Whining about work

[jeff kushner]

I don't know about others and how they process "work anger" at a task, which is kinda the whole point of this. Let's keep very clear; I am NOT talking about folks with emotional issues or any type of violent behavior.

I'm talking about being tasked with a pointless endeavor, one that has zero chance of success?

Do you get mad and complain or just roll over and do it without thinking?

Case in point....bet you are shocked that I just happened to have one, right?

I am looking at drawings for a decent sized Data Canter project, this is a 18MW pjt so that equates to around 5100 tons of cooling or around 40,000 man hours of labor by the time the take off is compiled. The building to be built will have a 3.25 acres footprint. The problem is, when I look in from my sneaky satellite views, I can clearly see the other two Data Center buildings that I've bid for the same owner on the overall site! One on 2021, one in 2022. Guess who didn't do either of them? Think I have a shot at this one? If you do, I have some Metaverse real estate you might be interested in!

The GC's use us to get their fav guy low, then give him the project. I'll show you how;
I can correctly assemble the costs so we don't lose on the numbers, we lose the political game with the embedded incestual relationships. On the 2021 project AFTER the bid, our competition suddenly and "unsolicited" resubmitted their bid with a million dollar cut. At least that's what was claimed.....hmmmm. They instantly went from $700K above us to $300K below us two weeks after the bid date! The Owner doesn't care because he's getting a better price for the same work by a larger firm! Really,..as I told Steve, the competitor's Chief Estimator (who worked for me many years ago) weeks later, the cost for us to prepare the losing bid was 30K but the owner used our firm to take a MILLION dollars in profit from his firm. I'm not sure he was ready to hear that......or if he's heard that I may be bidding this one? Hopefully I won't have to.....

This is an ego thing.....owners have egos.....they love to do BIG jobs.....kind of like 5 yr old boys with big Tonka trucks. They hire guys like me to man the rudder and steer towards the best projects for their firm because they are too managed by their egos and the smart ones know it. They rarely see the overall implications of taking their talent offline to F with a project they won't get. We'll have this chat today.....wish me luck!

LOL

 

[jaizei]

Has your company done any work for this gc?

 

[LJL1982]

I don't know about others and how they process "work anger" at a task, which is kinda the whole point of this. Let's keep very clear; I am NOT talking about folks with emotional issues or any type of violent behavior.

I'm talking about being tasked with a pointless endeavor, one that has zero chance of success?

Do you get mad and complain or just roll over and do it without thinking?

Case in point....bet you are shocked that I just happened to have one, right?

I am looking at drawings for a decent sized Data Canter project, this is a 18MW pjt so that equates to around 5100 tons of cooling or around 40,000 man hours of labor by the time the take off is compiled. The building to be built will have a 3.25 acres footprint. The problem is, when I look in from my sneaky satellite views, I can clearly see the other two Data Center buildings that I've bid for the same owner on the overall site! One on 2021, one in 2022. Guess who didn't do either of them? Think I have a shot at this one? If you do, I have some Metaverse real estate you might be interested in!

The GC's use us to get their fav guy low, then give him the project. I'll show you how;
I can correctly assemble the costs so we don't lose on the numbers, we lose the political game with the embedded incestual relationships. On the 2021 project AFTER the bid, our competition suddenly and "unsolicited" resubmitted their bid with a million dollar cut. At least that's what was claimed.....hmmmm. They instantly went from $700K above us to $300K below us two weeks after the bid date! The Owner doesn't care because he's getting a better price for the same work by a larger firm! Really,..as I told Steve, the competitor's Chief Estimator (who worked for me many years ago) weeks later, the cost for us to prepare the losing bid was 30K but the owner used our firm to take a MILLION dollars in profit from his firm. I'm not sure he was ready to hear that......or if he's heard that I may be bidding this one? Hopefully I won't have to.....

This is an ego thing.....owners have egos.....they love to do BIG jobs.....kind of like 5 yr old boys with big Tonka trucks. They hire guys like me to man the rudder and steer towards the best projects for their firm because they are too managed by their egos and the smart ones know it. They rarely see the overall implications of taking their talent offline to F with a project they won't get. We'll have this chat today.....wish me luck!

