BUT, the public work is where the most professionally challenging 
historic preservation and museum work will be found.  If you don't do 
some of it, how do you know the folks who are doing it are unqualified 
lowballers without personalities...like for sure all us 
preservationeers have charming sparkling personalities...like Ralph.

-jc

On Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 03:57  PM, Ken Follett wrote:

> In a message dated 3/19/2003 8:23:54 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> I'd probably quit the business and get into doing something else.
>
>
>
> There has been just enough private and negotiated work to keep going. 
> The public work that has come along we always consider a fluke. 
> Usually we get public work when there is a large enough glut that 
> there is a convergence of (sub)contractors not wanting anything to do 
> with the particular agency or construction manager or GC because they 
> have already run through a cycle of being swindled and cheated and 
> they have either had enough, or gone out of business, or left town. 
> For the most part those who thrive on the tactics of contracting 
> public work do not do as well in private negotiated work. Their 
> quality is low (good enough for government work), their ability to 
> develop relationships is nonexistent, and their mode of operation is 
> to bid low and then hammer on change orders. Public work is a good 
> place for those who do not have brains or sensitivity to go. Public 
> work, the arena with so many rules meant to protect the taxpayer's 
> pocket, or the union racketeer, is where a strategy of liberal 
> applications of negative energy and brute force will prevail.
>
> I don't know how bids play out in other parts of the country but 
> around here projects like this are put up on the builders exchange, 
> Dodge reports and other similar construction reporting agencies. 
>
>
>
> Same here though possibly at a higher frequency of shark feeding.
>
> This gives anyone with a truck, shovel, and a cell phone free license 
> to put a quote to subcontracting the job. 
>
>
>
> We don't need no stinkin' truck or shovel, the cell phone is enough. 
> Cripes, you can have a skateboard, a 15$ calculator and a cell phone 
> and be a contractor in NYC.
>
> We compete not with contractors who forget prevailing wages... they 
> know all about prevailing wages but have no intention of paying them. 
> In the past I've had a GC blatantly tell me that they wanted a price 
> without prevailing wages. Walk away. The problem is, some years less 
> or more than others, is that those in the agencies who are supposed to 
> track wages don't. They look for the paperwork. As long as the 
> contractor hands in the paperwork the odds are in their favor, even if 
> they get caught submitting fraudulent payroll reports they are ahead. 
> They shut down, shuffle chairs, and open a new company.
>
> It really makes me wonder when I get outbid by a general with an off 
> the mark bid, how he's going to manage to do the project when I'd have 
> to drop two or three trades off of my bid to even come close to his 
> number.
>
>
>
> Well, they screw the subcontractors. Simple as that.
>
> An old tactic is to hire a super cheap subcontractor, run them fast 
> and ragged, and when they fag out you have got say 80% of the work 
> done for 50% of their already low cost -- because you tell them they 
> defaulted and they can eat shit for beans, or "Sue me!" -- and then 
> you go get the next up subcontractor on the price list and have them 
> finish the work. Come punch list you scream at all of the 
> subcontractors and say the crap work is their fault and you give even 
> more reasons for not paying. You always owe all of your subcontractors 
> a lot of money and when they beg for it you con them into bidding on 
> the next big job, but of course, they have to keep their prices low. 
> You irritate them by driving around in a nice hot car and show them 
> pictures of your speed boat -- the more pissed off they are the better 
> so when you hit them upside of the head they don't really notice it -- 
> and tell them how you are best buddies and how you want them to take 
> some time at the Condo in Florida -- but you keep them so stretched 
> that they can't even afford to piss let alone take off a long weekend. 
> After they are hooked on a series of projects where you have not paid 
> them then they can no longer afford to run away -- just the same way 
> as a drug dealer strings out an addict, or the mob hooking a terminal 
> gambler. When the cycle wears itself out you run off to the Caymans. A 
> few years later show up in another location and start over.
>
> I used to work for a municipal engineering department near Detroit.  
> When we would bid a project we always stipulated; low bid, best 
> qualified. 
>
>
>
> A good word for Detroit. Is this proof that there is civilization?
>
> It's a disservice to a client to bid a project so low that you nit 
> pick and fight
>
>
>
> But the other contractors you are bidding against 1) don't care and 2) 
> live by hating everyone and everything that gets in their way of 
> grabbing money. In my GC experience I came to understand that the 
> objective was to not do any work and to collect the most money. The 
> value added I look for is to be able to live with myself.
>
> ][<en (reformed idealist)