Fechino Files: Do Not Wait, Get Started!

Words: Steven Fechino

I hope this article finds your company busy! This article is more for the young project manager, sharing just a bit of what I learned the hard way. As a project manager, it is your job to manage the money, materials, safety, and equipment on every job that is handed to you. You would never spend money unnecessarily because you are lazy, do not know how to manage a paperwork procedure, or invoice late, but this often happens when you are learning. Believe me, it costs money not knowing something; it is always a good idea to ask a seasoned veteran in your company to make sure you have forms filled out correctly and delivered in a timely manner.

Busy sometimes means that you have had to outlay a ton of capital to keep your jobs going, and stress is a big part of this. Materials, payroll, continued bidding, and supplier relationships are part of everyday life, even on weekends. You control the cost of what you can—materials when figured properly, payroll when you are able to man the projects as planned, and bidding of work where you sometimes burn the midnight oil getting those bids properly qualified. You try to control manpower, but help is hard to find outside of the core employees that you have always depended on. Support help, new hires, and rehires (the ones you swore you would never hire back again) can really take a toll on the production of a project, and you may not have anticipated needing so much additional labor. It is important to give some sort of introduction to masonry processes when you hire or rehire someone. This includes important things like personal protective equipment and how you never take your helmet off during the workday, as OSHA can see things from far away. Knowing the top and bottom of a concrete masonry unit, the proper way to stock a scaffold, putting the safety rails back in place, and how to temper the mud without coating the masons below with spatter (um, I did this one time and almost got thrown off the scaffold; you learn this quickly as a young tender). This is all "Masonry"—our trade. This is the job, stressful at times, but enjoyable at the same time.

What we do not learn as a mason tender is contracts, purchase orders, shop drawings, and equipment rental. Contracts come with being at least part-time in the office with project manager duties. You do not wake up one day and know contracts; no, they are a slow process of reading and asking questions. Depending on whom you work for, you may use a contract that is specifically developed for your company, or you may use a cookie-cutter contract like the American Institute of Architects (AIA) contract, specifically tailored to the type of agreement and relationship of contractor to client. The AIA contract is actually quite easy once you read it over; it also makes it very convenient to do a schedule of values (a breakdown of cost percentages for each billing cycle), using this can make life a bit easier.

Purchase orders—I learned this the hard way; I wish I would have known how important they were when I was young. If you receive a contract, and after everyone in the office asks you what you forgot to bid in order to be the low bidder, write your purchase orders. Do not wait, I repeat, do not wait! I worked on a job, and my delivery delay was a nightmare as my labor caught me, needing materials to continue, and really wasting labor dollars waiting on materials that were late because of me.

Shop drawings are actually fun to work on because you get to really understand how things go together; it is a strong education in a short time. A mistake is costly, so go over the drawings, go over the dimensions, then check them again. When it is checked with confidence, then the installation goes as planned; it is a good feeling as a project manager.

Rental equipment can be tough, even for the seasoned project manager. It seems that you always rent equipment from someone that someone you work with knows, you know, "he is a great guy and his prices are low." I got burned by this guy a time or two, but never three times. In my opinion, rental equipment needs to be rented from a salesperson who has proven their abilities and performance to your company as well as others that you know. If you think about it, rental equipment is the invisible job cost robber. What I mean is if your crew shows up, your subs show up, and other small rental equipment (silos, mixers, lifts), financed equipment (Foreman’s truck) is on the job, and you need a special manlift or a crane and it shows up late…ugh, the cost of being late is tremendous; this is the robber. Get the equipment there just early enough to ensure you have it at startup. Some guys do not mind getting it there a day before contract (as long as your certificate of insurance is dated correctly) just to ensure everything goes smoothly. Rental equipment delivery drivers and operators do not want any additional stress either—something that can be placed upon them by the wrong salesperson.

I guess the purpose of this article is to kick start young project managers into not making the mistakes that I made that caused money to be wasted unnecessarily.

In May, the Masonry Industry lost another great mentor, friend, and one heck of a personality. James Ham passed as a member of both the National Masonry Instructors Hall of Fame and the Mason Contractors Association of America Hall of Fame. Mr. Ham, as I called him, was as good a person as he was a mason, and that is saying something to those who knew him. Several years back, Mr. Ham gave me an award; he was so proud of the fact that he got my last name spelled correctly on the plaque, so proud in fact that he took special time to show me and ran his finger under the spelling, pronouncing my name. It was one of the few times I was speechless. He spelled it like he pronounced it. After the ceremony was over, one of the elders said that they would correct the spelling, and I said, “no thank you,” as the care he put into my plaque meant more to me than anyone knew, and now it means even more. He was special. Everyone was his friend, and everyone felt special in his presence.

Fechino Files: Do Not Wait, Get Started!

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