LOL

But are you getting paid fairly for the task you are doing even if you won't be handed the full build long term?

 

[jeff kushner]

Yes to J and Yes to the above, I feel I am well compensated so I'm not complaining about money.

We have done work for that GC before I got here for my latest tour of duty, but apparently it didn't end well. "You'll never do another DPR job" was the quote I heard...LOL....

Now they need a 3rd bidder so it's all a great rosy relationship...........


Paul Harvey time...The Rest of the Story;
My lead guy, Brandon has been with me 15+ years, he was groomed for my job and has taken over operationally as of Jan. as the one responsible for finding and securing work for the firm. He's quickly discovering why every good Chief Estimator in the country has suffered some bout of drinking too much or drugs.....or for some overachievers, both. LOL

The point is, he is wrestling with the YEARS worth of "volume"(sales) this one project would be verses the very real chance that we will simply waste a solid month of time bidding it so won't be spent bidding any other work so it's a double-blow when you lose one. This come on the real time heels this morning of another large project where he was sure he had it and was just waiting for a contract.....and strung along...they dropped the ball on him this morning, he won't be getting that job.....which makes this project a real conundrum for him.

So yeah, I was just complaining.....it's Brandon's problem now, right?

LOL

 

[Tom]

Yes to J and Yes to the above, I feel I am well compensated so I'm not complaining about money.

We have done work for that GC before I got here for my latest tour of duty, but apparently it didn't end well. "You'll never do another DPR job" was the quote I heard...LOL....

Now they need a 3rd bidder so it's all a great rosy relationship...........


Paul Harvey time...The Rest of the Story;
My lead guy, Brandon has been with me 15+ years, he was groomed for my job and has taken over operationally as of Jan. as the one responsible for finding and securing work for the firm. He's quickly discovering why every good Chief Estimator in the country has suffered some bout of drinking too much or drugs.....or for some overachievers, both. LOL

The point is, he is wrestling with the YEARS worth of "volume"(sales) this one project would be verses the very real chance that we will simply waste a solid month of time bidding it so won't be spent bidding any other work so it's a double-blow when you lose one. This come on the real time heels this morning of another large project where he was sure he had it and was just waiting for a contract.....and strung along...they dropped the ball on him this morning, he won't be getting that job.....which makes this project a real conundrum for him.

So yeah, I was just complaining.....it's Brandon's problem now, right?

LOL

Oh boy do we run into this sort of thing in my business. Every freakin day I have to navigate through this sort of BS. I've been at the game almost 30 years now. Its not hard to beat them.

 

[jaizei]

Yes to J and Yes to the above, I feel I am well compensated so I'm not complaining about money.

We have done work for that GC before I got here for my latest tour of duty, but apparently it didn't end well. "You'll never do another DPR job" was the quote I heard...LOL....

Now they need a 3rd bidder so it's all a great rosy relationship...........


Paul Harvey time...The Rest of the Story;
My lead guy, Brandon has been with me 15+ years, he was groomed for my job and has taken over operationally as of Jan. as the one responsible for finding and securing work for the firm. He's quickly discovering why every good Chief Estimator in the country has suffered some bout of drinking too much or drugs.....or for some overachievers, both. LOL

The point is, he is wrestling with the YEARS worth of "volume"(sales) this one project would be verses the very real chance that we will simply waste a solid month of time bidding it so won't be spent bidding any other work so it's a double-blow when you lose one. This come on the real time heels this morning of another large project where he was sure he had it and was just waiting for a contract.....and strung along...they dropped the ball on him this morning, he won't be getting that job.....which makes this project a real conundrum for him.

So yeah, I was just complaining.....it's Brandon's problem now, right?

LOL

DPR lol no comment

 

[ryan57]

Likewise. I run the engineering team for an 80M annual audiovisual company. We run into this all the time. We have a policy... and this is why government solicitations are sealed envelope, divided qualifications and price so they are evaluated separately and the numbers must be "best and final"... if the bid does not subscribe to these criteria it is a hard pass. In my assumptions and exceptions I have been know to impose reverse liquidated damages, compression fees, etc. All types of stuff.

