The Ongoing "Am I the %^&hole?" Thread

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by Igotnothing

Third this, I've always had a great experience with these guys. As a result, I make sure I refer people looking to buy tires to them.

Fourth this, Bob at Urban X North is the man.

[jeffh]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Company I work for is doing the 17th Avenue Stampede Crossing LRT Bridge. At Project award the Project Manager decided not to have a project kick off meeting and got a sublet drafting company to do the work without consulting anyone else in the company.

So once the shop drawings were ready for Approval he asks me (Drafting Manager) if someone can check the job. I asked him what do you mean by this plus a few other job related questions. We have 4 Fabrication plants one of which specializes in Bridges, so I advised him that the Bridge plant has very different standards and marking conventions than our other plants. It would result in needing about two weeks and 40% of the drafting budget to have these guys redo the work to suit now. Told him he should have at least let us (Drafting) know at the outset as we could have provided this information at the beginning. PM says not a big deal this will be done at our other plant he was trying to not spend his $1000 drafting support budget (Total project value is 1.2 million). This might have cost him $100....

Anyways all drawings get Aporoved and it's time to send for Fabrication, it is determined that the Bridge Plant will do the work. So they insist on having the drawings redone because they think they will make $15000 in screw ups. I challenged them asking them to prove it would be that bad and to identify the more critical items that will help productio to keep the rework costs down. Basically spending $1000 to save $1000 is not economically worth it. It's not an ideal situation, but if it was sublet fabrication work, would we insist it get redrawn after the fact. At this point any new money is coming out of the project's overall budget.

Plant Manager sends out an Email that Drafting and Project Management will not dictate how the drawings will be done and that they are to be fixed regardless of cost and that he will backcharge drafting for any time his shop is empty waiting for the new drawings beginning now. His Superintendent....agreed with me and said he would do as I suggested since it was a smaller project.

Was I the AH here? The PM deserves a bit of the blame...but I think this Plant Manager is really out of line here.

Sounds like a classic example of Pour now, Chip Later.

It’s a bit tough to say if the Plant Manager is truly being an AH, as I think he is anticipating being f’d around and hurting his labour costs. As tough as it can be to get accurate and complete shop drawings, more of the fault lies with the PM for not going through the proper steps. This is critical infrastructure after all. If the Plant Manager can get assurances in writing, and still refuses to budge, than he is an AH. I see you as just being stuck in the middle.

[GGG]

Fix the drawings, there are standard symboligies for a reason. The shop manager is speaking from experience that the risk of #### ups on average would cost them 15k in rework. To pay for 1k in drafting just needs to save 5-10 hours in shop time let alone if someone screws something up. Remember the Peace Bridge weld details or the pedestrian overpass that was too short.

Paperwork is cheap

I don’t think anyone is an ####### here. The PM might have made an initial mistake and seems to be valuing individual line items over the overall project risk but he doesn’t seem to be being an #######. The Plant manager is looking out for what he sees as the biggest risk to the project and is probably sick of getting non-standard drawings in his shop.

A project should have healthy conflict which each person providing a perspective on what they see as the best path based on their areas of responsibility then the project Manager should be making the best risk vs economic decision.

But the bigger question is why does 1 of 4 of your fab shops use different standards who ever came up with that idea might be an #######.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by stazzy33

Fourth this, Bob at Urban X North is the man.

Bob is pretty awesome. I bought a set of Winter tires from him last year and he's a great person to chat with in general.

He loves wine and Scotch. It was he that told me that he and his buddies love playing poker, and then buying a range of nice bottles of scotch for the prizes.

He mentioned certain bottles of Scotch he wished were available, so I looked it up on liquor connect and he was blown away you could try and find alcohol that way. I did warn him this only gives insight on where the product might be and not whether it's in stock, but it's far better than shooting blind by popping into completely random liquor stores that may not have bothered to stocked it at all.

I then suggested the Vivino app due to his love of wines and he immediately installed it and looked like a kid who had just picked up a game boy for the first time. He's apparently the type of guy who buys wines by the case loads if he runs into something he likes.


