OK, I was "born" in the trenches I have been working for my fathers excavating company since i could pretty much walk from replacing undercarriages to "mass excavation jobs" (2 to 3000 cu yds). So, when it came time to go to college and plan my career i obviously chose civil engineering, dirt is in my blood and I love it. My job title is project manager so I oversee site development jobs that my company designs. Mostly NYSOT jobs and commercial developments. Most of the contractors refer to me as the inspector or field engineer, That being said I have GREAT relationships with many of the contactors that I work with on a repeat basis, and they dont dive me grief at all but some of these other guys that have been getting the jobs, a lot of low bidders with minimal experience I have been having issues. This post will hilight my top ten griefs with some of the contactors I have been dealing with. 1. Inability to install silt fence correctly and other erosion and sediment control measures. Guys If you cant install silt fence correctly you arent ready to be out on your own. 2. Lack of supervision on the jobsite. Owners, Supers arent on site enough. Leaving foreman who arent qualified to run the job. Many whom cannot speak english well enough for me to communicate effectivle with. 3. Submitting shop drawings for one thing then trying to use something else. Comeon Im not stupid, we have designed things one way for a reason with specific materilas for a reason, you cant just put in whatever you want. 4. Extras for stupid things and getting in my face when i deny them. Read the plans and the specs. We outline as much as we can to eliminate these things to the best of my ability. Do your homework I do mine! 5. Have the right equipment on the job, if you dont own it Plan ahead! Rent it lease it something. And I am not talking about rock removal, that is an unforseen sometimes. But Why wouldnt a contractor have a pump at his disposal or demo saws, I know things break and stuff happens but when I come to a site and the contractor has guys in a trench 10' deep with no shoring, cut back or even a ladder I cant NOT say something! 6. Have a transit on site a string line doenst cut it in my book for footings or a foundation.! 7. Do not BEAT a structure with an excavator to make it level!! (Self expanitory) 8. DO NOT GET IN MY FACE to intimidate me. i can make you dig up every piece of pipe installed to check for bedding etc at my whim. 9. Communicate with me. I have 20 to 30 jobs going on right now. All of my contactors have my 2-way number, cell phone number, email and office number. I tired to get a hold of you before I backfilled is not going to fly! 10. We are all here to do the best job possible, I will work with you if you work with me. I have no problem with someone making money we are all trying to do that but our other common goal is to build something we can all be proud of we can do it if we work together! Feel free to add comment etc. I just thought i could share some insight as to what I look for when i comeonto a job to make everyones life as easy as possible!
2 ways for an inspector to P*ss off an operator 1) Show up 2) Take pictures no offense to you Pecord but whenever an inspector of any department comes out with a camera and starts taking pictures of me, the machines, or the work I instantly get defensive....the only time i don't is if it is a geo-tech engineer and he is taking pictures of the soil layers...even then i don't like it because i am always afraid he will take them back to the office and "have a revelation" then call me and tell me to dig the work back up because something is wrong with the dirt
I don't get this 100% Our job is to document everything to protect everyone. I wont take a picture of something "incriminating I will talk to you first becuse possibly the plans werent clear enough. I will discuss it with you, if you are nast about it if the contractor refuses to do something right then yes I will take pictures. Upon completion of my jobs I give the contactor a CD of the pictures I took for their records to. A lot of my jobs are in phases, will yo remember in five years a valve was installed evactly where it was or if it was before or after a tee? I am not an inspector that works against you I LOVE my job and I love working with guys like you. I understand that things in the field dont always work out as well as on paper so I will work with a guy. I cant speak for everyone but I can speak for myself. On my first meeting with the contractor I expalin to them my position and that I will work with them. Where they go from there dicates how I act on the rest of the Job. A lot of the pictures I have taken show up on my contractors websites and in thier brochures. lets face it your job is to do the work not neceesarily to document everything whereas my job is to make sure everything goes smoothly for both the contractor and my client.
Wow, I am very impressed with how powerful and knowledgeable you are! :notworthy Although, not as impressed as you are... I suggest that you try out #8 on a whim and see how far you really get.
opcorngettin DEEP
:guns:jerry:stirthepot honestly tho...you sound nothing like any inspectors that i have ever come across....too bad none of them around here share your ideals :beatsme
Born in the trench?:cool2 We definetly have a difference of opinion of what a mass excavating job is. I'm with Orchard Ex on this one too. Your little whim would get you laughed off one of my jobs. Not a big fan of number 9 either. I'll try to give you a time when I'll be ready for inspection if I'm early I won't wait, If I'm late and you have to wait to bad, I'm not gonna chase you all over to get you to do your job. Matter a fact number nine is related to number 2. Seems you need to take your own advice. I've never had a problem with inspectors taking pictures. Take all you want. I have many a CD of jobs given to me by inspectors. I usually get along great with them. I have locked horns with a few but have never lost a fight with one. I know my job and do it well. Make sure you know yours.
those that can do, those that cant become inspectors..
