Geocaching Skills Used On The Job

[+Muirwoody]

Since I've been caching about 5 months I have had the opportunity to apply some of the things I have learned geocaching to things in my job. Have you?

 

Seriously: I am in charge of environmental affairs for a half milliton square foot facility sitting on 120 acres. The government always want reports on where exhaust stacks and stream discharge points are - in long/lat language. I have been able to use my GPSr to get much better data than I had before.

 

Not-So-Seriously: I went to a meeting and about 10 people were milling around up front. They couldn't start the show because nobody could find the small remote to turn on the ceiling projector. My caching instincts kicked in and I walked up front, felt around under the tables and found the little thing velcroed to the underside. I'm logging that as a micro! Then I realized I have been missing logging all those tupperware containers in the cafeteria coolers disguised as "Bob's" or "Betty's" I am no longer going to be fooled. I will start logging one a day about luch-time. (Took chicken breast, didn't take pudding cup)

[Jamethiel]

Yep! The company I work for wants to put GPS tracking systems in it's vehicles nationwide. Our little group here in Mt is gonna be a big part of it. I can use geocaching to explain to branch managers and dispatchers how the system will work. I already use tracks to get subdivision "maps" for when I need to draw in new information on our digital maps. So yes, I apply my skills on the job.

Seriously- we're tracking vehicles in real time at 4 locations in the US and Canada.

Not-so-seriously- I've gotten off at the wrong exits 2 times on my way to airports because the maps on my GPS aren't up to date enough for some of these areas! I've also driven 15 miles out of my way because my batteries were dead and I was relying on my (poor) memory of the area to get me somewhere.

-J

[+The Leprechauns]

I work in the Legal Department of a large bank. One of the areas I'm responsible for is compliance with the Federal laws about obtaining flood insurance whenever we make a mortgage loan on property located in a flood zone. Banks have to check every property before the loan can close, to see if the maps place the building in an area designated as prone to flooding by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

 

The vendor who does this work for the Bank uses a database that's indexed by street address. That is quite useless when the property is rural and there is no street address. I was tasked to solve this problem because it was holding up loan closings. I found another vendor who used GIS technology, and had all the flood zone maps accessible by entering latitude and longitude coordinates. I also used aerial photo tools to show exactly where the building was located on large tracts of land. Using this vendor, we are now able to get same-day answers to problems that used to drag on for months, annoying our customers.

 

For developing this solution, which required no more than being conversant with GPS technology and using the same websites I use for researching geocaches, I was rewarded with a cash bonus and an extra day's vacation.

 

I almost felt guilty as I spent that extra day off finding geocaches last week.

[+n5psp]

I design oil field automation equipment.

 

We started using GPSr's to document where the oil wells are located during installations for later maintenance.

 

Before the GPS days, often half of the job time was spent trying to find the right oil well, especially when signs may have been shot full of holes to the point of being unreadable, and there are 200 nearly identical wells in the field.

 

I started leading the charge even before selective availability was turned off and GPSr's became accurate to closer than about 2 city blocks, since in Texas, wells are spaced on 40 acres. I still have a track map complete with the 100 meter ambiguity of a telemetry installation in Andrews County captured in 1998.

 

The information saves many man-hours in the field and quite a bit of mileage. Didn't get any bonuses or such though.

[dampeoples]

I think about caching when the mail route takes me right by a virtual, that count?