Altus Geomatics

I have been working at Altus Geomatics for just over two years. The experience has been a very positive one.
You have to be cut out for long days of hiking/walking with gear no matter what the weather. Hammer swinging, note taking,knot tying/ flagging, locating, digging and testosterone filled axe swinging are usually all daily occurrences.
  The staff here have always been a great bunch, they always pull together when someone is in need of anything from a helping hand at home or a good joke. A word of warning, surveyors are pranksters. Don't be upset about finding your gear, car/truck, or ATV/sled covered in flagging tyed in knots preventing you from accessing anything you need. I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't laugh about it while he helps you clean up the mess. 

Always remember that blame runs downhill.When stepping foot onto any large scale construction project or oilfield job always make note that as the assistant you WILL be the lowest paid person on site, outranked even usually by the janitorial staff in camps. Becoming a land surveyor is very unlikely to make you a millionaire by any means, but it does provide for a healthy, active lifestyle once you learn how to live within your means. Some crew chiefs are the type to make the assistant do all the work, if you can't hack doing all the calculations, re-staking, line locating, marking and/or flagging off the hop ask them to help, if they refuse, try to hop in with another crew chief until you can learn the ropes. This way will fast-track you to a jr. crew chief role but if you're a slow learner and prefer to work in a team environment, I haven't found an office yet that won't help you out.

If you're outdoorsy or the woodsman type this is definitely the job for you.
 Assistants usually start around $15/hr and peak-out around $20/hr and a jr. crewchief usually starts around $20-$25+/hr with either 3-4 years of assistant experience or a university diploma.

When you work for an outfit that treats employees like family, expect to overcome a lot of internal political problems. Some people I got along with great, others not so much as they were buddy-buddy with the Managers. 

This made it really hard to report users that were causing a lot of headache. If you tried to educate that user about something, you were generally met with a reprimand  from the Office Manager, or the divisional President.

I would receive praise and yearly bonuses for my contribution to the company, which I did appreciate. All of this came from the divisional President, whom I never had any problems communicating with. The problems occurred when the divisional VP was made the Manager of IT affairs. It was obvious that this person did not have any IT related experience, which made it very difficult to get my job done from day to day. I would attempt to work on something that was high priority, and be told to skip it for something basic. An example of this would be a buddy-buddy employee having performance problems with a PC, versus a plotter that was down and needing repairs.

If the VP understood technology and how it works, he would have devised a way to prioritize what needs to be fixed now and what can be fixed later. This was a constant battle that went on for a few years.

I've heard that management has been moved around in the Geomatics division, and that a more knowledgable person has been made as in IT Lead. Too bad it didn't happen while I was still there.

At first, Altus was friendly to work for. Everyone was pleasant, easy going, and usually invited you to "Beer Friday" at the end of the week.

But as time goes on, you will eventually peave off the wrong person. Once you do, it's pretty much game over. Especially if head management is buddy-buddy with a fellow co-worker.

This was one of Altus' biggest deficits. There's a lot of bureaucracy and red-tape that an IT tech has to go through in order to prevent a user from being an annoyance. On most days, management doesn't care. They will simply say "I want this person to have new equipment before this person." Now you can read that in terms of a employee that puts out his/her share more often than other employee, or you can see that as a pure example of "scratching each-others' back". On most occasions, it was the latter. I saw crummy drafters get newer and better hardware vs someone that took their time to do the job right.

After 4.5 years of being bullied by the office Vice President, I simply had enough. Be forewarned that if you can't become part of their culture, you'll find yourself being exiled in a short period of time. 

This is definitely a sink-or-swim employer, with a very short retention period between old and new employees.

The company is great! The actual job/career path lifestyle doesn't jive with me so much. That said it is a great experience and i highly reccomend ticking it thorugh for a year or so. I work 10-13 hours a day, in a camp or working out of a hotel. I work with one crew chief for the rotation, and may move on to others depending of the proffesional relationship or due to schedualing conflicts. I learned to live on my own, take care of myself, how to assist and anticipate the needs of the crew chief for the job or task at hand. Hardest part is adjusting to the lack of a social life, and living a healthy lifestyle. I most enjoy being outdoors all day. Some times its relatively challenging work, sometimes its very simple. I simply want more money for the work i do and the inconvinience of being away so much, and so unschedualled.

Read the job postings carefully and check the website to understand the work. Survey work starts in the field / bush - long hours and long shifts - but paid all hours and overtime on extra hours. Expenses are covered when out of town. Drafting is done in the office, but they have many locations to choose from, so you can pick where to live. Recent management changes have lightened the atmosphere considerably! Work hard, learn the ropes and show initiative to see career progression, and speak up for opportunities, I had good experiences with advancing at Altus when I took my career into my own hands.

The job consisted of driving from the office to the job site, setting up the equipment, conducting the survey, tearing down and going home. There were a few days when we had to go on the road, but typically we made it back to the city.

This often meant many hours driving to the work site, and on a few occasions this meant driving 3 and a half hours to the site, working for half an hour, and driving 3 and a half hours back. Other days this meant driving 3 hours to the site, working for 6, and driving back.

As we were working all across southeastern Saskatchewan, this meant I got to see a lot of the province, and some very diverse landscapes.

This place is full of poor management. 
Lots of closed doors meetings and hushed conversations. Not open to new ideas and if you do not kiss corporate butt, you will be removed.
Office manager stomps around like the place is on fire every day and creates an overall nervous environment -  if you are not in his inner circle, you will likely be removed
Management is not developed or groomed, instead it is given to the person who will say yes to the management layer above them.

Avoid this place at all costs

Altus Geomatics is a good company to work for.  Recent transitions in management have changed the work environment for the better – a much lighter atmosphere to work in and a much less top heavy company.  Co-workers are great to work with. Altus understands that life happens and will flex hours around personal issues when possible.  Extra effort is noticed AND acknowledged.  I’m looking forward to the future of working for Altus Geomatics.

No room for advancement. Underpaid, Underappreciated (Not appreciated at all.) Even if you give 150%, you don't get any further ahead then those that do nothing.  The new management is just as useless as the last and the next will be even more useless. It's a work culture where your work comes 4th to kissing up, Corporate politics and being in the correct clique. Very negative work atmosphere.

Like most negative posts they will try to have this removed.

Lots of overhead and incompetent, unqualified managers that offer zero value.  Good workers are ignored.  Senior management are out of touch.  Poor place for career advancement.  The environment and culture of this company reflect it's management.  Poor performance results in pay cuts while managers continue to collect bonuses.

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