We are joined by Katy Fairley who took an unusual career path from politics to construction consulting. Our dialogue delves into her experiences, particularly her insight into procurement processes and the necessity for collaboration. Later on, we discuss the potential of technology, notably AI, in contract management. We mention a software called Document Crunch which utilizes AI to analyze contracts - a valuable tool in the industry but not the be-all and end-all.
Lastly, we take a hard look at relationships and power dynamics within the construction industry. Why are job sites often so adversarial and how can we bring about change? In our final segment, we scrutinize the generational differences impacting productivity at job sites and emphasize the need for respect for field workers. So, sit back and get ready for an engaging and insightful conversation!
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
We are joined by Katy Fairley who took an unusual career path from politics to construction consulting. Our dialogue delves into her experiences, particularly her insight into procurement processes and the necessity for collaboration. Later on, we discuss the potential of technology, notably AI, in contract management. We mention a software called Document Crunch which utilizes AI to analyze contracts - a valuable tool in the industry but not the be-all and end-all.
Lastly, we take a hard look at relationships and power dynamics within the construction industry. Why are job sites often so adversarial and how can we bring about change? In our final segment, we scrutinize the generational differences impacting productivity at job sites and emphasize the need for respect for field workers. So, sit back and get ready for an engaging and insightful conversation!
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
Welcome to the Site. Visit podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction. With your hosts James Faulkner and Christian Ham.
Speaker 2:We'll say what Business as usual has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before. And hitting the reset button, you read all the books, you read the email.
Speaker 1:You read Scaling Up. You read Good to Great. You know I could go on. We've got to a place where we've found the secret term.
Speaker 3:We've found Secret Code Gym. We can get the workers in. We know where to get.
Speaker 2:Once I was on the job site put a wow, actually we had a semester concrete and I boarded like a room finish patio. Oh, friends of the site.
Speaker 1:Trailers there, the guy just picked me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the favorite connect platform on your guys' podcast.
Speaker 2:Own it crush it.
Speaker 1:we celebrate these values every single day, Live from the site next to you in the Elkton Summit. Let's get down to it.
Speaker 3:Man fall hit hard this week.
Speaker 1:It did. I kind of like it, though. I like it when all those the autumn trees are just falling and you get that kind of thing on the ground. It looks like carpet.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that gets slippy.
Speaker 1:It does, especially with heels, on which I don't have often. Yeah, I know I can imagine you would.
Speaker 2:No, I used to wear heels, because I'll say this is a story. I think I wore heels once in the office and the general superintendent was in and I'm three inches taller and he's like, wow, that's really intimidating and I wore heels for the next five years. It was like, okay, let's do this.
Speaker 1:I know who gives you the weapon. He basically gave you a weapon. Oh yeah, here you go To intimidate me. Just keep doing what you're doing. Yep, just do that.
Speaker 2:I love it, I mean obviously never wore them to site.
Speaker 1:That's a little sticky WCB would not work safe would be right out there. I wonder if Jimmy Chew is ever going to come up with a steel toe stiletto.
Speaker 2:Can you? Imagine.
Speaker 3:I mean well, I mean we've talked in the past about like PPE. That's a little more fashion forward. Or even from a female's perspective, a little more different than just a boxy kind of guy. I don't know. That just seems like trouble, though Anything without the flat sole shoe and steel plate, or something like that. Oh, there's no way.
Speaker 2:No way that you're getting away from that. If anything, ppe is getting more like stringent. I think it's wild that you see people I was going to say guys out there and they're not wearing glasses or not wearing gloves. From my understanding, those are the two kind of top incidents that can happen on a site.
Speaker 3:I have seen, though and I just saw this on Instagram this week is that there is a line of like really cool protective sunglasses, so it's like a direct to consumer brand, and they are like safety glasses advertised for construction and contracting. You can be different styles, clear lens and different or frames, and that's cool.
Speaker 1:It's kind of in the Home Depot special. Yeah, it is, it is no handsets Before we get it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I really I want to know from your guys perspective this whole fall thing. As the season changes, I listen to people and they go oh my goodness, I'm so excited, I love the rain. I love when I hear the raindrops or when it gets cold in the breeze and I'm like are you guys? Because is that a real thing? Like it's stark summer to fall. It was hot and nice and sunny and I'm like shorts and t-shirt and now everyone's like I love this season, this is my favorite season. Are they lying or are they like?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think, ask them in a month. Like you know, I think I mean I'm definitely one of the people I really enjoy, you know, putting on the sweater. You know, in the spring, you know the first time you go outside and you're wearing a t-shirt, I mean there's something like incredibly satisfying about that.
Speaker 1:And it does come to an abrupt end and you're wishing for death in December. But we all like change. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. That could be what it is too.
Speaker 1:And with a hot summer, you know, a lot of the province burned yeah, so you know there's that part. Did you know that the Four Seasons brand started in Toronto?
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, I did not know that.
Speaker 1:That logo with the you know the four quadrants or the tree, yeah, and it has like I think the shoulder seasons have that little.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's brand, that's your, your jam.
Speaker 1:I just think it's cool because I think we all in places where they don't, they basically have a rainy season and that's it. It's kind of lame right Like, and it's humid all the time. This is really cool. Here we get to go through all this change. We do get legit four quadrants.
Speaker 3:And every time the language is the same.
Speaker 1:It's like oh yeah, can you just get darker? These days it's like yeah it, does it every year, my wife does it all the time.
