19th April 2010, 11:19 AM
Its always the same, turn away from your computer for a day or so and the forum fills up! Not had time to read through all of this but....
It is a shame that cars are essential in many aspects of life, especially work. However, for monitoring and watching briefs they are (except for London maybe, but how do you get the archive, tools, finds and environmental samples etc to and from site?). Often small companies can't afford the overheads that accompny buying and running (into the ground!) a fleet of vehicles to do this. So a workable option is to pay mileage for staff to use theirs.
In my experience, having a car does not guarentee progression up the supervisor ladder, I know many diggers who have cars, some merely ferry the rest of the staff to and from site and never progress any further.
However, if in a pinch a PO or manager gives a digger with a car a quick covering job monitoring a machine and they perform well, they are often given more oppertunities. Doing watching briefs, dealing with descision making, working well with the construction team and clients form the basis of the skills needed to be a good supervisor in the commercial world. This is just a fact. Bizzarely, being vastly experienced in archaeology theory isn't as important as you'd think......as long as you know your own limits and have experienced diggers and managers to rely on, (and you do rely on them that is!). Archaeology to me seems a job best learnt on the job.
Running a rescue excavation under commercial conditions is a very difficult juggling act if your serious about saving the important archaeology present on site. Having a good relationship with the ground crew and client is essential.
What we do is to rescue an important sample of the archaeology. What is important is defined by a consideration of the regional resource assessment reports , regional research frameworks, EH guidelines etc. etc. Its a calculation of the impact and loss of information over the cost. Yes cost must come into the calculation, so some arcaheology is destroyed and lost.....however lots is (should) be recorded.
As a digger I never understood this. It was only when I saw the larger picture that it made sense.
Recording every stakehole in detail or doing a greater percentage of a boring 18th century field boundary could mean that there is insufficent time or funds to dig and record that RB tower furnace. You HAVE to prioritise.
...er oops. That turned into a bit of a mini-rant.
It is a shame that cars are essential in many aspects of life, especially work. However, for monitoring and watching briefs they are (except for London maybe, but how do you get the archive, tools, finds and environmental samples etc to and from site?). Often small companies can't afford the overheads that accompny buying and running (into the ground!) a fleet of vehicles to do this. So a workable option is to pay mileage for staff to use theirs.
In my experience, having a car does not guarentee progression up the supervisor ladder, I know many diggers who have cars, some merely ferry the rest of the staff to and from site and never progress any further.
However, if in a pinch a PO or manager gives a digger with a car a quick covering job monitoring a machine and they perform well, they are often given more oppertunities. Doing watching briefs, dealing with descision making, working well with the construction team and clients form the basis of the skills needed to be a good supervisor in the commercial world. This is just a fact. Bizzarely, being vastly experienced in archaeology theory isn't as important as you'd think......as long as you know your own limits and have experienced diggers and managers to rely on, (and you do rely on them that is!). Archaeology to me seems a job best learnt on the job.
Running a rescue excavation under commercial conditions is a very difficult juggling act if your serious about saving the important archaeology present on site. Having a good relationship with the ground crew and client is essential.
What we do is to rescue an important sample of the archaeology. What is important is defined by a consideration of the regional resource assessment reports , regional research frameworks, EH guidelines etc. etc. Its a calculation of the impact and loss of information over the cost. Yes cost must come into the calculation, so some arcaheology is destroyed and lost.....however lots is (should) be recorded.
As a digger I never understood this. It was only when I saw the larger picture that it made sense.
Recording every stakehole in detail or doing a greater percentage of a boring 18th century field boundary could mean that there is insufficent time or funds to dig and record that RB tower furnace. You HAVE to prioritise.
...er oops. That turned into a bit of a mini-rant.