We have even had our competition request that we do the design to the point of having their client call us so we're precluded from bidding, all types of nonsense.

The absolute best story though... while working in Seattle there was a bid out to build a stadium complex/casino and one of the sales folks at Avidex had lived there all his life and knew it was an Indian burial ground. I wrote in that to compensate for liquidated damages, that undue delays on the project after ordering equipment would cost the owner fees for the delays. $5000 per day which was equal to the liquidated damages.

As soon as we won the award and ordered the equipment, Dave called the news! 2.4M later we were still finishing the Gates Foundation 9M project before they broke ground about 2 years later @ about 100,000 per month. Lol. F' em.

 

[COmtnLady]

It all depends on whether you want to die on your feet or live on your knees. (This is said by someone who has always chosen standing and been poor.)

My BS tolerance has an inverse relationship with my years on the planet. I couldn't be treated like that, even if it is a smart chess move on the part of your boss. If they set me on a task as you've set forth, they'd better hand me gobs of cash as compensation... Not just my normal pay, above and beyond that, because the company is seriously profiting by using my efforts to leverage the other bids. They could call it a seasonal bonus or whatever floats their boat, but if they didn't acknowledge my efforts I'd probably look into getting hired by the company that does - or go rogue and create my own company. Ego vs safety.

When they are training the cadaver/rescue dogs they have to let them "win" sometimes or the dog gets depressed and loses interest. Should we send you a Scooby Snack?

 

[jeff kushner]

an Indian burial ground.

You could not have made that up, it's soooooo funny!

I completely understand the mere implications to this as it relates to the "delay & impact" legal world of construction.....and it likely couldn't have happened to a better client! LMAO
***


"This is said by someone who has always chosen standing and been poor."....yes, but you still own your own soul! I'm good with that too!

***

I didn't think that I was special.....lots of you guys deal with your own variations to the BS at work too......so apparently, a bunch of you know Bill Wilson....LOL...please don't answer, that's rhetorical.

Two things I hate in life are Liars and money.
I just see both as real bad. It's funny but when Brandon came to work for me out of high school....he lied a lot....I did not sugarcoat how his new career was going to end if he didn't embrace reality! LOL

I make most of my work decisions based on my gut feelings.....I've trusted my gut my entire career and it has a pretty good batting average. The second I try to rationalize or convince myself that I won't get screwed this time, I get screwed! Brandon has heard it his entire career too..."trust your gut".

It will be interesting to see what Brandon decides.......if you are going to let someone take over, you let them do their job, all of it.

 

[jeff kushner]

(said hanging my tail betwn my legs)
Well, it's now April 7th and I've finished taking off the piping, fixtures and equipment......LMFAO
Reading 800 pages of tedium yesterday was a bit tough....

Everything I read, costs money.

Firewatch requirements;
A separate person must stay at EACH location for 2 hrs, then hourly in person or video link inspections must be made for 12 hours.

We weld and solder pipes, we have 7 miles of pipe on this one........MILES

It's cheaper to blanket the project with remote camera's......but considering the client, there won't be so much as a cell phone on site! LOL


The actual equation for this is 266 days to complete the pjt, we will have 3 crews so 3 Fire watch (3x14)x 90[266]....yeah, over a million dollars, to stand there and look stupid~!

Here's the best part...................it's a 100% CONCRETE STRUCTURE, there's nothing to burn!




There have been good reasons for why in the past, I abused drugs and drink......LOL

 

[ryan57]

(said hanging my tail betwn my legs)
Well, it's now April 7th and I've finished taking off the piping, fixtures and equipment......LMFAO
Reading 800 pages of tedium yesterday was a bit tough....

Everything I read, costs money.

Firewatch requirements;
A separate person must stay at EACH location for 2 hrs, then hourly in person or video link inspections must be made for 12 hours.

We weld and solder pipes, we have 7 miles of pipe on this one........MILES

It's cheaper to blanket the project with remote camera's......but considering the client, there won't be so much as a cell phone on site! LOL


The actual equation for this is 266 days to complete the pjt, we will have 3 crews so 3 Fire watch (3x14)x 90[266]....yeah, over a million dollars, to stand there and look stupid~!

