How Contractors screw sub contractors pt1

whoa whoa whoa what what are you saying to me this is the biggest job that I never lost the absolute lost money huh we had to have closer to 60 to 70 thousand pounds on it just pounded the dirt up they would then add another planter box they would add another tear the project supervisor came up you can't be off even by inches you have a comfort level knowing where we're at because we're spending your money and when we spend your money we want you to be happy when it's all said and done [Music] this project it looks overly complicated at this point but it started out as a very simple job we were originally hired to come in and build an L retaining wall that's just a wall that runs this way and a wall that runs this way and nothing more after we had the initial plan already built they wanted an elevated planter box so we did it then they wanted these there's this wall formed here and this wall formed here after the fact and then as we would do there change requests they would then add another planter box but they would add another tier or they would add a wall on top of a wall on top of a wall these were massive changes but the problem was it wasn't in a logical order so they started to have us build the elevated planter boxes that you see behind us from the bottom after we've already got a retaining wall built the only way we can do that is by hiring a massive crane and we're talking about the biggest crane we could find and putting one of those containment units on the end so that we could put all of our drainage aggregate in it we could put our backfill in we would then put pallet forks on it and califor up and over everything that we'd already built the general contractor that's overseeing the entire renovation of this project decides that they've got to put a watchdog on to the crane here's where it gets really funky you guys I said okay go ahead put your watchdog on it we're still gonna build we're still doing everything you want then they come back to me and say oh it's gonna cost you $4,000 and I'm like whoa whoa whoa what what are you saying to me you want to charge us $4,000 to have some dude watch us work that dude is going to meet our production standards that guy is going to throw block with my crew we've got a minimum amount of production that we've got to match every single day so if you want to charge us for it that guy better put on his working gloves because he's going to go to work otherwise I'm not going to pay for him and they said at all you have no option so they wanted to charge me for a while dog in reality what I know they were probably doing was charging the facility because the facility was the one requesting the changes this company was trying to double-dip but I've been around enough job sites to know that they were trying to double-dip on this job I don't know how else to put it I don't even know what to call this kind of scam I mean what do you call a scam the double-dip I don't know what do you call it but now that you're older and wiser really old you might have to take that hit because that's where you are and you don't have the swagger power to knock back you might be risking too much that's a beautiful question so remember it goes back to who has the strength who's in the position of power right me as the subcontractor already started in working on a project with the contract in place has the position of power to negotiate because if I fulfill my contractual obligation I'm then done if they want extra work that doesn't necessarily mean I have to do it change orders are where some contractors make their money I've learned this through the whole process of compounding where guys will come in and bid a job solo it doesn't make sense as a competitor to go how do they do that and then you learn that their whole business model is based on change orders because almost every product has a change order yeah right and when a change order comes you then don't just raise your price you jump and I'm not that way so that's not in my DNA but that's how some guys all they do here's the thing with this jobsite this was a really simple project that turned very complicated by one little suggestion so let me just paint you the picture of what happened if you can see this retaining loss not a massive retaining wall and this retaining wall was supposed to start right about over there somewhere an end right about where we're at and that was it this was just going to be a nice little quick slam dunk get in get out down the road we built it and then the project supervisor that was overseeing the entire construction of the facility said hey we want to add on to the wall and I'm like hey I want more money let's agree to do this and so what you're gonna see is he added on to this wall all the way around the wall went from being 50 feet long to being over 400 feet long where it became a problem was the then asked me to tie them back together so we start at Point a and we bring the wall 400 feet out in a giant circle and loop it back in itself means that every single one of these blocks as we're basing it has to be laser graded we can't be off because what'll happen a lot of times when you're constructing a normal retaining wall and it's not unusual for it to climb or to dip a little bit and it's almost imperceptible except when it's got to touch back in and be very precise so we went ahead and did the work we wrapped it all the way around tied it into itself everything worked out great I rolled up the invoice it went from being like I don't know it's like it virtually ten thousand dollar wall to about a 40,000 dollar wall and the contractor office said what's with this $40,000 invoice this is well Pat your supervisor authorized us to add on all of this extra square footage they says well that doesn't work for us anymore this was okay well he still authorized all this extra square footage and they said well did you get it in writing did you get every the change order authorized by the office and I says no but I got it authorized by your field personnel and they says our field personnel got fired for being inept so you got a change a verbal change order from someone that we fired and there's no reason for us to honor that change order and they were right I wasn't right they were right so I got to get paid this much wall I got to install that much wall yeah let's go show you [Music] have you made a wall like this prior to these are this is a simple wall so there's nothing think about it it's like three foot tall the only complicated thing was making sure that this is all additional everywhere we're walking right now is extra the most complicated thing about this project was just making sure that they draft that themselves which is more of a process it's just a lot more work yeah it starts way over there and it ends way around the corner but they don't tie back in if it's a half-inch off over the course of four hundred feet your eyes not gonna pick that up it's more it's more forgiving but you can see that this whole thing comes all the way around as you go and hits right back into the very first block that we started up so and there's no jump there's no divot you can just see that everything right here is just very smooth I'm gonna just guess that you didn't use your instincts to figure out that how did you figure out the precise measurements oh this is a laser you set up the benchmark you carry that all the way around so every day we would come out we could literally use the existing block as our benchmark the way we knew we were always along did the job take it was about a three-day job that then ended up taking about two weeks maybe a four-day job originally quite a bit of extra time live off from change orders they come in they bid a job super cheap because they know that it's almost inevitable that you're going to get a change order on it and then that's when they can all of a sudden gain their money you've brought that up a few times Stan you do not like that contractor I don't like doing it that way I think that's uh you brought it up almost every single time yeah it bugs me it bugs me to operate in a way that you alter your price after you've already invested I don't I won't do that I just by principle it's deceitful they're withholding what they already know they should do right it just goes against what I believe now don't Bank on the fact that they're gonna change it and then you're gonna screw them yeah gal Jung you're gonna go Joe I mean they've gotta make a living but the unfortunate truth is that he has the ability to make a living without screwing the small guy along the way that's the biggest thing you should just be like a contract cop and we'll just go around busting people I'd stayed really busy let's do it [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause]