So, I'm back from the client's job site...
What a miserable week it's been.
The good news; well, we can pretty much do what we want with our drawings, on our end of things. My users can continue to utilize Sheet Set Manager to keep them organized and happy. And it looks like I'll be developing CAD Standards for, not only our office, but their office as well. They love the things that I've done and seem happy to let me guide them (other than Sheet Set Manager, which they think is hawt, but believe that their users won't be able to figure it out so they just won't use it).
The bad news; I had an idea of this, heading out there, but didn't really get how much it impacted our work until now. There are people on site who have a vested interest in seeing us fail. Unfortunately, some of those people control the information that we need to do our job properly. Getting up-to-date information, updated drawings from the different trades, and updated submittals is going to be a nightmare.
Now the client realizes that this is a problem for us. And they want to make it right. Part of what I did while I was up there was to put together a procedures manual for the sharing of information. The intent is to get the client to sign off on it and enact it as law. They've asked to have someone from our group (me, initially) move up there and act as a document control manager for them. Well that's just not going to work. Not just because I have no desire (whatsoever) to live in that state (they would have to pay me a ginormous amount of money to even consider it) it's not quite as simple as "put someone in place to do the job".
And I can imagine what sorts of questions you might be asking yourself...
"Why doesn't he just take the job?"
"Why doesn't he just go up there, temporarily, to see the project through?"
"Why don't they just send someone else from your company to do it?"
"Hell, why doesn't he just contact the different trades himself and get those updated drawings and information on his own?"
One word: Unions
Simply put, we're not a union shop, they all are. We're not allowed to communicate with them and, if we tried, we'd get nothing but the cold shoulder (and our client would get a ton of political backlash from it).
See, the mindset of most of the people that I talked to while I was up there was "milk this project for as long as possible, regardless of how much it costs, as long as I'm getting a paycheck". Because, evidently, it's almost impossible to fire someone who is in the union.
My mindset, and the mindset of the group that I'm working with, is "do the best job that we can, at as little a cost to our client as possible, so that they'll continue to feed us additional projects".
Do you see how those two mindsets conflict with one another?
And it's not as simple as telling the client "Hey, we're not getting updated information from your people" because the people who are checking our work... well, they're the same people who are controlling the flow of vital pieces of information. The same people who have a vested interest in seeing us fail.
So, as it stands right now, unless the client agrees to the document control procedures that I've written up, and unless they make someone (an on-site union someone) accountable for getting us the information that we need, and unless they actually enforce the following of those procedures, I'll be happy to have a job in the next couple of weeks, along with everyone else on our team.
I did drink more alcohol on this trip than I have in the past year, so at least I have that.
