"What exactly is it that you DO, anyway?"

Yes, I get that question all the time. So- I thought I'd share with everyone out there in cyberspace what my job is, and what it entails.

For all intents and purposes, I am the "Call before you dig" guy....
The technical term for my job is "Damage Prevention Technician"
You know when you're walking down a street, and you see orange/yellow/pink paint on the curbs, sidewalks, etc? Well, that's an indication as to where the underground utility lines are located.

Here's how it breaks down:
1- You (a homeowner, or contractor) wants to do some digging (be it for a fence, some gardening, or something as big as road reconstruction/water/sewers, etc)
2- (Up here in Canada, anyway) it's the LAW to "call before you dig", because well, you *really* wouldn't wanna hit a gas line, would you? Or maybe knock out the main telephone lines for your street? Didn't think so.
3- You call this 1-800 number, they take all the info, and in turn, dispatch us to locate the gas and telephone plant for the providers in that region.
4- I spray paint your lawn, road, and stick flags in the ground that often disappear 10 minutes after being placed.

There you go- that's pretty much it.

Perks to my job-

-I work from my home; no office to report to.
- All the locate requests get emailed to me
-My company puts me in a new 2007 Jeep Compass to drive around to said locate uh, locations...
-NO boss breathing down my neck all day
-I'm outside. Like, 10 hours a day, and I love it.

The downside-

-Middle of July, it gets VERY hot and INCREDIBLY humid; very hard to work in, much less breathe....the workload is overwhelming sometimes. You have to able to juggle all your work, and not fall behind, keep contractors happy, etc.
-Middle of January.....you guessed it- lotsa snow, and cold. (Cold I can handle, I HATE snow)...and the workload is almost non-existant.

So there you have it. That's what I do. Not a typical job for a self-professed comicbook geek, is it? haha