Masonry Magazine August 2001 Page. 37
6) We fail to cost change orders.
I recently completed a city hall project where the amount of office man-hours required to cost, negotiate (phone time), account, and administer only change orders was (we estimated) up around 250 mh's. There were hundreds of them (the plans and specs were a complete mess). Indeed, it is not unusual for more hours to be put into processing changes on a job than are spent on the base contract! This is real time ... and real money!
We fail to cost change orders in the same way that we'd treat a new job. Changes can come fast and furious, and often it's all too easy to just take (for example) that additional louver quote from the HVAC sub, mark it up, and shoot it out as a pricing proposal for change. But, did you include supervision time, trailer, site telephone, layout, handling, etc., etc., in your bid? General requirements such as these can be legitimate parts of a change... and should be taken into account. And while we're at it, have we tracked the material, labor, & equipment required for the change separately out on the jobsite? Do time cards and material tickets break-out the changed work? Did that information make it to accounting? And finally, was it billed and collected? Don't laugh - I've seen some that were processed just fine right up until the time it was to be added to the continuation sheet for billing and then never made it!
7) We try to solve all of the owner's problems.
One of the chief reasons many of us got into contracting in the first place is because we consider ourselves problem-solvers - mechanically and technically-oriented individuals first who enjoy focusing on and solving task after task. Unfortunately, this attribute can also get us into trouble on the job site. You see, we problem solvers also often have a marked tendency to express our opinions on just about any subject matter where we see a need... and we see a need pretty much all the time. On the job site, this gets manifested in the form of correcting (what we see as) flaws, errors, & mis-steps in the construction and design of the project. The trouble is sometimes the owner actually listens to what we say!
Now, the good news is that this is America - and we're allowed to speak our minds. The bad news is that IT'S NOT OUR JOB TO DESIGN THE BUILDING! That's what architects and engineers are for... so let them do their jobs (yes, I know that sometimes they don't do their jobs - but that's a problem that should be handled between the owner and architect). Besides, every time we open a "new can of worms", the project schedule has a way of becoming clogged, affecting ill our labor productivity. When labor slows, money is lost! So, keep your mouth shut and the schedule moving and be content in the knowledge that you're secretly soooooo much smarter than everybody else on the planet.
8) We allow multiple punchlists.
I'm not sure where or when the tradition of generating multiple punchlists came into being, but I'm sure a contractor wasn't there when it occurred. This insidious practice pretty much throws fair play out the window and allows the architect to generate a punchlist (of which a 3rd of the items may be fictional), wait for the contractor to finish the list... and then start all over with a new punchlist with new items (including nicks and mars that are caused by thenow occupants of the new building). I've had jobs with three, four and five
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MASONRY AUGUST, 2001 37