I was being factitious about my "mass excavating" experience. I will not give anyone a hard time if they are doing a good job. If you are a sleaze ball contractor with a 2000 dollar watch and fancy shoes leaving his mexican in charge that cannot speak english I will not give you the same respect as I would to someone who knows what is going on. I did not make this post to come out on a soap box and tell you all that you suck and an inspector is god. I greatly appologize for this post and any antimocity that it may have created. I was a grunt when i was younger a laborer for my fathers family excavation business. When i got older I began driving trucks and running equipment for him. No i have never run a 385 or a 992 usually just 320's and a John Deere 455E track loader. As far as the communication topic lashlander, there are things that I have to sign off on and witness, water main pressure tests, deflection tests, low pressure air for sewer, vacuum testing of manholes, there is no reason that there cant be a few hours of notice, I dont mind waiting. How would you feel if your paving sub comes and paves the site before you ran a trench for water through a parking lot. Then he comes out and tells you that "he couldnt wait" :beatsme I do know my job and I do the best I can every day whether I be putting in a septic system on a saturday or welding up a bucket one night, or changing the clutch in out dump truck laying in the back on the mud, or even checking the install of an underground storm system. I learn everyday from contractors like you on the right way to do things, and a good protion of my knowledge comes from working hand in hand with contractors. I apologize for coming out brash and like a preacher. I understand that you guys are standing up for yourselves and others like you and hope that we can all get along despite this post.
I have to just add my .2 cents along with Orchard Ex and Lashlander on this topic, not necessarily your character in question, but the "abusive authority" that some inspectors possess. I just left a fairly decent job close to home in exchange for a position away from a Fed. funded job, due to the overzealousness of some brand new, gun ho inspectors on that site. One in particular that I dubbed with the name, "sniveling little twit", would do as your #8 grief explaination exposed. He did indeed, several times, just to show his "power" make myself and several other operators on this job tear out a stick of pipe or remove several feet of compacted backfill for being 1% low on the compaction test number.Usually the following day after the test was conducted. He got his kicks by making things hard on everybody, and the more we complained, the more the engineering firm that employed him sent him back. He ended up on the site permanantly because he has a tendency to be anal about things, and it caused somewhat of an internal "war game" between them and the general contractor. The thing that got my goat was, he was instructed to not talk directly to a sleazeball operator like myself, only to a foreman, and the foreman was to relay the message to me...10 feet away from the sniveling little twit. That frosted my you-know-what to no end. One day in particular I was working up against a "highly protected wetland area", basically a ditch on the haulroad. I had my excavator tracks touching the high side of the ditch, touching the orange construction fence, and he got all defensive. He looked at the foreman (a 21 yr. old kid, again, 10 feet from me, the same distance away from the twit,) and said,"tell him to get that machine out of MY wetlands!!!" When he did that, he didn't realize just how close he came to me stepping off that machine and picking him up, and drop kicking him for a field goal. I'd had about enough of the game by then. If it weren't in writing on that print, he denied it, no holds barred. We finally were instructed to not listen to a word he said, and that his words were an "opinion only", so just build it to spec and ignore the twit altogether. Since that order, every time someone ignored him he'd be on the cellphone and within an hour, 3 more "veteran" inspectors would show up to make it tougher. This kid was fresh out of class and was his first job. If you want to be a big help to the industry, I'd strongly suggest you take these new gun-ho inspectors aside and educated them a little on how to develop a relationship with the quality contractors, and know how to identify the crumb-bums from the best. teach them to work with people, not against them. Right is right, quality is critical, but there are those circumstances once in a while that warrant a little understanding and leaniency. To clarify my reasoning for posting this Pecord, in all due respect to you and your colleagues, the feeling's mutual out in the field. You show the proper respect, you'll get it back 10 fold. But don't go around telling people not to get in your face like that, because as I just explained, as nice a guy as I am, that little twit I just wrote about would have caused me to have done something that would have been expensive on my part had I not quit the job beforehand. Sorry I butted in, but some things need to be revealed I think.
I undersatnd you whole heartedly Lowboy and once again I apologize for coming off the way I did. I do NOT give a good contractor a hard time. My post was more of a rant, and it wasnt directed towards legitamate contractors, I had gone to check a job, that I knew would be a problem from the bid opening. Contractor was 30k lower than everyone else on a 200k job. The Client, had 6 contractors bid the job prices wer 198k, 197.5k, 197.75k, 200k and 167k, the contractor for 167k won the job. The town wnated my office to go out and check the silt fence install as well as the tracking pad etc, so he could start construction. The silt fence was installed at the bottom of a slope not dug in at all and backwards, (the stakes were installed on the backside). There was no tracking pad, the contractor was pulling stumps and attempting to bury them under the building pad. I did shut the job down and the contractor got in my face yelling that time was money who did I think I was etc etc. What should I do in this situation. he was doing work that we had not yet gotten the permit for, clearly didnt know the proper way to install silt fence, (in this instance very important, the job is updgradient from a busy road with a lot of eyes duch as dec to hand out BIG fines to our client), and he got in my face?
