As we approach the Christmas season, we are always reminded of the legend of Santa Claus, the jolly old guy who is associated with magic, cheer, and the giving spirit. We know he’s a busy man in his red and white hat, during the Christmas season at least. But what hat does he wear during the remainder of the year? We would like to present the unconventional argument that maybe Santa once was, or still is, a land surveyor!
Perhaps the biggest marvel of Santa’s Christmas Eve journey is his ability to visit millions of homes in a single night. Land surveyors, known for their meticulous planning and routing skills, could easily be the planners of Santa’s efficient sleigh route. The precision required to navigate through various landscapes, accounting for obstacles and optimizing the journey, could only be accomplished with the expertise of a land surveyor. You can imagine that Santa’s sleigh is equipped with a state-of-the-art Global Positioning System (GPS), not much different from the ones that we use in our work.
In addition to GPS, it’s very possible that Santa is a Geographic Information System (GIS) expert. GIS technology is known for its ability to analyze, interpret, and store various attributes with spatial data, making it a valuable tool for Santa. With a GIS database, he could easily keep track of the names and number of children at each address, and their attributes such as whether they are on the naughty or nice list, and what gifts they asked for this year. This type of system would certainly help him make his list, AND check it twice.
Having a land surveyor living up at the North Pole would undoubtedly be very useful. As the world population grows and the demand for Christmas gifts grows, so does the need for an expanded workshop. Santa, if equipped with land surveying skills, would be adept at planning and executing the expansion seamlessly. The addition of new facilities would require careful consideration of the existing layout, and land surveyors are experts at ensuring that new structures will fall within the permitted boundaries.
While the idea of Santa as a land surveyor may seem like a bit of a stretch, it’s clear that he is a master of precision mapping and careful planning. Much like Santa, land surveyors plan carefully and work diligently behind the scenes, often in challenging winter conditions, to get the job done. In the spirit of Christmas, anything is possible – even a land surveyor in a red suit and white beard!
