To give an example, we have had a small job (worth maybe 50k if you're lucky) where we were putting new fire-rated doors and platforms into a service duct inside a Regional Hospital. This wasnt under any form of time crunch; clients are more worried about it being done cleanly and with minimal disruptions, as you can imagine.
Boss (let's call him Trev (not his actual name)) started by giving the guy (let's call them Bruce) who was meant to 'run' the job a walk-through of the site, etc. Believe the main client contact was with them. That's all good; Trev then comes back to the workshop and runs through what needs to be done with Bruce, without really saying much like normal - aka what's been ordered, what's there, timeframes, etc. While in the Workshop, Trev & Bruce come up with a plan for the platforms - will be Unistrut across the span, and a thick mesh (FRP) grating on top.
Bruce then starts organizing contractors etc, begins to look at ordering the doors, gets told by Trev that this has already been done, Doors apparently are on site, and contractors know about it, and contractors are starting next week. Bruce then goes sweet as, nice to know now......... Bruce then obviously contacts contractors to confirm, etc.
Come next week, Bruce gets to site, asks where doors are, Contractors say no idea, you were organizing? Bruce then has to go through the entire hospital looking for them lmao. Now that doors are finally found, Contractors start setting up hoardings and removing old wall, etc. That's all sweet, then come to place the first door. Oh. It's too skinny. Ok fine, can make it work, just got to do heaps of shimming etc, so will take way longer (instead of like 2/3 days, it's a week and a half. Bruce communicates this to Trev, who replies with a thumbs up or something similar.
Doors now installed, and painter is underway. Bruce is now told he is needed on another site, and doesn't need to babysit the painters. He goes sweet as, tells painters he's gonna be gone for a bit. While gone, Trev gets rung by clients saying Painters are making a mess (typical painters lmao), Trev rings Bruce, and moans at him about it, Bruce obviously moans back, saying he can't do two things at once, Bruce gets back to site, cleans up and talks to clients who were all good about it anyway.
Next day (may have been a few days later), Trev then talks to an engineering crowd who do premade aluminium things like this. Trev comes up with some elaborate platform thing with them, and gets me to go measure out the space (btw I know nothing about this job at all at this point). I ask why, what for, what's happening, what's the plan, etc. Trev goes Don't worry about that; just measure the space, im like ok sure. i dont know why, or what you want, but sure. I go do that, that gets sent to the engineering crowd (this time im CCd in) they go uh, sure. Trev then tells them in needs to be certified, Engineering crowd then backs out because it's to small for them to get their engineer involved. Trev then goes to another engineering crowd, with a totaly different idea, this time, gonna weld some big elaborate structure out of angle steel in, with cross members, and all sorts, then with FRP mesh on top, other engineering crowd go ok sure, Trev then goes to independent certifying engineer, who goes, why not just do unistrut and mesh on top. Trev goes Great Idea! lets do that.
Trev then comes back to me to order gear, (tells me to order the wrong stuff too, but that's a whole different debacle), so I order gear (this is about Wednesday). Trev then goes to the client and tells them we will have it done and the hoardings down by the end of the week, and Bruce goes What?! No chance. (Painters still not done, will take multiple days to get the gear, let alone install it). (Ps remember, client said right from the start its not under a time crunch)
Now Friday, some of the Gear finally arrives, - the Unistrut stuff I ordered. This is obviously wrong, as that's what I was told to order. Bruce goes to Trev; this is wrong. Trev then tries to put the blame on me; I say, I ordered what you asked me to, and I find and send that email saying that back to him. Trev go oh. ok, reorder correct gear; I do this; that turns up Thursday following week (was a holiday Monday, and came from ages away/ that supplier is slow). Bruce starts to install this gear; this is very time-consuming, as you're hanging from a harness, trying to drill holes into concrete filled with heaps of reinforcing. Obviously this takes forever, and by the end of Friday, they had got one floor done at best. the Chemset that the engineers have specified takes 16hours to cure, so they can't get the mesh in until that's done. meanwhile Trev is complaining, saying the client needs it done, and hoardings need to come down (this isn't even true; once again Trev promised that it would be done by the previous week, even though the client was not in a rush).
Its now today, and one floor (of 4) is done, and final paint touch-ups can be completed, and hoardings removed.