One thing that's amazing about him that I wish I could learn is that he's a pro at putting IRL conversations on hold. Literally you're chatting up a storm and within 2 seconds he can put the whole thing on hold in a really respectful manner to take a phone call, address a customer that walks in etc. It's a hugely underrated skill and it's actually pretty impressive IMO.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by GGG

But the bigger question is why does 1 of 4 of your fab shops use different standards who ever came up with that idea might be an #######.

One does nothing but bridges. 3 of them predominantly do structural work. Bridge work is quite different. All 4 plants are drastically different in terms of how much automation there is too.

3 of the plants were acquired over the years thru sales and foreclosures and the like..so it's only recently that they have tried to standardize some of this stuff. Which has been difficult with people that want to carry on with their old ways and think change is offensive.

Its frustrating because the company is now teetering on Bankruptcy itself...and these types of petty fights are happening on every job.

[Textcritic]

This is closely related to a question I have been asking of myself in recent weeks...

Have we become "that family" in our neighbourhood?

We have lived here for fifteen years. New neighbours have moved in on either side of me in the past six months. The neighbours to my right are easy-going and friendly; the neighbours to my left do nothing but complain about their house, the neighbourhood, and how awful it is to live here.

I have two boys in high school, and another who just turned 21—he is still at home, but working. About six weeks ago one of my boys's friends came to our house because he was fighting with his parents. We have attempted to build a relationship with these people for the last year, but have found it extremely difficult because of how paranoid they are of everything, and because they are convinced that my kid is an instigator of trouble. Anyhow, they insisted that their 15-year-old son come home. He did not want to go. They were exasperated at us for not sending him away, but in our minds we thought he was most likely better off in our house than he would be wandering around the streets. They threatened to call the police, and then insisted they were coming over to get him. The father stormed up to my door and demanded his kid come home. My wife told him not to enter the house. They screamed and complained for 25 minutes, and again threatened to call the police. At this point I went ahead and called 9-1-1. Three squad cars showed up with lights and sirens to diffuse the situation, and everyone on my block noticed. It was embarrassing.

So, fast-forward to two-weeks ago. My kids were playing basketball on the driveway @ around 8:30 pm. The ball went into the up-tight neighbours's yard. My 16-year-old son climbed the fence to retrieve the ball; the neighbour saw him, lost her mind, and started screaming at him about trespassing. He says he apologised and went back to playing ball with his brother. Shortly afterwards the ball again bounced onto their driveway, and before my kid could retrieve it the neighbours ran out, grabbed the ball and went back into the house. When my kids tried to get their ball back, the neighbours would not return it. My wife and I came out to try and settle things, and the neighbours and my kids yelled back-and-forth at one another for ten minutes or so. At one point, the woman complained about the police incident from previous weeks, and then it hit me...

Have I become that neighbour? I have always thought I was a good neighbour. I try to look after my property, keep to myself, and do whatever I can to keep the peace. But have I now become the guy whose kids are trouble, and who gets visits from squad cars? How did this happen?

Last week I put a fence up between our driveways.

[troutman]

Your neighbor seems like the unreasonable ones. I bet if your son rang the doorbell to ask for permission to get the ball, they would have declined.

Next step - get wind chimes!

I have two boys at home 18 and 16. Three cars in front of our house. They play drums and electric guitars, but not after 10 pm. No complaints so far.

[Textcritic]

Wind chimes?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Wind chimes?

Sounds that potentially annoy neighbors I assume?

I'm guessing that neighbor was mad at the sound of the basketball, and used the opportunity to stop the noise. They probably justify it as being their right for the way they want to "enjoy the community" (even though they hate being there).

If they were being bags of dicks even though you were trying to be cordial and reasonable, I'd buy birdseed and secretly start throwing tons of it on their property (ie: Drive way) and let them deal with a mess. Unquestionably, I'd be an #######. But it would be so worth it.

[SportsJunky]

Wind chimes, fire pits and too many vehicles is the Holy Trinity of bad neighbors.

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Wind chimes, fire pits and too many vehicles is the Holy Trinity of bad neighbors.

You forgot barking dogs and loud parties.

[SportsJunky]

The Pentagram!

[Jason14h]

If someone stole my basketball for it rolling into their yard that house would have seen many an egg and roll of toilet paper.

I guess these are previous commodities now ? So just Killex the yard ��

[Scroopy Noopers]

Textcritic, you certainly aren’t “that neighbour. Sounds like you live next to “that neighbour”.

[mrkajz44]

Yeah, the neighbour seems to be in the wrong here. Who gets upset when someone comes into their yard to get a lost ball? Honestly, that's one of my biggest issues with our neighbour's kids. We tell the kids all the time to just come in and grab whatever landed in our yard but they never do it. We have kids on all sides so I end up having to guess which yard the ball/toy came from based on what exactly is in the yard. I've probably given things "back" to the wrong kids many times - just come and grab what's yours!

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Yeah, the neighbour seems to be in the wrong here. Who gets upset when someone comes into their yard to get a lost ball? Honestly, that's one of my biggest issues with our neighbour's kids. We tell the kids all the time to just come in and grab whatever landed in our yard but they never do it. We have kids on all sides so I end up having to guess which yard the ball/toy came from based on what exactly is in the yard. I've probably given things "back" to the wrong kids many times - just come and grab what's yours!

We live at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, and the neighbour's property backs onto a busier road below us. For years prior to their buying the place kids from the neighbourhood would always walk through their property to get from the road to the cul-de-sac. The former owners didn't particularly like it, but they tolerated it because of the hassle it would require to end what amounted to a fairly minor annoyance. But this drove the new owners crazy, and prompted them to erect a big fence around the entire property behind the front driveway.

My kids know better than to ever go into their yard again, but only after so much needless drama.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

We live at the bottom of a cup-de-sac, and the neighbour's property backs onto a busier road below us. For years prior to their buying the place kids from the neighbourhood would always walk through their property to get from the road to the cul-de-sac. The former owners didn't particularly like it, but they tolerated it because of the hassle it would require to end what amounted to a fairly minor annoyance. But this drove the new owners crazy, and prompted them to erect a big fence around the entire property behind the front driveway.

My kids know better than to ever go into their yard again, but only after so much needless drama.

That sounds like a brand of underwear or a maneuver in bed.

[WhiteTiger]

That sounds like the opening to a "Fear Thy Neighbor" episode

This kinda sounds like an ESH situation. You injected yourself into another family's situation (rightly or wrongly) and brought about embarrassment and humiliation to them, too. They aren't reacting well, but few folks do. Hopefully everything'll cool down and you'll just be distant to each other.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Yeah, the neighbour seems to be in the wrong here. Who gets upset when someone comes into their yard to get a lost ball? Honestly, that's one of my biggest issues with our neighbour's kids. We tell the kids all the time to just come in and grab whatever landed in our yard but they never do it. We have kids on all sides so I end up having to guess which yard the ball/toy came from based on what exactly is in the yard. I've probably given things "back" to the wrong kids many times - just come and grab what's yours!

When I was young, there was a park on a hill we used to play at. Because of the hill, things would end up in the back yard of the house beside the park which had a relatively low chain link fence. None of the kids dared hop over to retrieve their stuff. After a while, the stuff that ended up in the backyard would show up in the front yard flower bed after 1-2 days. We would retrieve our stuff from there.

[Oling_Roachinen]

First off, yes taking a basketball from a kid makes them #######s (and maybe thieves?). I don't think we need to go into much more about their actions to make a ruling on that. But from their perspective;

What type of fence is it? If it's chain-link, a 16 year old climbing over it is very easily going to deform it. Even a solid fence could get damaged depending on how well it was constructed. I wouldn't have a problem with a kid showing up in my backyard to retrieve his ball, but if they caused damage to our fence doing so, I wouldn't be super happy either and could find myself being 'unreasonable' in that situation. Maybe I just have had cheap fences.

At the same time, it's reasonable for someone to not want teenagers (or anyone) going into their yard, especially if they consider the area to be problematic and don't get along with their neighbours. It's plausible they have dealt with theft from their yard and from their perspective the teenager from the family who had the cops at their house was snooping in it. Maybe they just don't want someone stepping on their garden. It doesn't really matter.

Yeah it sucks that you don't get along with them and they may have a distorted view of your family, but they do have the right to not have anyone they don't want on their property, obviously.

So, I think the initial drama was sort-of somewhat reasonable on their part. They weren't dealing with a toddler, your son maybe should have known that you guys don't get along and they are #######s and not gone into their yard. But sounds like he knows now.