Non-Planners What Do You Do Thread

[teshadoh]

Originally posted by JNL

Ha ha, thanks for the laugh!

I am currently working on getting Closed-Circuit Television cameras back into the central city. This was decided before I started in this role and I've got everyone on my tail wanting to know when the cameras are going in....not a camera fan myself but I guess they're okay in limited situations

You should see the CCTV of our sewers - pretty little bugs playing in people poo.

[Bear Up North]

This Bear figured that it was time to rip-open this old thread. We have a ton of newbies in Village Cyburbia. Many have been walking the well-shoveled sidewalks of Cyburbia for a number of years, not telling us what they do to provide those things we like.....food, a roof, yadda. Non-planner newbies, what do you do?

BTW - This Bear (very obviously a "hanger-on" and not a planner by trade) is still very much involved in operating a big distribution center. I "plan" after hours.

Bear

[kms]

I'm not a newbie, but I'm now an E&S inspector for a Conservation District in the county next door. Best. Job. Ever.

[kjelsadek]

I'm not a planner but I am a planning student, soon to be policy student. I work for a developer two days a week but I don't do anything planning related-mostly graphic design, print production, spreadsheet master. My other gig is tracking foreclosures in one NJ county. No planning...yet In my former lifetime I was a restaurant manager in the fast food world.

[Veloise]

Was a planner before, and will be again. Right now I'm using a teensy bit of my mad planner skilz as a real estate manager for a telecommunications company.

(While I'm not the sport-coated dweeb raiding your PC hearing nervously demanding approval on a cell tower in a R-1 zoning district, I'm the person who hires such folks for my company.)

And on January 9 I will no longer be with A-tower co, but with V-tower co. Ideally I will getthehellout of telecom and start adding good aesthetics to the built environment again, someday.

[DetroitPlanner]

Originally posted by Veloise

And on January 9 I will be with V-tower co. Ideally I will getthehellout of telecom and start adding good aesthetics to the built environment again, someday.

For gosh sakes build move V towers in Ogemaw County! (just make them look like trees

- signed a concerned unbiased person.

[Veloise]

Originally posted by DetroitPlanner

For gosh sakes build more V towers in Ogemaw County! (just make them look like trees

- signed a concerned unbiased person.

Cell tower siting is completely demand-based. Get up there and get all your friends to try to call, then contact customer service.

In my scenic & sprawling office there's one person who does nothing but log trouble tickets and customer complaints. If the sales dept lands a big account, mountains can move very quickly. Squeaky wheels get greased.

Oh, and the lead time is about 18 months, from the initial round of complaints/requests to budgeting and release of the search area to yrs. truly.
Or it was...'round my office we've developed a slogan and logo:
WWVD? What Will V-company Do?

(would share the logo I devised for this purpose, but I AM NOT AT WORK!)

[Bear Up North]

Originally posted by Veloise

And on January 9 I will no longer be with A-tower co, but with V-tower co.

Veloise.....Totally off-topic.....I have wondered how many cell towers I should have in my fake metro. The metro is about 500 square miles, population just under 2,100,000. Some modest hills, more rolling terrain in northern metro, entire metro pockmarked with inland lakes (some over 5000 acres).

I now have a smidgeon of cell towers, owned by three different corporations. I probably am under-celled. What say you, ol' cell tower expert?

Bear
Senior Planner
De Noc, Northern Michigan

[Veloise]

BUN, it's more terrain and users/highways than anything else. Not at all like sewers or adult Cab "D" uses, where there are measurables to apply.

Make 'em permitted in I-districts and CUP in any non-residential district. Admin review on a colo (on a previously approved WCF).

And the muni should either own a tower, have it built to suit by an experienced tower company, or be fed collocation revenue from the company who owns a tower built on public land.

I want to put ranger station stealth towers in Michigan parks, and a faux lighthouse in the St Clair river to serve the Grosse Pointes. And I like helping good causes with sites on school lands, or atop roofs of hospitals or creative developers who've repurposed long-abandoned public school buildings.


the building with the black arches has tiny little antennas on tripods on its roof...another wireless company owns the monopole and they had SHPO issues

(but I r-e-a-l-l-y want to get out of wireless altogether)


ETA: Methinks you have a density issue...here's the Freep's map

[Bear Up North]

This Bear seemingly hi-jacked this thread to discuss my fake metro and cell phone towers. I am continuing that discussion in the De Noc thread.

