Masonry Magazine March 2001 Page. 14
when I called him with questions. I'd worked with him in the past and he was always the same; zero help and scared lifeless to make a decision or accept responsibility. Of course Andy - the city engineer and owner's rep for the project wasn't any help either. Typical government employee - a little red-haired dweeb with way too much tenure and not much between his ears but bad skin and a vacant, snotty grin. His head is too big for his body and he looks like he'll topple over from the imbalance. Alice-his secretary - spends most of the afternoon hours asleep at her desk.
The fourth addenda arrived late Tuesday afternoon. It was thirty-three pages long. The bid date and time remained the same. We knew they wouldn't extend it, because the still-not-yet-complete plans were three months late hitting the streets and the city didn't want to move the ground-breaking back. The Mayor wouldn't have it. "Looks bad... especially after the last fiasco," he said. You see, this wasn't the first go-around for the fire station. I'd bid it about a year ago (along with 14 other GC's). The low bid (it wasn't me) came in $420,000 over the architect's projected $750,000 budget. I believe the architect's quote at the time was "well, the bidders didn't understand the intent of the plans." Sure. They did try to negotiate it down with the low-bidder but the talks stalled and the city ended up going back to the drawing board. The architect charged the city for the additional revisions. Good gig.
Thursday came and I spent most of it on the phone. We're a small office, so Tim (my boss) and I both do estimating and project management. The fax blared non-stop as Tim streaked in and out of my office every six minutes with little other purpose than to let me know he was worried I was going to miss something. When I let him know I was getting annoyed (which I have no problem doing), he went out to bother Becky, our receptionist. At least he was out of my hair. There must have been a lot of GC's bidding the station because we were getting really good coverage. The plans had been in all the area plan rooms and we were getting a lot of unsolicited proposals. By 1:15, I had 13 plumbing bids and 20 electrical. Gustave Electric (who was low with me) pulled
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14 MASONRY MARCH, 2001