Speaker 3:Okay, then maybe it's just a Pacific Northwest thing, because the seasons are so starkly contrasted from one to the next.
Speaker 1:Yes, but also New York's like that, new York's like stinking hot, and then it's like autumn and then Central Park looks beautiful. I mean, it's the biggest company.
Speaker 2:I do think, though I mean BC, all of its people at least, used to be quite mild, you know, like the winter was pretty mild. The summer wasn't, you know, scorching hot. Of course we were seeing all of that change, but there is like there's a there's a mildness to everything, with the exception of, I guess, of rain.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say that I have a photo of me. I got skis for my birthday. My birthday is on Monday.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday.
Speaker 1:Thank you and we lived, you know, in the hill and West Van, there we weren't that. We actually were pretty high up, I think we're, but there was snow.
Speaker 2:Wait on Monday In October? Oh no, last year when I was a kid, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Which doesn't exist now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we've got like weather patterns that are just gone bananas that we can't really explain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:I know, but like it was colder back then in the winter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think everybody remembers well, not everybody is like Blizzard in 96.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I lived in Victoria at the time and that was, you know, nuts from from that perspective. But I also remember October, when I again lived on the island. It was like that our house would flood, like there was. It was so much rain you know, and and, like it was, and that, like that doesn't happen. I don't think we have the same rainstorms as we used to.
Speaker 1:What'd you live on the island?
Speaker 2:Victoria.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, in the lowlands where it floods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it was the driveway, everything just flooded down and it would be so much that it could rain.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:My dad's taking days off work to like get a shop back and suck it all up and you know, it's sandbags I think one year Like yeah, it was, we had that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We had so much rain coming down and, I guess, the retaining wall, we had these little pebbles okay, coming up to the retaining wall that was supposed to drain and go under the house, but it went through the house. There was a point, I'm not kidding. We used to just stand and go and it would go through your socks.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, we were never, oh no.
Speaker 3:It was like river runs through it, the family room and just like until we had it fixed.
Speaker 1:but it was like yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, that brown carpet did not fare well.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 3:Oh well, our guest today is a returning guest and back to back ladies on the podcast yeah, it's better than that.
Speaker 2:Look at that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's the first time we've done that. We were called out and boom, there we go. Back to back. Ladies, here we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do exist in construction. Yeah, we're there.
Speaker 3:This is good. And returning guests, because I say we have Katie Fairley from Fairley Strategies joining us and we first had you on with Regina Marklin from Turner up in Whistler at the construction leadership forum. Fortunately not able to make it today, regina, but we're here today and we're going to unpack more of your story and get into some fun topics of what we'll see where it goes in construction.
Speaker 1:The current weather of construction Current weather. It's too bad to tell Regina it's not here, because I think we were like, yeah, I should come in and we'll have some wine and all that. Yeah, and here we are at breakfast.
Speaker 2:Well, you're the one who scheduled at 9 am. No.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's okay, we'll do round two and a half.
Speaker 1:I think it was trying to get everyone at the same time. 9 am was only what was available, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:So I came in and I was offered bubbly and I paused and I said we'll wait and champagne.
Speaker 1:Yeah, champagne, we're staying true to that first offer of 9 am, let's go. And yet if we had any more than three drips of orange juice and it would be appropriate.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, that's a breakfast, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Well, for those that didn't catch that episode and I did go back and take a quick listen and we did offer wine, we certainly did to come in studio. But if you wouldn't mind, just unpack your story real quick if you want general contracting world and consulting world and it just gives our audience a little bit of a Cole's notes on who Katie is and how you got to where you are here sitting at the site. Visit studio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would say I'm my line recovering general contractor.
Speaker 1:There's definitely some steps to take to recovering, recovering, recovering alcoholic, yeah, okay, give us that. What's the reference of recovering?
Speaker 2:I think, if anything, it's more of a joke to put people at ease.
Speaker 2:And then also, though I think it does give people a sense of my background and if I'm talking to trade contractors, they might have, you know, we put them on edge a little bit, but it gives some some idea of where I'm coming from. But yeah, I mean, I I got into construction because I needed a job. I previously worked in in politics and the legislature over in Victoria and, yeah, it was time for me to try something new. There was a job posting, you know I, I applied for it and that's kind of how I got into it and had a lot of good fortune to have men who supported me and pushed me and mentored me and, you know, championed me through that company, connecticut construction and, you know, learned a ton. I think a lot of that learning also came from the construction associations and you know, happy to talk about that as another, another topic today. Yeah, and then it was kind of okay, let's try something new.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, went traveling. You know, left um, sold my shares back to the company. Uh and yeah, went traveling and and said, okay, look, let's try, you know, my hand at consulting again, needed a job, need to make money. Um, and I was, I was told very early on, um, because I was saying, you know, I want to go and help buyers of construction services do a better job of engaging their general contractor and I was told, well, it's needed, but no one's going to pay for that. And thankfully that person, who I do have a lot of respect for um, was very wrong. And uh, yeah, that kind of uh, you know, a developer was my first client and you know it's just. You know my engagement is typically fairly short. Uh, no pun intended on my last name, but uh, yeah, I was able to help them as they engaged, for the first time, a general contractor instead of doing it in house.
Speaker 1:So what is the, the capacity of the, the? The thing that you do, are you vetting what the best general contractor would be for a particular project? Is that basically it, or?