theres an SEO around here that got strangled by a contrator...shes a real b*tch anyway...any job in her area we have to add 10% because of all the loop holes she makes us go through... the guy that choked her ended up doing 2 years or something and she sued him for most of what he had over a few scratches... so Lowboy its a good thing you didn't get off your machine
In regards to pictures, do the companies you deal with not do as built drawings for themselves? At the very least have measurements written down in a grade book. Around here it is common for the foreman to have written down how many feet of pipe between structures, or how many feet from the T is a valve. When running the hoe, i tend to keep a book of this info just because. I learned for a wise daygo that if you figure out how long it takes to do something, you can figure out what it costs. When you know how much to charge for items, it makes going out on your own easier. I agree with #2. But i would say staff a job properly. Last guy I worked for was bad about this. A lot of times there was 1 or 2 guys on a job that needed at least 4. Instead of telling a customer no, he would send a few guys. All this does is **** the customer off, and doesnt allow you to finish anything. On #7 what do you consider beat on? Ill push on, and even wiggle a structure to get it to grade. Not saying im going to drop the hammer on it or anything like that. Im also going to watch my pipelayer level things off for the structure. If he did a ****** job, im not setting the structure, or if its way out of whack, im picking the structure back up and make sure he does what needs to be done to fix it. Ive got one for you. Dont tell me how to do something if you dont have the foggiest idea on whats going on. I was on a grading crew that had to use portland cement to stabilize a parking lot. We had a guy in the company that was the only thing he did. I had to run the spreader truck and help with the rest of the process. First of all the soil cop was telling me i need exactly a quarter inch of cement to get our % of cement to soil ratio. No more, no less. If it was more, we were charging the customer for more than they needed, if it was less, of course we were shafting the customer. I dont know many grader operators that can carry a quarter of an inch over the distances we were doing, let alone do it with a powder. Finally the soil we were mixing the cement into was dry. This was the final lift, and we were using the cement to bridge wet ground. The soil tech wanted us to use NO WATER. I may not be the smartest guy, but i know to get cement activated, you need moisture. The ground was so dry, when we mixed the cement, it turned a heavy clay soil into a soil that resembled sand. So he pounded his nuke gauge in the ground, and told us what we did wasnt going to fix the problem. He had to run and check on another job. While he was gone, we did our next section, spread the cement, than ran the water truck over it, then mixed it in. I also watered the first section. He came back and tested again. All of a sudden things worked. But i was the idiot that said we need to add water
It is my companies job to prepare the as-built drawings, We do have a surveyor in house but they obviously can't be there all the time. And Godforbid a problem arises later it is good to have records The other day I saw an operator pick his bucket up 5 feet off of the structure then come down on it as fast as he could. Gently pursuasion is ok in my book, dropping the bucket on it is not! I agree with you 110%
Just the fact that they started disturbing the soil upgrade from the road without silt fence, would be an indication you've got your hands full with these guys. Off topic a bit, but to shore up my statement about trying to make a point with type vs. audible conversations...I had this ongoing thing with our 14 yr. old daughter's school bus company recently. They picked her up and dropped her off last school year in front of the house here. We live on a somewhat busy, but extremely rural section of highway, 10 miles from the nearest town and school. They decided this year, they were going to drop her off .6 miles west of here in a convenient bus turnaround and have her walk, due to rising fuel costs... W R O N G. I had my wife start the process by calling the bus co. manager. The jerk laughed at my wife when she made mention of our concerns for our daughter's safety, and possibility of abduction nowadays. Another bad thing for the manager to do. Now I get involved. Once I start on a mission to prove a point knowing the mission is based on proper morals, I will have to be shot between the eyes to make me stop till I get the justice I set out for. I emailed the school principal, the school board director, the financial secretary (who writes the checks to the bus company for transporting students,) and several others, including, but not limited to, my state representative on the matter. A month went by after everyone read my "stern, but to-the-point" cc emails. I stated in them that "suppose my daughter was to be pulled into a car by some jerk and she disappears...what will we get then...an " I'm sorry email " from all you people who are making this simple situation so difficult?" In conclusion, I got a call from the state representative, who in turn called the school board director, who finally gave in and now the bus turns around in our driveway. Point being, had I been a wet noodle and took the path of least resistance and tried to "rationalize" with these morons, who laughed at the cold hard fact that there are 75 registered sex offenders in the town the school is in alone, and it is highly possible for this little girl to be walking this rural stretch of highway every day to have some nut watch her, and make his move one day. Then what...I go downtown and take my frustrations out on all those limpwrists that fought me in the first place? Ain't gonna happen. So, after all my "red faced ranting" on the email warpath, I humbly announce, I won. That was one instance where the "negative overtones" in my typing was advantageous. I try to be careful when not proving a point whenever possible though.:drinkup
I think that it is great to have an inspector or architect posting on this site. After the general contractor the inspector is the most important person to me when in comes to getting paid. We all know the GC is going to take to long to pay you your money and then god forbid you get the retainer before 12 months pass. I make it a point to tell the inspector that I am on his side and do want to work together. I even encourage him to tell me if he observes use doing something not to spec so I can fix it before it is backfilled. I also expect him to be able to show me on the prints that we did it wrong before I plan on redoing any work I do. The worse ones that I have worked for are the ones that do state collage work. I have had them make me dig up a back filled trench to prove that I used stone bedding or to test compaction. Just had one do this to me this summer on a state job. Compaction was 98% and we did use number 2 and 1 stone mixed as bedding, then gravel ( not 1's or 2's oh no!) but 2's and 1's mixed just like the plans. They make me give them five copies of my submittals, not one but five. They do to me what Lowboy describes. They always take photo’s. I ask them for a set, why not could use the photo's in the future. I have had them ask me if I should be using a trench box when the trench is 4’ deep. I said, just add the stone and pipe and you will only be 3’ deep. I think that if you pretend that they are in charge than they leave you alone or better yet prove them wrong the first day by proving to them that you do know what you are doing. I have had inspectors test after we just received 3"s of rain, again 98% , all this on state jobs. they can be a pain in but and I have wanted to punch a few of them but in the end I just go back to the GC's and let them handle it. I am not the prime contractor on any state jobs and don’t think I want to be. They have their job to do and I have mine, it is a lot easier to tell some one to do this or do that than it is to do it, it is not the inspectors money when then want you to dig up a trench to prove them wrong it’s the contractors.
