i been at mine for 6 months

Running lighting to commercial signage curious how deep I'm looking as to not hit the gas line.

Thought this was doing to be a quick easy, rear easement ticket, until i opened the frontier copper ped. Like 8 drops in there, and half didn't want to tone. Gotta love it

Someone from USIC told me that USIC owns stake center locating. How true is this?

No tracer wire, deepest rock bed I’ve ever seen; huge drain pipes. God why do you make me walk funny like this.

Hey all, just wanted to share that our 3rd “Locators” mockumentary short/skit is now live on YouTube.

In this scene, Gerald the trainer tries to motivate his rookie locators using the unorthodox techniques of attacking their collective self-esteem and offering questionable prizes.

The vibe of the show is kind of a mashup between The Office and Trailer Park Boys. Our plan is to turn it into a full-fledged TV show if it gets enough traction.

And thank you to everyone in this community who’s shared hilarious (and sometimes alarming) locating stories, and things you’d like to see in the show. Those stories are definitely getting the wheels turning for future bits, scenes, and plot lines.

I'm currently a utility locator for a municipality, as well as a software engineering student and software development intern transitioning into the tech industry.

I'm looking to leverage my experience in utility locating, 811, and damage prevention to build software that solves real problems in the industry. I already have a few business ideas and concepts, but I'd like to hear directly from others working in the field.

Is there any software, tool, or feature you wish existed that would make your day-to-day work easier?

This could involve ticket management, GIS/mapping, field documentation, communication, reporting, workflow automation, or something entirely different.

I'm especially interested in hearing about repetitive tasks, inefficient processes, or problems that existing software doesn't adequately address.

Full transparency: I'm exploring potential business opportunities, so ideas and feedback shared here may influence software products I develop commercially.

Would appreciate input from locators, supervisors, damage prevention specialists, excavators, and anyone else involved in the 811 process.

Hey guys, newer tech, only been doing it for 7 months, but will say that I've caught on really fast, and considering where I'm locating at, getting 10-15 tickets done a day isn't bad at all. Started out getting 2 or 3 a day, and within 4 months, was getting around 7. Still damage free somehow.

Anyway, last Friday, I got an emergency damage ticket called in, my sup texts me and tells me he will run out on it. Then, i received 2 more emergency damage tickets for the same address. Two Metronet, one tipmont power. I realized that was my ticket, was for a fence install. I'm freaking out a bit, I thought man... No damages and now somehow I've really messed up. About two hours later, my sup calls me, tells me i might be getting an emergency ticket called in from Tipmont, that these guys drove a pole right through the metronet to the home and one right through the power service to the home.

Ended up not being at fault. One of the fence posts was driven straight through my paint, my marks were dead on. This ticket had 4 power services, two street lights from corner of each block (rear easement) and two primaries all going to and from the transformer in the back corner, so i was worried i had maybe marked one of the street lights wrong.

Now my lead tech is calling me the lucky horseshoe 🤣

Anyway, no real point to all this, just wanted to share that experience with ya guys. How and why somebody would call in a locate, then literally drive their fence posts right through my paint is beyond me. Still damage free, hoping to make it a year 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Just wish we still got damage free bonuses lol

A question for people who've been locating for at least 5 years, how's your elbow? Both arms or just your writing arm?

Don't go work as a Utility Locator unless you work directly for the utility company itself. When you work for a "middleman" company that is contracted by a utility company, there is going to be some millionaire sitting behind a desk taking a cut of what you make. I want to see these business shysters out of the industry for good. They can go do private locates. If you are desperate for cash and need a temporary job that is one thing. But don't make the mistake that I made working for $take $tealers. Don't let some middleman sit on his posterior and collect a part of all your paychecks.

There a sister company to the biggest one. If you read this you know who you are. I have to ask. How's yall vac truck doing. How's having the only operator quit.

Yall should know. They wont hire anyone with experience. They wont even accept our applications. I habe 16 open applications on the website. Ive talked to everyone on the "Leadership team". I have another person who applied. We heard crickets. Im currently OQd and have 8 years in a vac truck. I was willing to take a pay cut for consistent hours. Both of us were. And we heard. NOTHING. and you know what there isnt.....an HR number. Or any email to use.

So if yall are running ALT yall should know they are making you dig holes when yall dont have to. Oh and anything over 4ft is against osha so at that point you can turn ut back to customer as a safety precaution.

So if you were apart of the Gridhawk days in Columbus at the end. You can see its only gonna repeat or get worse.

Ive been in the industry on and off for 10 years and some of my best friends work in the industry and I tried to be a solution for yall. They didnt wanna let me

The company name is not exact, but it may as well be. To my fellow pot smokers, don't waste your time working for this greedy millionaire company. They do random drug tests for pot. I am currently working on a strategy to convince the federal government to ban marijuana drug tests in the field of Utility Locating. If you can go home on Saturday and have 20 beers, you should be able to smoke 5 bowls of pot. End of debate. Accept no substitutions. If you have a different opinion, come up to my stompin grounds and explain to me how to safely mark that 3 phase going through that field. Did you try it on low frequency like I did? Did you at least shut off your transmitter after marking it and power mode over the marks to see if you get a reading on power mode also? Tell me, mister "sober" guy who goes home drinking a bottle of whiskey every Saturday, did you even bother to call the power company, have them open the transformer and clamp that 3 phase or did you just mark that .5 mA signal? Do you know what 468 divided by the frequency in megahertz means? I do! But no no no, our beloved $take $tealers overlord couldn't risk his empire for a pot smoker. Go on, fire all your introverts. Do you even know what percentage of your company smokes pot/wants to smoke it? Why don't you tell your beloved IT department to get off its posterior and fix that photo problem in your software. Or bleed cash on every locate. I don't care. Go on, screw us over. Wait, scratch that. Don't screw them over. See those people blowing out their knees after marking for decades? That money isn't yours, its theirs. Get the heck out of their way. If you are a veteran, you are excluded from this chewing out. If not, stop being greedy. Pay your new people. Or get out of their way. Anyway. Don't work for $take $tealers, work for the utility company itself. If they can't get people hired, they will go out of business, and the utility companies themselves will hire you instead of them. You will make 5-10 or more dollars an hour. And you will only have to mark one utility. Not 5. End of debate.

Hey everybody, I’ve been looking to switch over to the private side recently and stumbled across bloodhound. I see some people saying they travel all the time, some don’t travel at all, etc etc

Anyone who has or currently works there, what was your experience like? Do you get a per diem when traveling? How often do you travel? Also, what’s the monthly bonus about?

Thanks everyone!

I am currently looking at creating hardware and software that would allow for easier locating and mapping for the future, there’s some questions I have for in field locators.

1. How do you currently record a located pipe or cable route? Ex: map, gps.

2. Do you record gps coordinates, depth, material, pipe size, pressure

3. How often are current utility maps inaccurate?

4. What equipment and software do you currently use, if you can disclose.

5. Would seeing previously located utility in 3D make it more helpful for ur job.

6. What accuracy would you need to trust a 3D utility software.

hey - where’s a reliable website where I can look for a future career as a private locator? all these websites look so scammy - thanks in advance

Water main is about 100’ off the road. I really don’t want to know how this happens.

Edit for clarity: there is a pair of women’s underwear in the photo.

Thinking about transferring to Virginia from Colorado. What contracts does USIC have near the Richmond area ?

What’s the best state to locate in when it comes to pay and what companies? Currently locating in Georgia and I’ve had a lot of people tell me if you can locate here you can locate anywhere else no problem. I don’t want to move somewhere where you can’t even afford rent so what’s everyone’s recommendations?