Speaker 2:I think it's.
Speaker 2:It's it's really running the, the procurement process, um, and that's not to take away from any kind of consultants you know big C consultant or architect who's going to be involved as the you know, a contract administrator, um, but it's particularly when it comes to construction management, um, you know, which is, I think, maybe the premier um form of delivery right now, uh, is you know?
Speaker 2:So that's I would say that, broadly speaking, that's pre-construction services and then managing construction, typically under a fixed price, um, stipulated price contract. Okay, I think owners do a very bad job of setting up the fee format for that, and there's a lot of, you know they assume that they're getting something in their fees which a contractor is going to look at and say, no, you didn't stipulate that, I'm not assuming anything, and I think that that's that can start the relation relationship off from a place of imbalance and setting it up for kind of contentious relationships. So that's where my focus is really is doing a fee format. That's very clear. Now, I know that's incredibly esoteric and narrow, but I view it as a place of again setting up that relationship for success by getting everybody on the same page.
Speaker 3:So clearly how long were you in? Let's say, you said the word. You did take Kinetic, so we can reference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, okay, okay.
Speaker 3:From Victoria, and that's why it makes sense that you would jump in with them over there, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have three offices so I was based out of the Victoria office for the first five years. In the last three years was out of their Vancouver office.
Speaker 3:Oh, eight years Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's a pretty substantial amount of time and with one company you leave and you come back into the world of construction still. So clearly not two jaded by general contracting, but maybe with a different perspective and lens of okay, there's something here that could be a little bit different, and honing in on the owner side and the relationship side of contract procurement Was the bit to bite off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I mean it did stem from a place of going. Okay, owners, buyers of construction services, whether public or private sector, could do better, you know, and start that relationship off, not from a place of collaboration you guys know that I am not a fan of that word but just setting the whole project up for success.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, the C word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited to unpack that again.
Speaker 1:Dropping the C word does need the precursor of the ramp of kind of what you're talking about Collaboration. When you just kind of drop the C word.
Speaker 2:You don't want to use that as the title of this episode. No. Oh man, we would get, oh yeah that could be like a yeah, Like gigantic key.
Speaker 3:We were talking before. Katie's like can I say, can I say whatever? And she's like I'm like, yeah sure. She's like okay, just got to drop the E on it. I said most like 50% or more of them have an E on it. But yeah, I don't even know. Does that warrant an E? If you say that, I don't think. If you say that.
Speaker 1:Explicit the explicit thing no.
Speaker 2:Collaboration, the C word collaboration.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you're right that there needs to be the add on of it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for leading me to that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh no.
Speaker 1:Dave, can you edit this? Just wondering.
Speaker 2:I don't know I lost. Where were we?
Speaker 3:We're talking about collaboration, talking about you getting back into public or private and deciding which aspect that to hit on.
Speaker 2:Well, I think initially I mean again, it's like I said about leaving politics I needed a job and I think this time around it was like I know that I don't want to go back in and work in a company again. It was like okay.
Speaker 2:Well, what can I do? Okay, consultant, this is what I would love to do. Love talking about contracts, love talking about procurement. I see that as the cornerstone of construction and a relationship and setting up a project for success. Let's try that.
Speaker 2:Like I said, it was starting off working, you know, with a developer and they engaged me and it was a again short engagement Usually it's about eight weeks, it's not very long. I have a quick, fast punchy, but that's really where it came from, and so I spent the next two years working. It did some private sector work, but also, you know, it turned out to be kind of heavily public sector and that would. I would say it's kind of where my experience lies from when I worked in industry, you know, for a GC. But I think now what happened about two years ago was getting engaged by the BC Construction Association as as helping them out on their what's called standard practices file. So yeah, so now I get to kind of straddle two worlds. I thought there might be a conflict, but really my advice is always the same to whoever it is. That doesn't seem to change depending on who I'm talking to. So yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:You get a lot of leads from the BC Construction Association.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:No, I think that is the conflict. Usually it's just people who you know, know me that I knew before you know it's. But yeah, nothing never gotten paid out of my work with them.
Speaker 1:No, I don't mean that. I just meant you meet people. Yeah, you're building network.
Speaker 3:I mean that's more of the association side of things and you know you get to have a voice and people are like oh, it's kind of interesting what she does.
Speaker 1:And then let's talk no no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I'm like maybe I'm missing something that I could be lever, re-leveraging, but a lot of it is. You know, certainly it's a lot of the same people that I knew before from when I was in industry, and I think again then I'd said the same thing that I'd say now. You know it's the same thoughts Like that hasn't really changed too much.
Speaker 1:But certainly there must have been some network effect of you being there.
Speaker 2:I think so. I think there's a larger if I can be so bold I think there's a larger network effect of me, having come from industry and, you know, doing the work I did, for you know, just solo with owners for two years.
Speaker 3:So what is? What is the work of yours primarily composed of? Are you generally engaging in help Because you said eight week engagements Are you dealing with pre-con stuff? Or are you helping with project procurement contracts? What's the bulk of it, and we can dig into that a little bit, yeah it's just, it's pretty much the procurement part of it.
Speaker 2:It's the drafting of the you know procurement document, like I said, typically some form of construction management, whatever that looks like. It's getting the owner to think about and formulate what they actually need and what they want, and so often everybody rushes through procurement because they're excited to get to construction. You know, you see this all the time in the public sector, I'd say particularly. You know the politicians want to be out there on a sod turning or something like that, and it's, it's a such a rushed through.
