Well here I am, 76 years old and semi retired. I have had the most enjoyable vocation, for me, over the years since 1963 when I started at Kern County Surveyor as a low level chainman. (Yes, in those days we referred to gender in our job names.) We used Transits and Chains and there were no E.D.M's., no Robotic Instruments, no Electronic Levels, no G.P.S. and the precision of your survey was measured with numbers like 1: 5,000 and 1: 10,000, in fact 1:100,000 was FIRST ORDER. And we had 4 man crews. There were no women in the field that I knew about. But that is a whole different discussion.I love the outdoors and I love the office work which we do. I love to learn about new technology and ways to make our product more useful. When I saw my first HP35 hand held calculator, I got a chill! I knew that the world had changed and my life as a surveyor would be different. Then they came along with an Electric Distance Meter. Suddenly, it was possible to measure a mile in one shot which took about 4 minutes in those days. We were lucky to measure a mile in 4 hours with any kind of precision with a chain. Then came total stations, Robotic total stations, G.P.S., R.T.K., now I do the work as a one man crew. That gets a little scary when you are the only one on the side of a mountain in Running Springs, CA. at sundown and 1/2 mile from your car. Ah, but I have loved every memory and seen most of California and parts of Nevada in a way that few have ever enjoyed. I would not trade a career as a Surveyor for anything. I have been on a perpetual vacation since 1963 and been paid reasonably well most of the time. I must admit, when I became self employed I realized you are always job hunting or you go out of business.