OK I know that it’s no dogs on site, but this is something slightly different.
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I have been approached by a small custom home builder that is looking for a mobile set of eyes to be looking out for his interests. He normally builds only at most 1-2 houses at a time but has run into some good luck and has landed 5-7 houses that will all start up and run for the summer season. We have not talked specifics but it would entail stopping by the sites to check progress, quality and interact with clients. This would not be a full time job. I’m assuming a laptop, camera and cell phone would be provided. Checking punch lists and verifying work along with verifying vendor product specs. You get the general idea.
He helped me build a home awhile ago and we had a good working relationship. I was bringing in my people for some portions of the build while he brought in his. He liked the way I dealt with the “issues†that always arise during a build.
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I have a full time job as a middle manager in a government agency. But I work a rotating shift schedule so I have the daylight hours available usually 2-3 days a week. I’m not in a homebuilding field but I have been around it enough to classify myself as “dangerous but not sloppyâ€. I have worked in a couple of different trades before my current life of public servitude. I have lots of contacts in the trades still so I can call someone who does know or I can look it up online somewhere.
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I have a lot of questions myself. This has just been discussed between us once for a very short time.
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What’s this worth? Anyone out here have a similar arrangement? Hourly? Salary? I’m trying to come up with some ideas how this would work.
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I know there are a lot of variables that I haven’t listed but I thought this might be a good place to start.
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Thanks
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Heath
Replies
Personally, I believe you are fooling yourself if you don't believe this is going to be a fulltime job.
Recognize that before you begin considering what type of salary you might request.
Democrats.
The other white meat.
I agree with JD ... 5-7 houses starting close together? That's more than full time work.
You 'assume' laptop, camera and cell ... might be in for a surprise there. Get the agreement in writing ... including a clear scope of work, responsibilities, and authorities. This doens'nt need to be a controversial discussion, both sides should welcome a clear scope list.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Sounds like you will be his Project Manager. 50-60 Hrs a week.
Chuck S
Yeah project manager would probably be a better term for the job.....
We would put it all in writing I'm sure. I'm the guy that aggravated him during our build for everything to be in writing or e-mail.
I have explained to him that 1st job pays the bills and insurance so it is #1 to me. That wont change. But I also see alot of stuff coming up that would make this a more than full time job some weeks. I can deal with that.
Asking for hourly and mileage I'm guessing would be the best solution. Busy this summer and dead in the winter would allow him to use me during this busy push and would compensate me when I'm out hustling one week and coasting the next.
Anyone else out there have an idea of something like this?
Guess I'll figure out what I'm worth per hour. The wife says its $0.27. Shes not funny...
Thanks for the tips guys...
FWIW...
Salary, vehicle expenses, computer , camera, phone, scanner etc.
Office rental in your house if need be. Being the inspector turns into being the project super in short order.
If you were also writing contracts and setting schedules you would be the project manager.
If you have afull time govt. job with bennies, retirement etc. be looking at what happens if the new position starts to eat up all your time.. and it will.. running around to five or six houses solving and organizing is a full time job if the houses are unique in any way. Bet he starts asking you to deal with clients next!!
Are you going to be a contractor or employee? How you going to treat it tax-wise.
Generally... As a contractor you buy all your equipment and pay for the services needed to support it. You run a schedule as you deem fit to satisfy the job (probably be more than full time as a PM on 5-7 houses simultaneously). If he provides equipment you start losing the battle to claim as a contractor.
As an employee he provides equipmemt to do your job and controls you in a stronger manner.
As for how much to charge, how much is it worth to you compared to how much value he sees in you doing it? Try to figure out the 2nd first.
If I were in your shoes, I'd want to define my role as a spot inspector, nothing more. By a certain hour each day, you'd get a list of inspections to be performed that day by a particular time. Work completion and materials deliveries. Nothing more.
That way, you're covering a significant part of the responsibilities but working according to your own schedule. No meetings, just you and your list of inspections.
Let you GC friend communicate and coordinate, you do the follow up. No appointments, just pulling inspections autonomously, as they fit in your day. This is how you keep your sanity and your marriage together. I'm not kidding, not even a little.
Hourly rate plus mileage. Paid weekly.
ditto dat!SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
Thanks alot. Spot inspector fits nicely into what I had in mind. I'm sure its a easy road to slide down from inspector to project manager. I have some time to decide how this might work out, but your post nailed it on the head.
I definitely do not want another full time job, but I'm willing to hustle a little more this summer. My house project is still very fresh in my mind to the whole scheduling/ deadlines/ specs circus wagon that we get on getting these houses complete. But I know I can do this job well due to the fact its a extension of the real gov. job I'm doing now...
Thanks for the info... gives me more ammo to go on....
Heath
Glad you can understand. The last part may be the most difficult, getting it nailed down before you begin. Your GC friend will want all the slack he can get from you. Your job is to define everything carefully and completely, up front and in writing. Then stick to it like glue. You may have to accept less money, not being flexible, but you'll be home on time and the job won't overwhelm you, as it probably will the G.C.