Speaker 3:Sod turning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, they're all out there and they're, you know, white, hold hard hats and a shovel.
Speaker 3:And the photo op. Yeah, all right. So let's talk about this a little bit. In procurement, you're in it, you're seeing it day to day. You know we kind of. You know we see it through customers a little bit right. But in terms of other missteps or mistakes or things that are like current, you know the owners like blindly, because you said they're excited to sign off on stuff Like what are some of the common themes of you know, mistakes or mishaps that are happening with CM contracts or lawyers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that, I think, is where some of it can really start and end. And I, you know, I described earlier of having an owner describe what they need. Too often you have lawyers writing that.
Speaker 2:I mean they don't know the scope of services that's required. You know the only person, who you know, the only entity that can decide that is. You know the ownership group and even just the project team. You know whether that's and I would include maybe the consultants in that, but also the you know that owner's project manager. You know whatever title that they have, their, their owner's rep, and then you have and that's that's no slight to to lawyers. I know you guys had Tim's sports shoots on.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of respect for him.
Speaker 2:He's great, you know so that's you know they.
Speaker 2:they serve a purpose in our, in our industry, and certainly the ones that are truly construction lawyers are fantastic and really some of the best people that I've met in industry. That being said, on for an owner, the minute you get something from your lawyer, from your legal team, you're going to be bound by that, Not wrongly, because here's the legal expert saying here's how you're going to manage your risk. There's really not anybody capable and turn internally of deciding that that's not the way you're going to proceed. So I think you're. You know, part of that procurement piece you know is drafting a, is drafting a contract. You know, and seeing more and more these outrageous changes to standard contracts or drafting of boutique contracts that are, you know, wildly one sided, and you know how do you start a relationship like that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's one thing even Tim was talking about. I think he might have even used those same words definitely one sided Right. Are you seeing owners like, are they too? I mean it's, it's. It's obviously easy to default, to just be like oh yeah, our outside counsel is going to provide all this. You know not just. Well, it could be boilerplate, plus, plus, plus. You know all these inclusions of certain things that then holds the contractor totally bound and maybe behind the A-POL to start, because they want the work, they want to get it done too, so maybe they're signing off on things that they shouldn't be signing off on.
Speaker 2:Or they haven't read it at all.
Speaker 3:Or they haven't read it at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you're representing the owner side primarily, or do you see both sides and the whole process and or you mean well, here comes the C word. Is is the con and this is something that Tim talked about, I believe as well was like the process needs to get more collaborative Right. If you've got a preferred not just a preferred but the awarded contractor and an owner and they're coming together, you know there should be more of a collaborative approach to that contract. Obviously, it's like always trickle contracts that can trickle down from the top Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly Owner you do know what I say, whatever, but ultimately you need a good outcome on your project schedule, quality, everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the trifecta, you know. Yeah, budget schedule quality. I think, though, I mean you just had the start of. You know you had the awarded contract and the owner, and that's where procurement comes in. It has to start earlier than that, and everybody rushes through to start construction, to have, you know, the backhoe digger on site and be able to do the photo op, but it needs to go, you know, way backwards to you know how are you going to deliver this project and have your project delivery method. You know that's going to guide. You know all of your contractual relationships, your the services that are provided to the project.
Speaker 2:In a lot of ways, it's putting the project front and center and saying look, what do we need in order to deliver this?
Speaker 2:Because I think you guys remember, at the VRCA conference, the leadership conference, you know the topic was brought up of.
Speaker 2:You know having I can't remember the language that was used, but the wording of. You know what does everybody want to get out of this project, and certainly the owner. You know they want their asset delivered. They want to fulfill, you know, the needs of their stakeholders, their pro forma, whatever it is, but at the end of the day, for the contractors it's make money, have everybody go home safe, and I think I think we've gotten away, or there's been a perception of profit being a bad word in our industry and it's from an owner side, allowing contractors to make money. Because if you want to see a project go sideways and see, you know, the big C word of collaboration go by the wayside, you know, have your, your trades and your GC not make money, like you will have a fight over every single item delay, claim, change order, whatever. So I think that's that's a big piece and understanding. You know that again, that goes back to procurement. So it's, it's doing that well, doing it deliberately, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It would seem as though two factors must make your job infinitely more. Required to get in between is obviously interest rates. Rise the temperature of getting projects started because the time is more it's money, money, money, even more when the interest rates really high.
Speaker 1:And secondly is the pressure that any sub trade has of inflation and their people dealing with inflation, like workers constantly feeling like I'm not making enough, I'm getting pinched, they're getting pinched, Everyone's getting pinched everywhere. So it just creates this, as you said, you know, in if you were to bring up the word profit to somebody who is like on the clock paying for interest and then the other person's on the pressure cooker or in the pressure cooker, dealing with all these inflationary issues that are going around the culture of their workforce.
Speaker 1:That that really makes it difficult, it's clearly you know. So if you can, if you can sort of clear the air and make everything you know obvious and transparent, interesting thing is obviously with with sub trades. They're you're gonna have a spectrum of those who are really crossing the T's and dotting the I's in terms of reading contracts and you have those that are, you know, like when you buy a new iPhone. It's like scroll to the bottom and just agree right.