Like I said. 99% of the time I never have a problem with inspectors. I don't cut cornors and don't have anything to hide. This is the reasons 99% of the inspectors that work with us have no problems with us. The inspectors I have had problems with in the past come on the job with the same attitude as this thread. Talks about his little whims. When he gets called on it he backs way down and say he only don't like contractors who wear $2,000 dollar watches and employ Mexicans. I'm not buying it. This post breeds contemp from all angles. Your an inspector, you have no business how I staff my job. If my job is done wrong, shut it down. Pure and simple. Oh and by the way, I think we'd get along great. I wear a $30 timex and have no Mexicans working for me at the time. I'm done with this subject!
I did my first summer if construction inspection this last summer. I'm a Civil Engineering student. I thought it was the easist job of my life and boring. Most of the contractors I worked with knew what they were doing. I watched over underground crews, paving, and a demo job. I the biggest thing is communication, such as with the paving job, let me know what your plan is a couple days ahead, that way its alot easier for me to work around you, getting surveyors out there, compaction tests, etc. Sometimes the contractor wouldnt understand that I was actually there to save them work, such as if I found them making a mistake and had to correct them they might get a little pissy, however in the long run I saved them a bunch of work and money. Now with the demo job I was on, one crew was complete retards, seriously they were like a bunch of 10 year olds and I had to babysit them. The were always whining, bitching, fighting among each other. Couldnt get more unprofessional then that crew. Good thing I only had to deal with it for a couple days. I learned what you say and how you say it can really make the foreman be a jerk or not.
One thing about photos: I hope when I was out there taking pictures the contractor didnt get pissed at me. Because usually I was only taking pictures because I was bored and there was nothing else to do. Nothing was wrong with what the contractor was doing.
One thing I learned this summer is always deal with just the foreman, unless its something simple and the foreman is no where to be found. Also NEVER tell the foreman HOW to do his job, just tell him that this or that needs to be done or changed.
Down here, we have a foreman who tells the site agent to tell the operator what to do. Foreman= english, site agent = english + isiZulu and operator usually only speaks isiZulu. Hence, if you can't speak Zulu, or Venda, or Tswana, or Xhosa or any other of our 11 official languages, then a site inspector is not a good job for you down here. And on a similar note, I recently did a school project involving interviewing operators, the thing that really irritated me to no end was the shouting and large hand gestures. My brother was with me at almost all occasions, and he got 97% for his isiZulu mark and I got 91%, so we got on very well with the operators. Knowing how to speak the lingo really helps.
unfortunately many of our smaller non union contractor employ spanish speaking laborers from south america. It is hard to find good help in my area quite a few people feel that they are "to good" to work with their hands. I am sure that anyone else who works in my area can attest to that!! This is getting more common on a lot of my jobs where everything seems to be going to the lowest bidder, it is easier to be the lowest bidder when your overhead is limited to illegal immigrants who dont pay taxes and nake 150 a day cash!:usa
The thing is, that native people, or locals don't want to do the jobs, but poor cross border immigrants will do anything to get some money, but the problem is that no-one will employ them if they have a varsity degree from their country of origin because the qualifications are not those of your own country's education standards. Here we have a nursing staff shortage, but the thousands of qaulified and experienced Zim nurses in this country don't have South African certificates, and are so stuck doing clean up and menial GA work.
Soooooo, what if the foreman is nowhere to be found, but the operator is someone with 30 more years experience than the inspector...and knows what's going on moreso than the inspector...we shut down till the foreman returns? Or, the foreman and operator are present, the operator has 30 years experience in the field, the foreman.. 30 months? And, no eye contact is made with operator by the inspector (whom by the way is actually PERFORMING the task) but relays his thoughts/opinions when he is closer to the operator than the foreman is while working? Any of you guys fresh out of college should take a little advice from some of the people who have the time in the field, and try and assess the situation before making your assumptions about operators in general. There's a lot of different personalities and attitudes to deal with, but part of your job or at least your supervisors job should be to teach a little about "people skills" before you start passing judgement and offering knowledge from a textbook. Some of us "operators" have done more than others, some less. Some of us have made the painstaking decision to venture off on our own, make grueling payments every month, and be everything from the "operator" to the mechanic to the estimator and secretary, so I'd advise some of the more "full-of-themselves" grads to take it a little easy until they get some whiskers in the field. Just the opinion of one.