You might also suggest that he hire a full time gofer, some young person who can run errands, answer the phone, shovel gravel, remind him of appointments, plant some flowers, laugh at his jokes, whatever comes up. I hired a guy out of a trade school who, it turned out, couldn't get out of his own way but was great company. And although he probably cost me money, he was with me longer than most of that crew because he showed up every morning and enjoyed working at whatever I gave him to do.
my only concerns would be why the guy wants to hire me as a pseduo-PT look out as opposed to hiring a FT project manager.
sounds fishy.
or ... he really doesn't know that the position is going to become a FT project manager and that sounds like trouble.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
No, the term project manager was brought up by someone on here. I was very clear that this would be part time and it is for a few (2-3 right now) of the houses that are close to me. (5-15 miles) There would be no earthly way I would attempt it on 7 houses. My house kept me hopping as it was. I had no major issues either.
We know how some projects try to get out of control, and I think this is what he is looking for with me. I see it as a fresh set of eyes on the ground that can meet with a sub when they show up to make sure "the line runs from here to here" and show them, not try to explain it over the phone. Verify the placement later and check their progress so the next sub can be scheduled. If something comes up last minute and I'm home I could run over to check on something and zap a photo his way. Yeah yeah.... I know what you guys are thinking..... I'm going to watch for the hammer to drop, belive me.
He usually does the project work himself and might have a project managers lined up to do exactly that. It was a brief conversation to judge my interest really. I'm making up a list of questions/ concerns and we can discuss it more later.
You guys have given some great advice on what to be on the lookout for. I will definitely take heed of it while I start to sort this out.
Thanks
Heath
I realize you aren't looking at this as a FT gig ... and that the term Project Manager was coined by someone else ... but like that other poster ... I'm thinking this has all the makings of a PT job that turns into a FT monster.
Just saying make sure everything is set in stone before you start ... or it could lead to ending a good friendship.
I'm just reading that the deal is bigger than you or he are picturing. Then again ... I'm just some due reading this over the net ... so I could be way off base.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
<<I see it as a fresh set of eyes on the ground that can meet with a sub when they show up to make sure "the line runs from here to here" and show them, not try to explain it over the phone. >>
See, this is where you're getting in trouble. How do you know if and when the sub will show? And how will you know for sure where that line is supposed to be, if you don't meet with the G.C. to read the prints and discuss it?
K.I.S.S. Keep it simple. Do inspections, not meetings. The only way that meetings work...maybe...is if you're going to be in one place, all day. And you think that you're going to oversee three job sites...miles apart? Forget it. This is already more than a full time job. It's a full time nightmare.
There's four guys here posting the same advice. None of us know each other. We don't even live in the same part of the country. Why do you think that we're so sure of what's going to happen to you? We've all done it.
Brief story. I was working as a union carpenter for the G.C., a large corp., on a fairly small commercial job. Other than the job superintendent, I was the G.C.'s only employee on that site. One morning the super called me into the office and said, "I've got an appointment in town for about an hour. The only sub on the job today is the mason contractor. He's got his own prints so you won't need to read anything for him. But just in case someone else shows up, here's the lastest prints. Other than that, just answer the phone and take messages."
About twenty minutes later the mason contractor sticks his head in the office.
"Where's the boss?"
"Went to town for an hour".
"Sheet. I need a door height in that building. The guys are on that wall right now."
"Where's your prints?", I ask.
"In the other truck."
"OK. I've got the latest prints here. Let's find the page and get that detail."
We dig out the information but he's not satisfied.
"Are you sure about that height?" he asks, "cause that's not the same as all the other doors."
"I'm sure that we're reading the print correctly, that's all."
"OK. That's where we'll put the lintel then."
The boss is gone for two hours, not one. By the time he gets back the block is laid and the scaffold has been moved. I tell him about the mason's problem and what I did to help him out. The boss calls a quick meeting, at the door opening in question. He's pissed at both of us.
Starting on the mason contractor, "How come you don't have your prints...again?"
Turning to me, "I told you not to give the masons any dimensions, didn't I?"
"Not exactly, no", I said, trying to cover my tracks. I didn't really care about whose responsibility it was because I wasn't being paid to run his job for him but I didn't want to get canned over it either.
Fortunately for me, he got the mason contractor to go back and change the lintel height, before the motar had set up. No charge backs from the mason either so my butt was saved, for one more day anyway.
That's just two hours on one job site with one sub contractor. I picked that story because it's similar to your proposed PT job and because it's the simpliest, least volitile one I could remember.
Edited 4/1/2007 12:06 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
"my only concerns would be why the guy wants to hire me as a pseduo-PT look out as opposed to hiring a FT project manager. sounds fishy. or ... he really doesn't know that the position is going to become a FT project manager and that sounds like trouble. Jeff"That was my thought while reading this. Either the GC has no clue what this would entail or he knows full well and has no desire to actually go out and hire a fully qualified, fully salaried/compensated Super who knows the headaches involved in such work and demands pay accordingly. Either way it sounds like a prescription to become his blaming/fault boy in short order. I'd be really skeptical, write up what I think the job responsibilities/limits should be and then still be really skeptical.
Hudson is on the right track and I can only add the you include a clause to get reimbursed if you end up being the guy to make a run to the lumber yard as a "favor". With that many builds its enviable.
Best to you and yours, Chris.
Building as thou art paranoid never harmed anyone.
I keep seeing the term "Project Manager" applied in here for what is really the "Project Site Superintendent" position IMO. Two entirely different positions and sets of responsibilities. The responsibilities overlap , but are not the same. In the OP's situation the GC is in the role of "Project Manager" and he is looking to hire the OP to be his "Site Superintendant"
I think hourly is better. Your liability is lower and you have a fair shake at getting paid even if there is trouble.