Sorry. Carry on with the normal thread content.

Bear

[Brocktoon]

I do economic development for a small, semi rural town in Central Arizona. My job is planning related but I am definitely not a planner although I often have to play one on TV.

[ofos]

I'm too old to still be a newbie...

Ex-public & private sector planner
Ex-programmer, systems analyst, consultant, manager
Currently doing niche market commercial real estate specializing in religious institutions and private schools.

[graciela]

I was very recently a Planner for a city/county and now I am their Greenway Coordinator. We are working on the greenway network plan right now so I still get to wear a type of planning hat.

I also moonlight as a Landscape Architect. My current project is a really cool educational/hobby farm project that is going to be really neat when it is finished. The topography is a bit challenging but provides some nice opportunities for interesting features.

[prairiesheep]

Was doing marketing & PR work for a college. Wrote press releases, drafted dull speeches, produced a quarterly newsletter and advised clueless high school grads and parents. Was an editor for high school academic reference books before that.

Might end up being a planner in 20 mths. Might not be

[Maister]

I'm a subsistence farmer (although I do moonlight on occasion as a planner).

[Monamogolo]

Am currently responsible for running two international training programs on "Local Environmental Management in Urban Areas" (for the next three years) but also teach and mentor project (cycle) management in other courses (as diverse as Human Rights towards Gender Equality), emphasizing project design. Also involved in sustainable coastal management/development, hazard management, and currently involved in a sustainability review of a large Indian industrial coastal city. Otherwise I do project evaluations and at times get involved in drafting Tender documents for international projects and evaluating the tenders. This past November I was involved in a project design workshop for climate change adaptation in an large island nation. When I have time I do a little carpentry.
In summary, I remain at heart a student, since I'm probably not competent to do any of these things.

[digger]

As the name implies, I'm an excavator, primarily working in the housing industry.

Understanding that much of the work I've done in the past 25 years has the fingerprints of the planning profession somewhere on it, I thought I'd hang around and try to gain insight into what makes that part of the process tick. (Which is why I lurk much more than I post.)

Also, while I've yet to meet her in person, kms has inspected silt fence that I've installed, and it has met with her approval.

[Bear Up North]

Once again, prying open this old thread. We have some new regular posters that have slipped into the mix in the last year or so. Some "might" not be plannerfolk. This thread ghives you a chance to dance your specialty, on the Cyburbian coffee table.



Bear

[Chet]

I think I am a non-planner now! Am I eligible to post here?

[Jazzman]

I'm a server at a nationwide chain restaurant.

I'm an aspiring planner though.

[Michele Zone]

Originally posted by Chet

I think I am a non-planner now! Am I eligible to post here?

As long as you tell us what you do.

[Chet]

Originally posted by Michele Zone

As long as you tell us what you do.

I collect unemployment. Or at least I will.

[Veloise]

Originally posted by Chet

I think I am a non-planner now! Am I eligible to post here?

and

I collect unemployment. Or at least I will.

OK, Chet, inquiring minds want to know.

[nrschmid]

I am a lazy unemployed bum...and damn proud of it!

Well, at least until the end of the month. This week I accepted an offer to work as a mid-level planner for an engineering firm out west. There is a lot of planning work to do (long-range, transportation/environmental, design guidelines, GIS, maybe some Sketchup, etc.) and I get to use my AutoCAD skills assisting on separate engineering projects, possibly grabbing Microstation/Bentley under my belt. Hopefully, it will be a good mixture of design and non-design work. Ironically, someone on cyburbia (who shall remain nameless) contacted me about the position just as I was starting to change careers, and all of the pieces magically fell into place over the course of two weeks.

So in the meantime, I plan on giving my current employer, the state's Department of Employment Security, 0 weeks notice so I can keep collecting my "paycheck" through the end of the month.

[Chet]

Originally posted by Veloise

and

OK, Chet, inquiring minds want to know.

No, you reallt don't.