Speaker 3:Some people literally say like I hate reading contracts. Yeah because they'll just blindly sign. But I'm assuming they have my best interests.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I think the one scary one right now is with the new CCDC2 2020, we keep calling it new. It's been out for what are we three years, but I mean that speaks to it is that contractors are assuming it's the same supplementaries that they've always signed, so they're not reading them. They're assuming it's the same as the last time they worked with you. Know that?
Speaker 2:developer that public sector owner and there was. I got a call from one contractor and the supplementaries, or sorry, the base CCDC2 2020 now has a requirement of a 10 million CGL, whereas before it was five million, and that public sector owner said no, like you, absolutely have to have 10 million. It was written into the tender docs, you bid it, you agreed to it, you know, and that was basically. This is not a big project I think it was a couple hundred thousand but that's a good chunk of their profit now to go out and, let's say, upgrade their insurance to get up to 10 million. So you know, these little changes, they you know they're gonna make a difference and I think that's definitely been missed.
Speaker 1:Hmm, do you think that this paradigm that we live in of legal contracts, business is business, but let's just talk about just the general public for a minute. The stuff that we agree to just to be part of the culture is crazy the amount of rights that we give up, even if you sign off on Instagram. Oh, we just updated our terms of service Instagram, you know, and you're not reading. No one's reading that.
Speaker 3:Click no one's reading that.
Speaker 1:I wanna see my feed.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, because so. Do you think that we're in this time now where and this is more of a macro conversation it's, you know, it transcends construction, but is it more of the fact that we're in this weird time of acceptance of anything just to be part of the game these days?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if anybody's ever read the fine print, but that's not to say there can't be pushback. I mean there was. Maybe it was a year and a half ago. Whatsapp did a notification to any user and said you know, we're going to be changing this. Something to do with businesses are going to have more like. They did a poor job of explaining the upcoming changes and there was pushback. You know, there was an outcry of what these changes were going to mean to people, and I think you mentioned the word transparency. There was a lack of transparency as to why, and they had to step back. And you know, I think I don't know if they changed anything from it, but they certainly changed how it was communicated. So I think that there was also. You know what would happen if industry, you know, turned to owners and said we're no longer accepting this, or if the trade contractor said, you know, to a general you have to use a CCA, one standard subcontract, and so I think there it is a possibility to push back against the blindly clicking. I accept.
Speaker 1:What was the AI thing that we interviewed that the bill dots, yeah, yeah, well, the contracts oh contracts.
Speaker 3:No, that was Josh, that was document crunch, yeah, so document crunch. Basically, you take these document in it scan through AI and just basically shows you all the stuff it pulls out like amazing and this is why, like yeah, okay, and there's a couple of things to go here, that would be let's yeah, let's park that's. I want to talk about that one. That one's really interesting because that one easily brings to light things that again, it kind of there are gotchas in contracts.
Speaker 1:There's gotchas in contracts, right or?
Speaker 3:discrepancies, like you could say hey, compare this, doc you know CCDC whatever prior to new.
Speaker 3:But the thing that you were saying with the WhatsApp is and I don't know if this was just the way you explained it, but I think I remember what you were talking about when there's a time crunch to get something, to get to the next thing, be at your feet except move on or sign this. Your scope starts on Monday and it's Thursday or Friday or whatever. There's the time that's not on the side of that person that needs to be reviewed. But if there's time given like hey, in three months we're changing our terms of service, people have the luxury of then going oh interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm sitting and read, and then all of a sudden they have the time to push back Right. And then same thing if, like a lot of times in project procurement, like the overall contract is done owner, prime contractor and then subs they you know. Again, like to James's point, some are really good crossing or dotting eyes, crossing T's, they'll take the time and they'll go through it in a thorough and it could be fair process, right. But then oftentimes it's like it's just the contracts are like oh, kate, you're starting then, and you're starting then and it's a little and you're signing up.
Speaker 2:You've it's a little haphazard. Yeah, or-. You've submitted a proposal. You've submitted a bid. You've agreed to the terms in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got someone else on the sidelines that can do it if you're too busy. Yeah, yeah, and then the pressure's on and they go. Oh, okay, yeah right.
Speaker 3:So then to James's point, like if you don't have the time and if you're one of those that's just like, oh, I can't be bothered, or it does stress me out to go through a contract to have a piece of software Again, this document, crunch guys is just an example that could be. It shout out, you know it could be the one that people gotta look into, But-.
Speaker 3:I think that is cool If people can look at it and be like I don't have time on my side or I don't have the skill of. That was one of the examples that Josh the founder used. He said they'd hear from customers who were like I feel like I don't have the savvy to read this, so I throw it through here and it's like what I would take three hours to review in an evening. I now reviewed in 10 minutes and was able to make a decision within the first 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:I think. Well, one, I would say it's a lot more than three hours, If you're properly.
Speaker 2:I would say reviewing a contract and, if it is, you're cross referencing it back. I mean, you're looking at probably 10 hours short of being a knowledgeable construction lawyer that doesn't have to cross reference. Maybe that'll take them an hour or something like that. I guess not to dismiss that work, because that sounds really cool. I mean, I think for contractors that aren't reading those contracts, that's going to be a great weapon, I would say. But it's also not relying on AI, right? There's the example out of the states of the lawyer that used chat GPT or whatever, and it came made up cases.
Speaker 2:And so I think that there's. I don't know when this would happen, but you know.
