Share your experience

Jackchips

an opportunity for you and your company to take charge of projects such as the one you describe. I do estimating for a Plumbing Company in Ma. and 90% of our work is filed sub-bid, mostly schools. Our project managers and job foreman have learned to be the driving force on any job that the GC doesn't take the responsibility.

Once you get the job super to realize what your doing is for his benefit (and definetly yours), you'll not only have a good working relationship, but a friend on the current and future projects.

My advice-take charge.

Rob_8

General Contractors

I have to ask you guys if your experiences with job supers are close to or the same as mine. I've been a foreman for 10 years and it seems that today’s job supers are less knowledgeable. This could also be because they are a lot younger. I have been in the plumbing/heating trade for 15 years and have a Mass. Master Plg. License, oil burner certificate and a class 2b hoisting license. I do a lot of commercial work for a good size company.
Here’s what I noticed; very few general contractors have job supers that know how each trades work. They just seem to allow a first come first serve type of policy with an occasional foresight where they will stop one trade because it obvious another has to do some work there first. Also what ever happened to coordination drawings? Now they are only mentioned on the job “oh yea, were suppose to have them but the start date was pushed forward and time limit has been cut back on the job so we have to continue with out them and just work with each other.” This is on public jobs where there required!
Most of these jobs don’t hold regular job meetings. I’m not sure I like the way that jobs are being run today. When I first started in the trades and my first few years as a foreman all the job supers knew how to efficiently run a job but some where it seems this knowledge has been lost. Maybe it’s just the contractors in my area; so I ask of you to share with me how your experiences as foreman have been lately.

Rob

Tony Conner

It's The...

...same everywhere. The end-users have only themselves to blame, because for years now, everything has been driven by the low-bid. Engineering, suppliers, contractors - everything. So here we are...

Most of the guys who knew how to do this stuff either got downsized or walked away in disgust about 10 years ago, and the positions, in most companies, were eliminated as "cost saving measures". The knowledge and experience base in a lot of fields is completely gone, and can't be easily resurrected. I think it will get worse before it gets better. Once projects go from "kinda-sorta working, most of the time" to flat out not working from day one, it'll change. We should be getting close to hitting bottom, but I've been wrong before.

tombig

Superintendants

Seems to me that 20 years ago most supers were older carpenters with a knack for organization who paid their dues, dropped the hammer, and ran jobs. Now they're young college grads with degrees in construction management and no practical experience. They look at the bottom line and target dates just fine, but lack the experience to coordinate and work with the trades. Smart kids and it takes only a couple projects and they 'start to catch on'!

keith

Take Charge is Good Advice

Chances are the supers that we deal with have had the same supervisory training that most of us were given. Not Much. It seems to be we get our training on the run. If we survive our 1st couple of jobs and realize there has to be a better way then the outside training comes into play. I have found that most of the novice Project Managers will back off of their ridiculas demands if you can explain how their senerio is riduculas. Sometimes I gat the feeling they will throw things against the wall to see if it will stick.When that doesn't work be prepared with the paperwork/documentation to defend yourself. They tend to relate to the written word better than the spoken word. My opinion is this breed of super is here to stay. They are sharp on paperwork,backcharges, demands and short on trade knowledge and common sense. The financial aspect of these jobs has been the driving force over the pride of a quality crafted project. As a subcontractor in this envioroment we still have an obligation to provide both the financial and quality aspects to our work. My attitude as a P.M. on my jobs is I run my trade on the job not the super. I make every attempt to be accomadating to their schedule and requirements but they also have a responcibility to my company to respect "my time and money". If we have the mutual respect it works every time.

flange

job supers

years ago it was indeed an older, well organized carpenter who drove the project to completion. then, there came along the dreaded construction manager. while in some rare instances these were still the same carpenters with a new title, for the most part they were indeed college grads. these folks were indeed very good at chasing the paper trail, but couldnt even begin to define the path of completion on a small project, let alone coordinate the trades on a large scale project. in due time some have learned a skillset in coordination, but most are left to the wolves and let the contractors do whatever they please.(how many times can you install large bore piping systems after the finishers have left the jobsite?). it seems as if the tide is once again turning, as i have noticed a resurgence of carpenters as supers in job meetings. hopefully this trend will continue, but we all know it wont, after all most builing owners have very littlw respect for these good men because they dont have degrees. perhaps thats why the building trades are now offering the degree program in construction management(like we really needed it).any seasoned tradesman can run a job better than most c.m's

Unknown

Construction Management

is an art. The colledge boys have not learned the value of a bar chart, critical path format or undestanding that the so called additional paper work they need to do in order to keep track of a job. Keeping track of contractors and coordinating supplier delivery is as important as bringing a job to completion early.

Unfortunately a lot of GCs give large bonuses to the construction super for cutting expences on a job.

I retired from the pipe trades two years ago. After spending more than fourty years in the P&H business I learned that you can't win.

The only way you can beat these guys at thier own game is to send letters to the GC to cover your tail. these letters make a formal record of any problems that occur to schedule or installation changes that will have a delitorius effect on the outcome of the work.

I have coined an addage "you can pay me now or pay me later" the contract that I was awarded is the document that I live by. Additionally when you have to work under the gun on a job and, cover your bottom is the rule, having a good construction lawyer in your stable is a prerequisite.

I have always provided the end line user a quality job, but I often paid the price for being proud of what I do.

I had to adapt to working with people that learned, how to, out of a book.

I learned, how to, on the job and as time went on I went to nite school to learn how the things I installed worked. I went to seminars to learn how to fix them and learned how to the calculations for sizing etc etc etc.

The construction industry will never return to what it was. New materials, down grading codes, making a quick buck and the "I can't see from my house" attitude is rampant in the construction industry.

People are taught "I can't see from my house" by thier parents, in our schools and on the job. That behavior is not only learned but is conditioned into an individual.

You can still find good contractors, tradesmen, and quality manufactures, the problem is putting them altogether on one job site.

All I can say to the people that care "is don't give up the ship." You just have to work harder at doing the right thing.

Jake

Mad Dog

I concur Rob

The old timers were the best: They were almost all guys that fought in either WW II or Korea...They were gruff, cussed alot, ALWAYs kept a bottle in the desk...along with a couple of nudie magazines. They didn't take crap from no one AND MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!! They knew THEIR job AND had a very good grasp of all the other trades. TODAY????? We'll, today, we come across 2 types of supers: yuppie geeks just out of college, that have never busted a knuckle in their lives or earring-wearing, foul-mouthed, punks that were riding the skateboard circuit the year before - usually the bosses nephew or son-in-law. Problem is....they don't KNOW JACK!!!!!!!! We usually wind up just bypassing them when we need info or direction - fellow tradesmen are better off consulting with eachother. I can recall several horror stories how jobs went terribly wrong.....It's a mess Mad Dog

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[Deleted User]

My experience..

can be read at

http://www.contractormag.com/articles/column.cfm?columnid=185

The super on this job was a great guy, he was just over taxed trying to get the job done before the snow flew. His assistant used to be his boss, and decided the pressure wasn't worth the pay, and fell back to being an assistant super. Great guys, both of them.

They're getting less and less and father inbetween though.

Face it, there are more people leaving the construction trades then there are new ones coming in.

Enjoy!

ME