And to prove I'm not degrading ALL inspectors, I want to mention I'm working on a job currently getting a road ready for pavement next week. We are getting the subgrade set and putting 12" of gravel down and compacting. Around a cul-de-sac we're pitching everything to the outside towards the CB's, installed 4" sockpipe underdrainage because we got into some clay unexpectedly (just in case,) and stringlining at 50' intervals. The inspector who's working with us is one of the most fun guys I personally have ever come across to work with. He'll allow 1-2" +/- in grade, while I've had others give me a hard time for that. He was throwing candy bars into the machines as we were working, and I honestly think he'd be the life of the party given a few beers. A pleasure to work with, and we go the extra mile to make things right, so he leaves us alone for the most part. This is the kind of working relationship everyone should be happy to be invloved in onsite. Makes the day (and job,) go much easier.
hey hey now....i'm going to be one of those "full of myself" grads in the spring...and unfortunately i will most likely end up having to do inspections as my boss says "why go out and be hated by everyone when you can stay here and run iron all day" ...guess he wants me to stay with him
Care to elaborate just why a string line doesn't cut it? Many structures have been built with string lines. On the last site we were on the surveyors (who were also the civil engineers) had fancy GPS equipment to lay the building out. We prep'd the site and the building pad and all was good - until we came back to lay out the parking lot drive lanes and parking spaces. Well the ol' trusty 100' tape discovered that the building was 2' too close to the highway which made the drive lane and parking spaces too short. Of course there was nothing that could be done at that time and the GC said "just put it in".:cool2 Also on the same project the FF elevation was .33' higher on the civil drawings than the architecturals, that was interesting. The surveyors laid out the building elevation by the architecturals and the curbs by the civils. Makes somewhat of a challenge to tie the curb into the sidewalk.:Banghead I caution you to not stereotype someone as an illegal immigrant that does not pay taxes just because they speak Spanish and are from South America - at least here on this forum.
That is all fine and good and it CAN be done, but if a contractor comes onto a million plus dollar job with out the proper tools what does that say about him, I saw a guy last week set a FFE using about 200 feet of string and a line level off of the benchmark. Some instances where grade is tight i dont think that a line level is a full substitution for a transit. I do not mean to be stereotyping. In my area illegal immigration is a big problem. So much so that the police arent even allowed.... ALLOWED to break up a groups of immigrants from loitering because of lawsuits against the town for harrassment... meanwhile a young kid skateboarding can get locked up! I know a contractor that hired about 30 of them a year, for some reason half of them have the same social security number? I dont care if you hire martians to do the work, but make sure that your job is staffed properly so that the inspector or anyone else can ask the guys a question. I dont know if anyone on here does work in florida but i have been told on the DOT jobs the inspector isnt even allowed to talk to the contractor or anyof his guys. I just try to do my job to the best of my abilities.... I am 27 years old and i plan to be working in this field for a long time I do my best to establish good working relationships with my contractors becasue that is what makes the job go smoothly. if they have a question, my job is to get them an answer right then so I dont slow anything down. And I ask questions of my guys all the time, becasue that is the only way to learn ask questions and doing it yourself.
Why not, instead of struggling with these employees who seem to have the same Social security number, why not take a course and learn to speak Spanish. It will definately make your job a helluva lot easier. Just break down the language barrier.
because this is America haha
Most of the jobs I've been on the foreman is usually on site all the time. If hes not I always have his cell phone number. I make it a point to go to the foreman, even if hes harder to get a hold of. If its an emergency then I guess I have to go to the operator but hopefully that doesn't happen. Esperience is one thing but specs are another. When I did inspection usually just had to make sure everything was done with in spec. Theres different specs used, most operators don't know the all 300 pages of the spec book. Now I ususally don't do everything by the book, if I question the way something is being done usually we reach something else that will work, no biggy. Like I said most contractors know what there doing, since they've been doing it forever. I think this summer I only had to correct the contract 2-3 times.
Can't add anything to that...:usa
Just keep all this "chatter" in mind when you hit the big time dirt digger...Remember that it could be lonely at the top...:idea
Teddy Roosevelt said that any immigrant that comes to this country must learn English within 5 years. If only they made this a law.
#8 might work if you're dealing with a shady contractor who historically has had problems. were an inspector on my job try to get me to dig pipe up on his whim....i'd have his boss on the jobsite, and negotiate a crew hourly rate first. for every spot check that was at spec, his boss, or the owner would pay. the engineer and owner's are always aware of what, when, and where i'm doing. it is up to them to have representation at my jobsite for quality control purposes. another way to get an inspector's attention....just start throwing change orders at their office as fast as you can...sure, 9 out of 10 might get turned down, but still a considerable expense for the inspector's boss to process and respond to. the boss will eventually call you and ask you what's going on. i fully see the need for inspection, and would not hesitate to have full time inspection on my projects. we all can have attitudes, and i guess i can adjust mine just as quickly as the inspector can.
