director for a CRM firm in Northern Arizona. If you do arch in the southwest and need a job the markets really loving hot right now for it. We are bringing people in from the east coast to fill tech positions. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 01:09
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We got archeologists in here? Can any of you tell me what this could be? Looks like some sort of giant Equisetum to me. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3935237#post524137499
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Jun 13, 2022 21:31
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treat posted:We got archeologists in here? Can any of you tell me what this could be? Looks like some sort of giant Equisetum to me. Thats not... thats not what we do. You want a paleontologist, or better yet a paleobotanist. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jun 13, 2022 |
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Jun 13, 2022 22:14
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Good luck to y’all if you’re at Yellowstone. Every entrance is close because the rivers are busy eating the roads right now. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CewsYAmjKTA/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
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Jun 13, 2022 23:33
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Icon Of Sin posted:Good luck to y’all if you’re at Yellowstone. Every entrance is close because the rivers are busy eating the roads right now. Yikes. That ain't gettin fixed anytime soon.
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Jun 13, 2022 23:46
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I was just there earlier this week (visiting, not working). The weather was chaotic the entire time, so I'm not surprised, even though this is apparently unprecedented.
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Jun 14, 2022 01:12
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Telsa Cola posted:Thats not... thats not what we do. lol whoops, sorry. I may have gotten a bit mixed up with everybody screaming "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM" at me all week after finding it. Icon Of Sin posted:Good luck to y’all if you’re at Yellowstone. Every entrance is close because the rivers are busy eating the roads right now. This spring precip has been absolutely nuts. We were on track to have one of the driest years since the mid 19th century until April came and swept us up to 70% of normal, then May, then June. Yesterday's storm forced us to end our stint a little early and it straight dumped on us all the way from NW Nevada to Boise, ID. I don't think I've ever seen rain come down that hard in my entire life. RIP the library books I had in my camping bag. The invasive annuals have been absolutely popping off with all the moisture and I've been seeing cheatgrass growing thick up past my knees even above 7000' elevations and wading through fields of tumble mustard up to my tits. I've never seen anything like it. When this stuff cures it's going to be a living nightmare, the next couple fire seasons in the northern great basin are going to be as deadly as they are busy.
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Jun 14, 2022 01:13
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Telsa Cola posted:Not in FS but am a field director for a CRM firm in Northern Arizona. If you do arch in the southwest and need a job the markets really loving hot right now for it. We are bringing people in from the east coast to fill tech positions. Good info, thanks. I'm hoping to find something else federal after my term as an RA is over. I will be eligible for direct hire after 960 hours so I'm hoping that helps.
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Jul 10, 2022 18:06
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Rise, my friend  I’m back to being seasonal for NPS watching shorebirds and sea turtles again. Anybody else going (back) soon? Our other sections’ seasonal staff are supposed to show up this weekend, but the storms here may complicate that.
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Apr 8, 2023 13:17
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Icon Of Sin posted:Rise, my friend Not me! 'cause I'm perm now, I'm already here
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Apr 8, 2023 16:59
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My field season has soft started, and my techs are finally in the field and mostly out of my hair for a bit. I'll get to go run an electrofishing raft for a few days here in a couple weeks. Can't wait to be back out in western Colorado.
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Apr 8, 2023 20:08
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I've had several people thank me for my service today and it's always very disconcerting. I'm not a troop!
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Apr 8, 2023 23:57
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Spent about half a day shoveling a truck out that got stuck because it is too fat for our line of work. Least I got paid and made OT 
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Apr 9, 2023 19:52
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Since my last post in here I've gotten a job as a field tech for an environmental/CRM services firm. I'm really enjoying it so far, even if it is only part time at the moment.
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Apr 12, 2023 05:45
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Nice! I interviewed for a GS 7 seasonal job (didn’t even realize those exist  ), but didn’t get it so I came back to my 4th year as a seasonal here. Pretty sure I was close to getting it, and maybe next year it actually happens 
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Apr 12, 2023 10:30
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Meaty Ore posted:Since my last post in here I've gotten a job as a field tech for an environmental/CRM services firm. I'm really enjoying it so far, even if it is only part time at the moment. Congrats, CRM is the way (until your knees give out). Hopefully they have you doing SCA wage projects and have a decent per diem. Looks like I may be (hopefully, knock on wood) be moving up to project management soon. Field directing is nice, but kinda hard to have a life when you are basically camping for a little more than half the year. I also hosed up my knee on the Cibola last year, which was a bit of a wake up call. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Apr 12, 2023 |
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Apr 12, 2023 14:26
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I know a couple GS9 and a GS11 perm seasonals, so they do exist in niche areas.
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Apr 12, 2023 21:36
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Next season is coming up next week! Last round here for me, it’s feeling like time to move on after this round.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:05
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Icon Of Sin posted:Next season is coming up next week! Last round here for me, it’s feeling like time to move on after this round. Where are ya thinking next? Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Mar 24, 2024 |
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Mar 24, 2024 04:44
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Telsa Cola posted:Where are ya thinking next? Idfk. I'm already a unicorn out here (I'm the senior seasonal for the entire park  ). I kept coming back because I liked the job and had a cool supervisor, but supervisor left and I feel long in the tooth here now. With 5 years here and a new incoming supervisor, I'm going to be the one they lean on a fair bit.A mountain park sounds nice after this year, though. Maybe the Blue Ridge, or Shenandoah? After 12 years living at the beach (between college and my various non-NPS jobs) I feel the mountains calling me back.
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Mar 28, 2024 22:14
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I applied to a water treatment specialist job last summer, mainly because the qualifications were so broad that as a former computer janitor I might have qualified. I couldn't tell exactly what the job was and reading about it, from what I know about water treatment from exactly one college class is that it could have been anything from diving in sewage or heading to remote lakes to fill water bottles or measuring stream run offs, or all of that at once. I got sent a few more computery jobs closer to where I lived by whoever was looking at the resume and I applied to them (and did not get them) but I thought it was a nice gesture.
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Apr 2, 2024 10:47
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Well, I finally got the promotion I have been wanting for awhile so my field work days may soon be mostly over. It's a bit of a pay cut due to losing out on the sweet sweet per diem, but I'm not yet thirty and my knees are fairly shot at this point after about sixish years of non-stop survey work.
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Apr 3, 2024 22:46
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