Here is the honest, truthful cons about SAM Companies. They say they are on the cutting edge of technology, Not true. Most companies have exactly what they have, except most companies have the benefit of engineering to support as well. SAM is full of mediocre intelligence people that think they know more than they really do. Be careful of the PIA they make you sign in order to be employed. It's full of boilermaker BS that only helps them and not employee. Be careful of the other project managers that will step on you to move ahead. They say they have training but it really is just youtube videos. They don't budget for training so that the upper level management can have a low DL% and stay employed. People say they have good values at this company which is wrong. They don't. The don't value the real workers of the company. The constantly badger you about keeping your DL above 90% if you are a tech and 85% if you are a project manager. Then the Operations Managers, Office Managers, Regional Directors can have a low DL. Trust me when I say that they have a bunch of mid level intelligent people in charge of day to day operations. They most certainly don't have much diversity either, unless you consider intelligence level a part of diversity. Get ready if you hire on to perform time theft from clients you are not even working for. Their motto is to bill hours to existing client projects of you are doing a proposal for that client. Not sure that is in their Scope of Services. As for work/life balance, they say they promote that, but at the DL% set each year for you and then adjusted throughout the year, good luck with a life outside of SAM. You are required to do 45 hours minimum a week and most time more than that. I have seen techs spending the night at work to adhere to their rediculous delivery schedules. The CEO will come on towards the end of the year and blow a smoke stack full of smoke up your you know what. He will say what a great job people do and then bash you in the next sentence saying the company is down. WTF. Upper Management, such as regional directors will tell you throughout the year that you are killing it on profits and then say you are down in profits. Never makes sense. You try and get equipment for the crew so that they can better perform their job and all you get is broken down hand me down crap and then expected to try and get it to run. Crews don't have a clue about proper survey methodology. None of them know how to close out a traverse, adjust a traverser, understand GPS limits, level runs and closures, peg test. except for a select few. They have techs that are doing their boundary and existing easement resolutions while not under the direct supervision of a licensed land surveyor, because managment doesn't understand the concept of direct supervision. It really is scary the amount of work that goes out the door that have never even been reviewed by the signor. There are LSIT's that do a ton of property boundary determinations and then don't or can't tell the LS how they came about that. SAM personnel doesn't understand the current ALTA/NSPS Standards either. They think that just because there are a few items checked on Table A that they first 8 pages of the ALTA standards do not exist. So in a nutshell, if you are thinking about trying to hire on at SAM, do so with the utmost care. You will regret it about 2 months in.
