How long does it take...

[XJ Dreamin']

...to build a road.

I swear to God these guys are carrying the gravel to site in teaspoons. They've been at it for nearly a year! It's only two lanes and not more than 1.25mi long.

Back at Xmas I figured all they needed to do was lay some curb, pour some sidewalk and finish paving it. They've had the same four guys building sidewalk for the last three months. I kid you not! Four guys with hand tools building sidewalk. They get - maybe one square every two or three days!!! I'm serious! I see them standing around wire-tying rebar together. Two or three days later there's one section of the sidewalk poured and they're standing around tying wire for the next section. Should I seriously think that they are bringing in a truck to pour one section at a time? Across town a section 8 housing development graded, prepped and poured an entire driveway and parking lot in under a week, so I know you can build a sidewalk faster than one section every 2 or 3 days!!! These guys are driving me crazy. I'm afraid that one day I'm going to stop right in the middle of the detour, jump out and show them how to build a frackin' sidewalk. More than likely I couldn't teach them anything...I'm pretty sure I don't speak their language

I'm done.

 

[COYOTE BLANCO]

It's job security. There may not be any more work after this, so they are gonna milk it for all it's worth. Must not have been a deadline on the contract?

 

[bjoehandley]

It's job security. There may not be any more work after this, so they are gonna milk it for all it's worth. Must not have been a deadline on the contract?

X2

 

[XJ Dreamin']

It's job security. There may not be any more work after this, so they are gonna milk it for all it's worth. Must not have been a deadline on the contract?

Oh, I know. It's really the contracting officer I need to be raggin' on. I'm just taking out my frustrations on the workers.

What I hear is that a contractor will get 3 or 4 jobs but have only one crew. He works job 1 until he earns a partial payment, then moves to job 2 and works that for another partial payment, and so on. He plays musical chairs between all the jobs to keep up a continuous stream of partial payments. If the contract does not include an incentive schedule expect a lot of down time while the crew is off on another job.

Really, I shouldn't be surprised. It took a full year to build an off-ramp on I-45. Why should a sidewalk and a mile-n-a quarter of two-lane take any less. Hell, it took two years to build an overpass with ramps on highway 19. Lots of down time on that one!