Speaker 1:So you're referencing it on the forum floor. It's like yes on this case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I know that that case never happened. That's not, yeah, so it's until that happens. It's still, the onus is on that company to do their due diligence of reading the full contract, Cause I don't think I don't imagine a court accepting the argument of well, an AI chat bot thing gave me this explanation, so I didn't see this clause.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but what I think is and I totally understand your point is that you can't be 100% reliant on it. You actually have to have the ability to perceive something, have discernment about something and then make a decision, but this is just basically going through and saying like here's what's in here, consider this. Oh, I mean for sure that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great place to start. I'm gonna.
Speaker 3:I'm definitely gonna check that out. I mean it's like.
Speaker 2:That's just. That's neat, you know. I mean an example. Talking to one of the big trade contractors in BC, he said that his firm, at any given time, is looking at over 400 projects and that's not in construction. So that's not live. You know, we're under a contract, this is what they're pursuing.
Speaker 3:So how yeah?
Speaker 2:How in the world are you reading all of that and for that, for a trade contractor, 99% of the time they've got a flow down clause from the prime contract. So not only do they have to read their own, they also have to read whatever the exists between, you know, the general head contractor and the owner. So I don't know how they do it. So any tool like that is gonna be a better place than just blindly signing a contract and hoping for the best.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you definitely would. What did they say on the all-in podcast? That this AI is not gonna be replacing humans. It can be co-pilots Co-pilots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a co-piling.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to put it Great tools to allow you to do things way more efficiently.
Speaker 3:And then, just like it always has been, some well people and companies will simply be more competent and thorough than others will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always.
Speaker 3:So they'll utilize a tool like that better than another will, and it's just an advantage. It's just a way to further sharpen a pencil or just have some ammo in a negotiation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and pointing out those items, I mean I think the construction in bidding and pursuing work, sometimes knowing can cost you the job because you understand the risk and you-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not doing that. Someone else will take that risk. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So somebody else didn't read the contract, doesn't know the terms and the areas of risk. Something like whatever your change order, markups are liability, anything like that. There's indemnification. They haven't read that, so they're free and clear to now go and bid without that knowledge.
Speaker 1:So it cuts all the different ways. It also could be the fact that there could be things in a contract where the trade could say, look, we can perform, so I'm not gonna worry about that. I know we can meet that, whatever that detail is, but it's and the other, let's say, more seasoned company would be like I don't know. I've seen this before. There's no way we do that. Then we're responsible for XYZ. But it's kind of like a hey, if you cross the train tracks in 3.5 seconds, you don't get hit by a train.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like one of those and they're like oh yeah, we can totally go fast.
Speaker 1:I mean, we jump these things all the time.
Speaker 2:And 99% of the time you've been totally fine.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but the other time it's catastrophic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at procurement and contracts that's my mind those are the kitchen table issues, that's the stuff that keeps people up at night, that can destroy businesses. Yeah, obviously cash flow, but a lot of times that can go back to your contract. And what are your payment terms? And are you enforcing those payment terms as well or leveraging your rights under the contract to get paid?
Speaker 3:So yeah, Are you seeing any promising things from owner side or contractor side or whatever downstream, about any collaboration not to overuse this word or just like a working together to come to common outcomes?
Speaker 1:or common ground at the beginning, like future things that you're saying. This is getting better, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the early involvement of contractors as well as trades.
Speaker 2:I think before it was that design bid build we're gonna put out a set of let's just say that they're 95% complete IFTs and everybody's got three weeks, four weeks, six weeks to look at it, to bid it and put in a stip price. I think now you are seeing, like I said, at the top of the pod was the rise of construction management. I think it's gonna, if it hasn't already. We'll overtake design, bid, build as the number one delivery method, and that does involve a level of quote, unquote, pre-construction. So, whether it's logistics, constructability, reviews, all of that is, I think, a positive turn. So that would, I would say, is one positive area, maybe one of the few areas I can think of. So cynical and negative. No, that's not fair.
Speaker 3:But that's part of what you are doing with your own business, right Is? You are jumping in to help those navigate some of this stuff early on even Sherpa.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'm carrying the burden of people. Maybe I'm the one back at base camp telling people which way to go and watch out for this weather storm coming in Exactly yeah, You're saving people before they go up there. Yeah, and I think it's what nice about the work now that I do with the BC Construction Association is kind of being back on the good side of the force, coming back from construction, and I think you're right, I mean straddling both worlds.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. I was, I've been listening to this, I'm fascinated by this one interview and I always like to sort of bring parallels from other things that can be relative to this conversation. There's this guy who he's a divorce lawyer, like a really famous divorce lawyer, and he's have you heard this podcast?
Speaker 2:No, but I'm. This is exciting With.
Speaker 1:Lex Friedman, anyway, so it's-.
Speaker 3:Oh it was. It was on, lex yeah it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:It was recent. Yeah, it's pretty recent.
Speaker 3:It's the past couple of weeks, so I'm not in any way interested in a divorce lawyer, by the way, for the record. But he said Lex Friedman.
Speaker 1:Well, what's interesting about it is that you know, whatever the end result that creates a divorce, either it's somebody saying, hey, look, I'm done here, or it's an infidelity, or there's some event that is actually the straw that breaks the camel's back. That's not where this relationship went wrong. It was the disconnection many months, years before. That is where it went wrong. So he goes. You know, once you're at the divorce lawyer's office, it's this is done. So it's the same thing with construction when you're talking, you know drawings in detail, issue for tender, and then you've got it's all in the. What happened after? Like that's the marriage, that's the hey, this is. It's almost like that's the prenup. And then there's the.