dayexco, that is good point on the #8 issue. I should of made the GC pay me for the time it took to dig up my trench to prove that did it to spec. I try and be as nice as possible because I am kinda new but I find that when I am nice I just get stepped on. The more I fight better it is. I would like to think that the GC and sub's and owner can work together but I am realizing this is not the real world. This job I started in July I have yet to get my first check for. Was told that I would have it Monday, I am sure that is only because they need me to do more work and I said "no check no work". The reason for the slow pay is the GC took a extra 60 days to get his paperwork into the state to get paid so I have not been paid. My contract is I get paid 10 days after the GC gets paid, what do you do if the GC doesn't do what he has to do so you don't get paid? The more work I do the more I realize that this sub contracting thing sucks.
i've had happen long ago, where an inspector "failed" density tests on me in an attempt to make a point. he had some explaining to do when i hired a competitive soils firm to come and take tests RIGHT next to the ones the inspector said had failed. it cost me about $3k overall for tests/proctors...and the inspector's boss didn't like having his competitor on the job double checking his work. the inspector made a point...i did too.
An inspector like that is just as bad if not worse than the contractor that puts 6" of Item 4 down under the road when the plans call for 9"! There are good and bad in both fields.. MANY inspectors do not know how to do thier job and arent flexible with the contractors, they dont understand that just becasue something looks nice on paper doesnt mean that it all works out perfect in the field. Both the contractor and the inspector work for the same people at my office, and the guys know that, we work together in most cases to do give the client the job that they paid for. Unforutnately more and more I am running into contractors that arent qualified to be on a job and hopefully some of these "snake-oil" salesman will be weeded out sooner rather than later.
Ive had them both. Ive had inspectors that work with you, and I have had ones that wont. As an operator, i usually dealt with the inspector when I was doing compaction. It was agreed that the foreman wasnt needed unless issues arose. If i had an area that did not pass, the inspector and I came up with a solution, sometimes it was me hitting it again, others it was plowing it up, up to the foreman, and other times it was the soils guy bumping his proctor one way or another. I had one guy that failed every compaction test on a building pad. No matter what we did, he failed it. Apparently trying to prove a point? The office called for a different geo company to come out and test out work right beside the first soils guy. Our soils guy actually came out, did a field sample of the material, cooked the water out, pounded a cone, and figured out what proctor should be used for that material. Sure enough, according to our guy, we were passing, according to the original guy, we still failed. The original soils techs office was called, by the general, and it was requested that we have someone else come out. After that we had no problems
jmac, nothing wrong with being a sub, we do a lot of subbing....but typically, GC's pick up the cheapest hooker standing on the street corner. don't be one of them. you got burned on the payment schedule this time....now you know. don't sign any subcontract agreements that are detrimental to you. make him go to the bank and borrow money if he needs to , so you don't have to.
Dayexco, this has been a real education. Every one that I have spoke to about this issue say the same thing about the same GC, he pays slow. In fact they say he pays the slowest. This is the 6th job that I have done for this GC, the first one was slow and then the next 4 went very well, had money no later than 45 days, all private commercial work This is the first state job that I have done for him. I have done other state work for other GC's and they paid in 10 days but not this large. This GC has also played other games along the way on this one and have mentioned some stupid charge backs that have really pissed me off. I finished yeterday and did get a check on Monday but I am still still owed a little less than a third. My question is do you have contracts on state work with GC's that pay net 30 no matter what. How many years did it take to get a customer list large enough to support you and payed you in 30 days. I hate to burn the bridge, but at some point the wait just isn't worth it. I was this GC 's bank, I loaned him the money and with no intertest. I realize that this is the way things are done, but I hope that somewhere out there someone has found a way to do it better than I have so far.
jmac, The only way I survived those circumstances in my past business ventures was to utilize my bank's service to purchase my receivables, less 10%. I submitted my invoice to my banker 24 hours after completion of work, and 24 hours later I had 90% of my money.The bank invoiced the customer directly and collected the amount (which also looked "more official" coming from them rather than us,) once the customer paid in full, the bank forwarded me another 6% and kept 4% for the service. 4% sounds like a lot of money to leave on the table, but I always had positive cash flow that way, and it was worth it to me to have it. There were various other ways to structure the settlement depending on the length of job. I'm not sure if the banking industry is even offering this product in this economy anymore...It sure kept me going when times were good.
i prefer to either write, or review the terms of my payment options with customers. i personally, refuse to give my bank another 4% of my gross income. i just won't do business with those who refuse to pay. BTW, what happens to those invoices that don't get paid? i've heard the bank after 90 days "sweeps" that money back out of your acct....and you're reponsible to collect all bad debt? best thing is...know your costs, know who you're dealing with, have contractural documents in your favor
The way my deal was structured with my particular bank was I chose which "iffy" customers I wanted to invoice through this process, so I wasn't obligated to run everything through them. If the customer didn't pay the terms agreed within 90 days, they went after them directly. I had one non-paying customer that went chapter 7 on us, and the bank never turned to me for the difference. Keep in mind, all this was in and around 1992-'94...things probably have changed since then given the time lapse. I wish my crystal ball showed me all the good and bad clients I would have worked for, but unfortunately it broke before I got all that information. As for contracts...only worth the paper they're written on. Nothing saying you're guaranteed your payment, even if it's stated...the payee has to be WILLING to do so in the end.