Here's the best part...................it's a 100% CONCRETE STRUCTURE, there's nothing to burn!




There have been good reasons for why in the past, I abused drugs and drink......LOL

it's a 100% CONCRETE STRUCTURE, there's nothing to burn... nice.

Why do you need a 10G certified network? That's for the owners porn. We still fax stuff around here.

 

[EricW]

it's a 100% CONCRETE STRUCTURE, there's nothing to burn... nice.

Why do you need a 10G certified network? That's for the owners porn. We still fax stuff around here.

So many companies sure do over build their network, including residential home users. I love the neighbors who drool and chase that 1G fiber to the curb. Constantly testing their connection. Not realizing it is still copper to their house and to their modems/routers/AP's that isn't 1G. They always equate it to speed when it is just capacity. Can only go as fast as your equipment allows.

Current company I am contracted with, I was amazed at their network spend. Redundancy, spare cables, etc. Was able to save them lots of money to cut out all that networking bull crap. They not only have one 10G certified network, they have 3 total. Primary, Secondar, and Backup.

 

[ryan57]

So many companies sure do over build their network, including residential home users. I love the neighbors who drool and chase that 1G fiber to the curb. Constantly testing their connection. Not realizing it is still copper to their house and to their modems/routers/AP's that isn't 1G. They always equate it to speed when it is just capacity. Can only go as fast as your equipment allows.

Current company I am contracted with, I was amazed at their network spend. Redundancy, spare cables, etc. Was able to save them lots of money to cut out all that networking bull crap. They not only have one 10G certified network, they have 3 total. Primary, Secondar, and Backup.

I did Xfinity 10G service primary -w- Netgear M2500 series 10G core switch, a couple edge switches and 2 Verizon FiOS 1G backups -w- router capable of 4 WAN's (Luxul). But I have a data center downstairs -w- computer floor, 2 racks behind glass on the cool side, 18 servers running over 100 VM's plus studio workstations -w- interactive displays. Not normal. Wi-Fi 6 -w- 2 bands 10G to the core switch, one for wife work and other for modern wireless workstations and phones and 802.11AC for devices/IoT. I'm doing some development work as the client -w- contractors that VPN in. Not normal residential use but waaaaaay cheaper than spinning up AWS just for development. Our production work is on AWS.


Saw Cathie's emoji. Oh yeah, back to tortoises. Lol.

 

[Cathie G]

Does anybody know how to work all that stuff by the time you're dun 😉

 

[Cathie G]

Does anybody know how to work all that stuff by the time you're dun 😉

And well if they don't it's job security 🤗

 

[ryan57]

And well if they don't it's job security 🤗

Actually, when I'm done with this group of products you will be able to go to the store and buy 20 devices, scan the boxes and give the location where they will be installed. After that, you can control them with a GUI, voice interface and the devices themselves (including computers) configure the network switches automatically that are also on your account. All network engineers = unemployed/retrain, all cybersecurity concerns and industry disappear overnight because you cannot communicate with any network infrastructure not also on your account. You are restricted to general internet pass-thru Vlan only. Once I have a vendor and 53' trucks loaded -w- products for government the internet is very different overnight.

 

[Cathie G]

Actually, when I'm done with this group of products you will be able to go to the store and buy 20 devices, scan the boxes and give the location where they will be installed. After that, you can control them with a GUI, voice interface and the devices themselves (including computers) configure the network switches automatically that are also on your account. All network engineers = unemployed/retrain, all cybersecurity concerns and industry disappear overnight because you cannot communicate with any network infrastructure not also on your account. You are restricted to general internet pass-thru Vlan only. Once I have a vendor and 53' trucks loaded -w- products for government the internet is very different overnight.

That's lovely and yes I was making fun but really not really. It is interesting what can be done on computers etc. Still I like my phone camera. The only reason I've ever wanted to learn any sort of tech is for photos. I know digital photos show up better on a computer but for some reason it all is like Greek to me. It just won't sink or compute so to speak. Also as soon as I learn something or get used to the way it all works it gets changed. So I just keep plodding along taking pictures on the camera I have with me.