Speaker 2:The dating is the procurement.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then the issue for construction is like we're married now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so Sign the contract. Okay, you're in it.
Speaker 1:So here we are and yet, yeah, but when we were dating, you used to do this. It's like, yeah, but we don't do that now.
Speaker 2:No, I assumed that you were gonna do the dishes. Well, why? Why would you assume that?
Speaker 1:Exactly. So this is it's very interesting where where the relationships have to get along and you don't exactly know. You kind of know what the path is, but you're not quite sure. So what's interesting is is that where all this goes wrong is how is the mini, minor missteps that people make along that journey before they get to some kind of a legal dispute or you know, you gotta bring Tim in, or whatever right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. You know what are the red flags. You know what's happening. During that that dating relationship. I've said to contractors you know, if you don't like an owner during the procurement process, while you're bidding, or during pre-construction, what do you think it's gonna be like when you get into construction? Yeah, you know. So choose wisely, and I mean I guess same thing goes for owners. You know if you're not liking what a contractor is doing and pre-construction, or in bidding.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, but I think a lot of times the things that owners get caught up on it's like well, they're asking all these questions. Great, you know what's wrong with. You know, asking a question for clarity on the documents, you know, for pushing back on those elements, like that's what you want them to do at that point.
Speaker 1:Well, there's another thing that's on top of this, another statistic that's kind of interesting, is that? So if we look at, you know what percentage of contracts end up in some kind of dispute? So, in other words, divorce. So divorce rate in the United States, latest one's 56%.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, okay, I read some interesting tweets about that actually this week.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and there's one more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep going.
Speaker 1:And he estimates that another 20% are only staying married because of kids or financial reasons, or because it's just they have to. So think of that, like. That's like 76% of people. It sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, what's your life like? I think there's some equal. I haven't seen those statistics which sounds like they just came out, but there's some other data that talks about that splits it down. You know along, you know gender lines of men and women and their satisfaction. You know where men seem to be. You know the same whether they're in a relationship or not, whereas women can be, like, profoundly more unhappy staying in a relationship that isn't serving them.
Speaker 2:But I would say I think a dispute isn't divorce. You know termination either you know for cause or on either side is probably where it goes, and I think that's the most disturbing is that most construction relationships muddle through with everyone you know disliking each other until the contract's over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a weird thing, that adversarial thing. Yeah, it's kind of common place.
Speaker 3:It is common to construction and it's funny. I always go back to like I had a job interview oh man, this is like right out of university and with a prominent general contractor who's pretty cool and I like him a lot. But I was told by the guy that was interviewing me.
Speaker 3:I said you know, construction is chaotic and there's so much adversarial I'd come from the field, basically, and they've gone through school, so that's kind of my perspective of construction and I said, you know, I believe maybe I was just trying to say the words at the time. This is a long time, 15 years ago. I was like, I believe, you know, construction doesn't have to be as chaotic or adversarial as it is. He's like kid, you're dreaming.
Speaker 2:Tend to agree with them.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah. And it's like we have this conversation now about what are the bright spots. You see, you know, what do you kind of see? And it's the very nature of construction and we talk about this all the time too is you're getting so many different entities together that do things differently. You can't do that peacefully, it's impossible.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:You know, maybe there's ways of doing it more cohesively. And again, collaboratively. Maybe because if people understand that like everyone's outcome at the end of this, you know everyone should be able to be making money as a contractor or whatever, like, okay, like, otherwise it's. You know, it's just the same old, same old, you know.
Speaker 1:And then I don't bring some new tech into it at some point We've always talked about the fact that there's a spectrum of the people that are showing up to build something, a spectrum of happiness. There are people that came from a construction family. It was their dream to start sub trade business. They're living the life. They got the wakeboard boat at the lake. You know they built their home. They love it. You know they go fishing.
Speaker 1:They do their thing right. And then you've got the people that oops, the people that are constantly moving around, going from one to the next, that are in a life circumstance that are taking jobs that they have to take yeah, because they have to get work and that's what they know how to do. So you have a spectrum of happiness that shows up at a job site. It would be the same as if you had a spectrum of happiness at any other kind of a business, like you look at in technology, where people are at Google and all that, and it ever seems like just fairytale everywhere. Well, it is cause they all went. No one had to take that job, for they were all pre-selected and pre-dated and pre. You know what I mean? It was all.
Speaker 1:It was this different thing, so this is probably why the adversarial element is a contagion that comes from parts of dissatisfaction of people's lives and how they feel at that time.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've seen jobs that when the owner's project manager let's call it the owner's rep in house, that part doesn't matter. He's going through a divorce, so he shows up to site to every single meeting, like you know.
Speaker 1:Grumpy bear, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:What's that going to do? I do think that projects, they don't fail because of one party. It takes a team for a project to go well. It takes a team for a project to not go well. But I think back to the point of why is construction so adversarial? I would, really I would put forth that if everybody's making money and an owner's hitting their budget, and if a developer's making money as well, I would love to you know, show me a project that went sideways there. I really, I think that's such the lynchpin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just the cash. Yeah, yeah and I go, yeah.
Speaker 2:Not just the cash, but it's no but everyone's making money.