In milling, we always run the inspectors off to the paving crews behind us You people went at it a little rough here. Inspectors have the job to "QC". Thats that. I'm gonna type that I'm entirely on pecords side about the new companys, specially the failure to communicate issues. Racial overtones exist multiplane at operator/laborer levels. On many jobs I have been on, (especially recently) communication failures destroy production.
Ive never had a problem with inspectors ...normally we go through the motions do our thing and carry on ...If the guy is really being a moron ..Myself and the crew we dog it down take a coffee and come back after he's gone ...He usually gets the hint after the second time and come to the realization its not coffee time ... However... I had a run in with one in particular ..Tandem Pick and Carry with a 75t grove RT and a 60T Tadano ... i was on the Grove ,,the guy running the tadano had no clue (but was a great guy in a bad circumstance).. My job was to hand him one end of 32000lbs, meaning i had the whole ..Between looking after him and getting him into postion and set ,,getting my own machine in postion and set ,setting up the boiler makers with rigging and getting a few guys to clear the road ...I had omitted the dunage on my pad behind me .... and along comes(ministry of labour inspector) Mr. Man while i have the load in the air with his padowan learner ..book in hand .. this guy went stupid ..he starts barking at the guy on the tag line to tell me to put wood under my pad ,(his leaner is bringing up the page in the book ..)..the boiler maker ...responded in true boiler maker fashion ... then he climbs on my crane (load still in the air )..and barks get wood under the pad!!!..(his learner has the page now )I begin to plead for restrant on his part..only to get a heightend blast of hot air ..(his leaner is reading to me now the law ,i still have the load in the air )...Cheesed to no end ..on my part at this point ...i order the biolermakers clear hold the tags in one hand .... I jam open the throttle and haul my jack up ,with 38000 lbs in the air ...one of the crew slides a pad in ,down it goes .... when i look around ,,this yo-yo is getting into his car with his learner ....and is gone ... I gave mention to the onsite safty officials what transpired with witness accounts ,,not to mention the number of OSHA safty violations he preformed in the process ..including the direct order for me to put wood under my pad ..load in the air that guy came back countless times never once even stopped by my machine ....or any other crane for that matter .. A liitle drawn out but ....
Amen. Dude sounds like a real ****. Tough guy with a degree. Maybe someday as he mutures he will get over himself.
Usually I'll do all ten of these things to the Inspector's that sound like this and then when we have our monthly progress meeting when concerns are brought up that the "construction observer" as I like to call you can't explain, I'll take over as the engineers will listen to me more and generally you will be replaced by another observer that will work with me.In my line of work treatment plant construction and grading you are an observer nothing more than someone to document the work and if you thought you would be able to make me take every joint of my pipe out of the ground while following specs and passing air and water tests you're sadly mistaken!
Thanks, I have been called much worse, In retrospect in the few years since i have created this thread, I realize that I came across quite brash but I can assure you that I am not quite the **** that you may think I am. I was having a bad day and over vented about a couple of contractors that I was dealing with that just picked up a couple of spanish guys off the street, rented some equipment and called themselves excavators.
On the subject of lifting operations & Inspectors. I had an Inspector/Safety guy one time drive into an area red-taped off and signed "No Unauthorized Personnel - Seek Permission from Supervisor before Entering" without first asking permission over the radio. We were in the process of installing a boom weighing about 100,000 pounds on a shovel. It was pi$$ing it down with rain and were making the final adjustments of the boom position before starting to install the pins. It's a tricky job at best of times, even more so when it's raining, but the rain had caught us when we already had the load in the air and 90% of the way into position. It was easier to carry on with the job than it was to take the load back to ground level again. Also I wanted to make sure I knew where everyone was and the instruction was that no-one moved or did anything unless they cleared it with me first, pretty much an SOP for that type of job. We had the boom hanging from 2 cranes at the time. He then proceeded to climb up the access stairway up on to the top of the machine where we were working also without asking permission. My first question to him went something like "Who the fcuk invited you up here?". Remember I was pretty much soaked to the skin by this point & my patience (short at the best of times) was pretty well non-existent. I then offered him an 2 alternative solutions to the issue. The first was to walk back down the stairway the way he had come, go to his truck & leave immediately. The second was that he could reach the ground the quick way straight over the machine handrails with my assistance, taking that option put into severe doubt whether he would be able to go to his truck and leave as in Option 1. It was a drop of about 30 feet. His choice........... Sensible fella he chose to walk down the stairway. He's never been near me or my crew since that day almost 2 years ago.
You all have the wrong Inspectors.I have seen Pipeline and Power line Inspectors make good money under the table by looking the other way.Seen some come on the job being hard cases about doing their job.Then a few days later you hardly see them.Some Inspecters will not even drink coffee with the Contractor and others will take what they can to have a blind eye.I have seen then sign off on time sheets at two o'clock then leave when they are supposed to stay till crew leaves.
That make me sick, I am the kind of person that takes pride in my reputation and how someone can willingly destroy theirs just to line their pockets amazes me, the money will dry up one day and is all they will have left is their reputation!
