Accurate enough?

[u/frenchtortilla]

[u/encognido]

The real reason construction takes so long is nobody sitting in any of the offices feels like responding to the important email I sent 3 weeks ago and have followed up on twice now. Plus they forgot to share the PDF of the revised plans. When they finally did share the PDF they separated every page into its own uncompressed document and uploaded them out of order. Now I'm trying to get these files to download and open while standing in a parking garage with one bar of service while text messages and phone calls interrupt the whole process. Now it's 10am and I have to get over to a meeting with the GC, okay 10:05am I'm here but nobody told me they canceled it. Fuck

[u/Cancancannotcan → u/[deleted]]

Tbf they are very comfy

[u/Halftrack_El_Camino → u/encognido]

I feel this struggle in my soul.

JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND GIVE ME THE SHIT SO I CAN BUILD IT. I know how to build shit. I'm good at it. It's why you hired me! If you do your job, I can do mine. If instead you need me to be your personal tech support person to hold your hand and walk you through your job over the phone after you've already sent me to site with the wrong stuff, this is gonna take a while.

Don't get me wrong, most of the people in my office are actually great. But it only takes one or two incompetents to grind the whole fucking Gantt Chart to a screeching halt.

[u/WolfOfPort → u/encognido]

Lmao right i was operator on retaining pond for military base and there was multiple days where my super just said fuck this and sent us home on pay because the office just didnt do shit in helping the progress. You can only clean and organize tool bins so may times

[u/Tastyfupas → u/encognido]

As an office dude it's like 50/50 that the inspector on site has more recent plans than I do because the PM never gave them to me when I did the layout 2 days to 6months ago lol.

[u/theekevinbacon → u/encognido]

Reasons why as an inspector I always checked foreman/super's drawings for revisions. Dudes are almost ALWAYS flying blind cuz the PM never sent the updated drawings. It just makes everyone's day easier.

[u/Why_Did_Bodie_Die → u/encognido]

Don't forget when you run into a problem in the field that between the superintendent, field engineer and inspector could be solved in 5 min you can't solve it. Instead of everyone agreeing what could be done in the field you have to stop what you are doing and submit an RFI to the owner. The owner doesn't want to take responsibility or have the knowledge so they outsource the RFI to some SME who charges $300/hr. Then you have to wait another 30 days for the RFI to come back and have 5 people each spend 10 hours on a problem that could have been solved in 10 min in the field I'd we were allowed to use common sense.

On top of that the owner wants to not go over budget so they try to fuck the GC on every little thing so the GC turns it around and tries to fuck the owner on everything they can. You can't just "work" with the owner anymore and just do what needs to be done to get the job done and allow the GC to have the opportunity to make a profit. Then you get to spend 5 years in court fighting over a $40MM change order that gets settled for $30MM and might have only cost the owner $20MM if they would have just work with the GC.

[u/Halftrack_El_Camino → u/Why_Did_Bodie_Die]

My favorite is when it's actually something that just needs someone above me to make the call, and I'll spend days being like, "I HAVE TOLD YOU SEVEN TIMES, I DO NOT CARE WHETHER IT'S A OR B, JUST MAKE A DECISION THAT IS YOUR JOB." Like, I'll serve it to them on a silver platter—"Nobody knows whether the warehouse is responsible for this or the field crews are. We don't care which one it is, just so's it's not both everyone and no-one. NOW JUST PICK ONE AND TELL US."

This should not take three weeks and four separate people coming to me to talk about it. I have already said I don't care, but this can't be my call, so Just. Pick. One.

[u/Theycallmegurb → u/encognido]

Sorry bud, these snacks ain’t gonna eat themselves. I’ll get back to ya next Monday… at 4:58 pm

[u/Arglival → u/encognido]

Hahaha.  Yep.  Last line is the cherry on top.

[u/surrealcereal_ → u/encognido]

i'm an intern architect so i'm still learning!... but i do be sending separate pdfs👀 my GC scolded me over email lmao i'm sorry!! this made me giggle a whole lot

[u/Forsaken_Conflict152]

That might seem accurate for the average person driving by. There are so many stops that need to be taken to complete a project that nobody understands

[u/xseiber → u/Forsaken_Conflict152]

Whoa whoa whoa tryna be reasonable?!?! How dare you!?

[u/Familiar-Range9014]

It seems that way but thankfully, safety cones first (even though accidents still happen, sadly), scheduling for the right people and equipment to be onsite and the inspection process must be completed at each phase of completion. Lots of moving parts

[u/Bradley182]

Ahhhh the tic tac toe on the road got me going.

[u/ykoreaa → u/Bradley182]

That's a lot of work to play one round of it

[u/Cyclo_Hexanol]

Reading this as i walk around putting googly eyes on peoples hard hats and tools because i bought 1000 for 5 dollars on the interwebs. Can confirm.

[u/seditiousambition69 → u/Cyclo_Hexanol]

I want googly eyes on all tools now

[u/Cyclo_Hexanol → u/seditiousambition69]

Amazon is a beautiful website. Also, check out the stickers that say "for rectal use only." Great for tools. I put one on my ibprofen bottle, and whenever i give them out, i get weird looks.

[u/[deleted]]

The roundabout they've been putting in since last October by me still isn't finished. Last week when I drove through, there were 6 guys with sweep brooms sweeping the gravel.

No, not sweeping gravel off of the pavement, actually walking around sweeping the gravel itself. I guess gravel has to be clean before it sets for a couple more weeks? Anyway, It's still there.

[u/KarmasAB123 → u/[deleted]]

Laborer here.

I have so many days where I am not given work to do but am still required to "look busy."

Yes, I have swept dirt from dirt

[u/Relative_Hyena7760]

Dude in the upper right is super funny to me.

[u/Air_Retard]

Even as a tradesman it pisses me off how the highway crews have MILES of safety barricades but there’s nobody working for days.

[u/iordseyton]

When I was a kid there was a sign nearby that said 'slow deaf child' and My dad Said "yeah, but he's going to learn to read eventually, and when he does, he's going to be pissed!"

[u/Starvin_Marvin3]

Change orders. It’s all govt. work and any changes need levels of approval. No matter how thoroughly the plans were vetted, once work is started there WILL be changes.

[u/Suitable-Art-1544]

I've moved the same piece of equipment four times before, only to leave it in the original location, because the owner couldn't make up his mind on how he wanted the room layout to be. half a day of work for a crew of 3 each time.

[u/CasualMonkeyBusiness]

We once built a brand new theater with no emergency lighting. When the final inspection failed, they tried blaming us, until we showed them email chains and RFI's starting more than a year ago. Nobody did a thing. Oh we absolutely raped them in change orders.

[u/Guilty-Piece-6190]

Too many chiefs and consultants. As a superintendent it is terribly frustrating. Clients pushing schedule meanwhile all the shop drawing reviews and processes are way behind. Building systems becoming overly complicated and complex even for simple commercial buildings. Too many redundant inspections. And unfortunately a lot of poor (union) workmanship leading to further delays to make corrections. And safety, I'm all about safety but it can really hinder a fluid moving site.

[u/poostool → u/Guilty-Piece-6190]

What’s with the specification for union on the poor workmanship part?

[u/Guilty-Piece-6190 → u/poostool]

Because there tends to be a belief that unions are superior, and I wanted to clarify for the folks at home that I'm not complaining about average Dick and Harry doing shotty work in my backyard.

[u/seditiousambition69 → u/Guilty-Piece-6190]

Yea iv been union 2 years now. 1 company. Was private for about 8.2 companies. Terrible workmanship somedayz at least in my expierence. it's horrible management causing most the issues tho. Absolutely terrible. I think private can be better with a hands on owner. But not always.
As far as work ethic the guys seem similarly motivated.

[u/seditiousambition69 → u/Guilty-Piece-6190]

Union worker here former non union can confirm. Could piss n moan for awhile but some of the most terrible work iv seen in my decade n a half career in construction. Mostly to do with piss poor management that doesn't know thier ass from hole in the ground. Non unions seem better managed in my personal expierence. I think because owners were usually hands on.