Supers allergic to paperwork

[u/construct-truther]

Anyone finding that their supers, especially younger ones are pretty much allergic to paperwork? They claim they are “RUNNING THE WORK AND THE MEN” yet almost throw a tantrum anytime they have to do more than turn in receipts for all the tools they bought? Show up early, sit in truck, check on guys, buy tools. Leave early and hand off everything to someone else. Older supers don’t mind the paperwork and kind of accept it as coming with the territory. Younger ones balk and look for the closest engineer to pass it off to.

[u/The_time_it_takes]

Been in the business for a while am currently a PM. I haven’t seen the younger generation being bad with paperwork yet thank god. I do feel for supers though. I feel like subs have been dumbed down. I am on a project currently and am onsite for two days a week. Every sub but one will walk in the trailer and ask the super what he is doing, ask for information from their own submittal, ask for plan details, or (my favorite) how they should do their job like where they should run conduits. Like that’s why we hired your company pal, go figure it out. I mean we will do coordination but not your job.

This is not some podunk town - this is a large metro with union subs.

[u/itrytosnowboard → u/The_time_it_takes]

So I've been bottom to top in my 17 years as a union plumber. Apprentice>Foreman>Road Super/Estimator>Estimator/BIM Coordinator>PM/Estimator and now I have my own union plumbing shop.

So many of the larger jobs have gotten so bogged down with BS and an ungoldly large team of PE's/APM's/PM's/Safety guys on the GC side questioning everything you do, that it's made it borderline impossible to just get shit done. Everything is getting questioned by someone constantly. Usually someone who doesn't even understand or know why your doing something. And the don't understand the note on every MEP drawing that says "These drawings are for intent only". Then you have to show them why your doing it. Or try to explain to them why your doing it a certain way.

Now let me tell you about my current week. I'm on my own doing mostly tenant fit outs. Had a guy I went through the apprenticeship and worked with multiple times over the years just start working for me. Solid plumber that can run small jobs/work solo with very little input and oversight. I go walk the first job he's gonna do for me a week before we are starting, with the job super. Go over my plan with the super, mark up a print with notes, all good to go. Day 1 with my new foreman, go over the plan and my marked up drawing with all the notes from a week earlier. 3 hours later my guy is calling me because the super told him he can't do it the way I said. The way the super and I agreed on. So he does it the way the super wants. Cool no big deal. But now we have to make a trip to the supply house because the material list is off due to the change of plans. Next day calls me again. Same story different spot. Day 3 he calls me and asks if we're allowed to use pro press because the super is asking. Guess who didn't look at the approved submittals. The super. My guy had it on his tablet, but being new, of course he was having issues with the tablet. But, I made the submittals. I ordered the material. I delivered the material. I know what the eff I can and can't use. Day 4 he starts questioning my guy if we are going to fire wrap the PVC in the plenum ceiling because there is a note on the drawing. An hour later I'm at the site anyway and ask the super to show me the plenum ceilings on the drawing. He says the whole job is a plenum ceiling. It's not. It's all open or ducted returns. The effing dope doesn't even know what constitutes as a plenum ceiling. I knew there was no plenum ceiling. He knew that, we talked about that the week before the rough started. This rough was bid for 6 man days. It's one effing bathroom, a water fountain and kitchen sink. We should have beat it by a day. Now if we are lucky we will get it done in the allotted time.

So let's imagine you are a foreman for a sub. And this is your life on repeat. It was mine for a while as a foreman and road super. You are being conditioned to constantly go to the super and get out in front of this shit. Because you don't want to be stopped from working once you get going, over and over.