...The GC is a very large firm, operating all across the Country.
The Project - while complex in its entirety, was simple in nature... only driven to difficulty by the inept Superintendents on site.
No coordination, RFI's were answered after weeks of constant reminders, "New" Plansets would arrive with no notification to the Trades' P.M.s, and at times, attempts to "sneak" revisions in by "bullying" a Journeyman into performing the revised items, by trying to use scheduling issues - attempted to bypass me entirely (I had 4 crews on the Project, so I was always bouncing around)...
This is how it is on 80% of the bigger jobs. We have a real problem in the building industry, there is a distinct lack of leadership and know how. Many years ago the superintendents on big jobs got their start in one of the trades and worked their way into the superintendents position. However now the industry is full of people who don’t know how to build anything, and they are being managed by a PM on the job who graduated from Nebraska or Texas AM and don’t really know how to build anything either.
Stacking trades, schedules that are either so complicated you cant read them or are only for 3 weeks at a time, poor coordination, lack of building knowledge, failure to answer RFIs, lying, cheating and out right stealing… and yes lots of bullying.
My personal favorite is when they have a safety guy on the job who spends more time worrying about whether your crews have gloves, safety glasses, steal toe boots, safety vest, hard hats, lanyards and have attended the weekly hour long safety orientation than they do about how the job is going to get built in a safe and organized fashion.
I have said this several times here and at the risk of repeating myself… The most valuable asset we contractors can have is leadership. You have to have a good strong lead man running your crews. Somebody who does know how to build jobs, layout work and run men. Somebody who does not take being bullied. This kind of leadership is pure gold to me, and their pay reflects this.
The second part of the equation is your PM who also knows the trade to do your paperwork, and play CYA. Even if they don’t answer RFIs keep writing them and follow them up with delay letters, keep it all in writing and when they still don’t answer you can either submit shop drawings for approval (this usually gets them of high center) or start sending certified delay letters. Unfortunately it sometimes gets down to petty letter game playing, but in the past I have defended against liquidated damage claims with my mountain of letters and un-answered RFIs.
Here are few things that have worked well for me:
1) For now, get yourself a stamp that has your company logo and a changeable date. Start stamping all drawings that come through your office, they day your receive them with this dated stamp. Instruct all your crews that any plans without this stamp have not come through your office and are to be ignored until they do.
2) Give all your men a stack of business cards for your PM. Anytime the GC gets demanding or abusive, instruct the men to say, “I am unable to comply with your request until my employer directs me to do so, here is his card please give him a call so I can do as you have requested”. (My guys usually just laugh and say, “quit bothering me and call ITO”.) This drives the GC nuts but it puts a stop to the unauthorized field directives.
3) Don’t do anything on a verbal, put it all in writing.
