Ok we checked he said he’s scared and misses his mom.

Sorry you gotta deal with this man. Why is it happening? I keep seeing the same names moving up to higher agency positions and the people I felt were competent engineers are now going Private or working for the contractors.

It’s a problem on both ends and of course my experience is anecdotal. But it seems like they push away talent to the higher paying private sector because they’d rather get 2 incompetent engineers for the price of 1 competent one.

Either way I appreciate what you do. I know it’s extremely difficult. And my resentment against agencies (much like corporations) is in their leadership. Those that seem to be ‘cruising’ when the reality is they have the ultimate responsibility to taxpayers.

Same can be said with my side. The nefarious GCs that intentionally start a project anticipating COs and find ways to double dip on contract work and CO work. They ruin it for everyone that believes in the concept of civic duty.

I wish man.

A Change order is a shared contract change. It's the legal amendment of the contract to reflect the changes made to the work.

A Design consultant is not writing the specifications per se (assuming we're talking about Civil projects and that there are no special specifications). What happens, as you've pointed out, is that we're conforming the drawings to the agency's state specifications. These will change agency by agency with a lot of overlap. Sometimes the DDC will use the NYSDOT's specifications and vice versa.
Why re-invent the wheel. This is all public domain as well, there would be no need to write a specification unless the drawings require special specifications.

I've only every work for Civil construction, we would never be expected to write specifications but more to conform to their state issued ones.

There's too much bloat in this industry. I come from a scientific background. I tend not to accept 'that's just the way it is' as we continue on an unproductive role. Something has to change in the lowest bid sphere.

Of course there's Best Bid and Design-Build which seems to be a step in the right direction, but it comes with its own set of special failures.

I'm rambling at this point but just to summarize, yes you're absolutely right. Contracts are written for the contractor to conform to their specifications, which opens risk to the Owner when their specifications can not be met.

Without a doubt. I’d have no consultations if owners got their shit together.

I’ve presenting risk sharing models at ASCE that I believe would be the best solution for differing site conditions and design flaws. Even the questions at the end of the presentation were adversarial.

Every Job has change orders. And every owner and contractor seems to be looking for ways to make or save money. Both sides want to shift risk instead of addressing the issue that COs WILL happen. Instead of working out the semantics beforehand on what constitutes a ‘shared change’ they live in denial until they’re hiring consultants and design engineers to prove their side right. Once the smoke clears. The only profitable parties were the lawyers and consultants.

Nobody, and I mean that literally, Nobody can predict how the earth will behave in subterranean NYC. Meaning that you will always have a DSC. Why not accept this upfront and share the risk? Why? Because the owner wants to claim means and method and the contractor wants to pretend like they didn’t foresee the CO.

It’s all reactive instead of proactive. Because you can’t claim you didn’t see it coming if you try to be proactive.

Keep in mind this is a very broad generalization. Every CO is different. Some are slam dunks by the contractor and some are just wishful thinking.

The truth is that it’s never one party’s fault. But it is one party’s responsibility to build the structures. That means there’s an inherent opposition in what is supposed to be civic duty.

Ok. I think I see your confusion now. As a general rule of thumb most companies, in every industry, across the entire globe don’t try to lose money on their work.

This is logical to you?

For a general contractor to win a $3B job and from the get-go. Drag their feet. Hoping it’ll lose money, so they can sue the owner and get MAYBE 20 cents on the dollar?

More oversight?

I take it you don’t work construction.

Much less NYC Construction.

Why would an owner care if you overstaff your job? They don’t pay them. In fact they prefer you overstaff it. You’re paid based on a schedule of values. Not your staffing.

The consultant fees (mine included) is a result of change orders. The only reason the MTA was on the hook for it was because the GC was able to prove, through the help of the consultants, that the owner provided insufficient information to make a reasonable bid.

As per usual, the owner and misappropriation of their funds is what cost the city more money. Not the contractor and consultants.

Bingo.

I was one of those consultants on the GC side. It turned into a change order job which immediately means that consultants and lawyers are going to be involved. It’s a symptom of the current construction industry. There is no risk sharing model between owners and GCs. There’s no money in pre-bid inspections. Contractors are expected to bid on drawings and reports that allow you to formulate a bid. When the site conditions deviate from you’re expected drawings, that result in additional costs. It turns into a blame game between the owner and the GC. Owners say ‘you messed up the construction. Your means and methods were flawed’. While the GC says ‘no. There was a differing site condition from what was reasonably expected by the drawings.’

If the two parties can’t agree to share the cost. It goes to claim. Which means lawyers and consultants are hired by each side to prove each other wrong.

I was hired on the Geotechnical side proving the the Geotechnical Baseline report was fundamentally different from the site conditions and that no reasonable bidder could have anticipated the conditions.

Ultimately successful. But a nightmare for the project. What ends up happening is everyone loses money except the consultant and lawyers.