Good to know. With age comes experience. try not to think you know it all and you will learn more than you think. Some of the men you will be dealing with in life can teach you many things. It pays to give them the respect they deserve and in return you will get the respect you seek.
The whole inspector/contractor relationship is a two way street. We do D.O.T. work and an inspector is with the crew at ALL times, even if I get sent to a landowners house to grade their private driveway, there is the inspector, standard protocol. You learn to work with each other, we don't do half assed work, at least in our minds anyways, certain unforseeable things that aren't hugely critical get a blind eye. It just boils down to common sense. We once had a pipe inspector on a run of 5' dia.drainage check every joint, with a target for a pipe laser, a transit, and a rover. I'm sure most people know that checking with 3 different forms of measurement doesn't work out so good and it didn't. The E.I.C. got involved and he backed off, but I must say that this gentleman was very thorough, 8 inch lifts, compacted to 98%, in the median. Needless to say we weren't banging out 500 meters a day, oh well thats life.
I cannot agree more, I would not be where I am today if it wasn't for some of the good guys out there, I have learned a lot from almost all the crews that I have worked with.
hail lowest bidder! I know I am late on this but that is what you get when you want to get rich quick
A follow up to my comments 7 posts up this page. It's now a tad over 2 years and, guess what, the famous Inspector/Safety man's contract came up for renewal and he was shown the door ............. that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling because I thought it was just me who thought he was an oxygen-waster. Obviously not.
It's called Karma baby! He had it coming....
Payback's a bitch ain't it ...?
It is just a shame it took 2 years for it to catch up to him. That is a long time for one like that to cause trouble for all of you.
In the expat world where everyone's on contract I get the impression that sometimes a lot of bosses don't want to bite the bullet & just bring someone in the office and tell them straight out they're being let go. They seem to prefer just to let them work out their contract and then not renew it. I don't agree with it but then again I'm not in their position.
Ah, that explains it then. Sounds like they might have been on the hook for his wages anyway, plus have to absorb another salary as well. Things like that do a good job of explaining your signature line.
So does "Been there, done that" ......... Probably right on the salary/benefits side of things. It would cost them more money and trouble to terminate someone with all the associated costs of getting the employee & his family back to his point of hire than it would to just let him get to the end of the contract and leave.
I can understand their rationale. If they canned the guy, they would be facing an immediate quadruple cost - moving him and his family out and moving another in plus being on the hook for the canned guy's remaining contract and the new guys salary. That's a tough position to be in. A very good HR dept is required for this kind of staffing.
And pray explain to me exactly where you'd find one of those ..........??
You got me Nige.:beatsme Just looks like a company doing business in these areas need to try and hire the right folks. A good HR or recruiting dept, in my eyes anyway, would be a necessity but I have never had any experience working as an expat, just sitting on the beach and drinking local libations as an expat.:tong
Let's leave it by saying that most HR people seem to be of the type who were subjected to a frontal lobotomy at an early age. Personally I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me .......
Yes Nige, but who else would want the job? I think that the lobotomy must be one of the prerequisites for the job.
All good sound advise, I might add to number 8, that the downside is, if the work was installed correctly you would be forced to pay for the re-installation. I had this experience on a NJDOT project, the Regional Engineer was VERY unhappy with the Resident Engineer about the $164,230 change order to reinstall the 12" DIP and with a Owners Engineer on a Lowes over soil testing and compaction.
Coincidently, I have a similar background as the OP, and perform a lot of construction oversight, however I'm often the engineer on the projects as well. Coming from a construction background, and working my way up from a laboror in my father's excavating company, the OP and I have a unique perspective on the rift between engineers and contractors. Long ago I dedicated myself to trying to bridge that gap, and most times its easy to do. Sometimes its a total failure. A couple things I think contractors should know about the engineers: 1) Engineers (and inspectors who are educated as engineers) chose this carrer path because of their abilities and attention to detail. Not because they have good people skills. In fact most have serious behavioral issues. I'm not trying to pick on them, but its true. 2) The inspector's job is to observe and perform QC/QA as defined by their scope of work. They are not there to direct the contractor. They have no authority to order the contractor to perform re-work. And unless given the authority by the client, thay have no authority to stop work. 3) The inspector's job is to document construction progress and document any QC/QA failures. Their authority comes into play when the client or regulator is notified of a deficiency. The client can the refuse payment based upon work performed outside of the contract documents. 4) The inspector should be the mediator between the contractor and engineer, not the other way around. 5) The inspector should be observing all work onsite to the extent practicable. Work not observed because the inspector was not availible does not constitute re-work or contractor proof. That is clearly a fault of the inspector/oversight agency. 6) Most projects require a photo log as well as the as-builts. This works in everyones favor actually. If the contractor is doing their job, being safe and not cutting corners, there should not be a worry. 7) A good inspector will stay onsite, try to be of some help, and help the constractor by noticing anything wrong immediately. Protocol for communication is usually decided at the kick-off meeting, but everyone should feel free to talk to each other. I often talk to the operators, laborers, etc and then sum up my conversations with the super or foreman if needed. But then again, I also take coffee and lunch breaks with the crews and shoot the bull with them. In the end, we are all there onsite to get a job done. Most times it comes down to how we get along.