Speaker 1:It doesn't. No one feels undermined and they just feel like it was an even trade. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again and now, as I'm hearing you guys talk about, and I did say like it'd be great if everyone could have an outcome that is beneficial. It's just maybe it is not reality. It really takes a special even there's no names to name, but you know that when you have a great general contractor, they navigate adversarial relationships differently than another general contractor where you know those same relationships are going to be rocky at times. But one navigates them differently and an outcome becomes different than another. Yeah, I think it's across the board. It probably is impossible for every single contractor of all of a sudden you're like well, we now use this contract which makes it so fair for everybody and everyone's gonna do well. You'll never be able to get documentation or a process that does that, but you will get different companies that have different outcomes because of the way they run top to bottom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think you know they probably are the ones that are more selective of what projects they go after you know that are making sure that they're making six, eight, you know, 15%, you know, of whatever they well, I mean trade contractors. A lot of them should be up there.
Speaker 3:Trade contractors yes, yeah, yeah, certainly not a GC. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know, you think all too often. You know you see contractors, GCs, that are going in at a stated profit of you know 2.75, three, three and a half. I mean that's crazy. And I say stated. I think in the background there you know going for more but I don't know if it matters so much about who the GC is or the trade other than that specific person. You know that super, or you know project manager. You know whatever it comes down to that person and how you know they're going to approach situations.
Speaker 3:Yep, most critical person or people, definitely super and then PM, right In terms of those that have their eyes and the nitty gritty details every day. Yeah, they can keep a project on the rails or allow it to go quickly off, no doubt for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had one situation where it was an owner. We submitted a proposal for a project and, you know, named a PM that's what everybody wants to know, like who your PM and super are and they called and said if this person is going to be on this project, this PM is truly the PM, the job's yours, otherwise I'm going to talk to somebody else. So, like, those people matter for sure and I mean I think the same thing. You know projects are going to go sideways. You know, switch out key personnel. You know switch out the super. That is that is the one of the most dangerous moments you know on a project.
Speaker 3:You know, I was talking to a customer yesterday just catching up and they were navigating something similar as well and it was like they had a superintendent, something happened, they were removed off of a project or whatever, and it's like it was a critical job, it was a big job, but it's like everything stopped in the company until they had the right competent, capable superintendent replaced on that particular job. So they said you know what I'm good today, but if you asked me three days ago I would have said everything was in complete chaos. But then they got that turned back around and they had that person come back in and like like I'm so and it's like there's one guy or person and it was like but yeah, that's how critical it is.
Speaker 3:So, yes, in terms of like even this whole conversation, and maybe we can even say like is there enough great people out there that are even in the construction world in the critical roles, or is are we deficient of? You know again, and we always talk labor shortage that transcends construction, but is there just of the right people that are coming in? And again, this the example of this customer. They found them from within as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, awesome.
Speaker 3:They didn't have to go out and, like you know which is cool, they brought somebody up.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, we have a shortage of two things. We have an actual headcount shortage and we have a hustle shortage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you mean by hustle People?
Speaker 1:don't hustle, like if you're gonna bring new people into construction, we're like, oh, I've never really thought about construction and they realized you actually have to hustle to be in that business. You have to do a good job. You have to like you know there are certain like in jobs that don't have a physical or, or I should say, a obvious progress that's right in front of you. So let's say, you're working on it, it's only rebar. If you're doing rebar, you can basically see at the end of the day, well, it's complete. Okay. So there's a very binary, whether or not you did it or not. In order for you to meet that, that's obviously part of the waterfall of an entire schedule. So that has to be done. You have to have hustle within you to get that done.
Speaker 1:You can't just like slack off you can't so, but we have a culture now which people don't really want to work hard in general.
Speaker 2:But I'm going to push back a little bit on that because I think that's-.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying in construction, I'm talking about everywhere else.
Speaker 2:I know. But it's one of those generational things where everybody I mean I certainly look at Gen Z and it's like how hard are you working? I'm sure previous generations looked at Gen X and said I think part of that's coming from an age perspective where you look back and you think the younger generation is in this, I agree.
Speaker 1:but the internet changed at all. It is tailing off.
Speaker 2:Well, I think certainly construction shows. I don't know if you're going in that direction of the productivity gap in construction versus everything else.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, I'll give you an example of my daughter realizes it in this in her own age group.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:She's like they're all slacks, they don't want to do anything, they just want to vape all the time. It's just ridiculous. She goes. Nobody wants to earn any achievement at all.
Speaker 2:Well, I think also, if you're living to 90 versus 70, 30 years ago, why do you have to be a functioning member of society when you're 20? What if we've just shifted everything 10 years, so by the time they're-.
Speaker 3:It takes things more seriously later in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like 30s is the new 20, but including from a career perspective, because you know that you have 15, likely 20 more years of living than somebody did 40 years ago or something, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm putting that out as like no, I like it.
Speaker 3:We're getting into the weeds on-.
Speaker 1:No, this is good because but the question is even if this is pushed on, does that change a construction schedule? What do you mean? Even if we accept a paradigm that okay, yeah, they are 30s and the new 20s, we need people in their 20s to come into construction, because that's where we're all going.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Then we're still screwed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, time on site is money.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, if there's not the productivity there of, I guess, people working hard, yeah, there is definitely-.
Speaker 1:There's another thing to throw out. I think this is an interesting thing is that there is the power dynamics of the world in general and relationships between we're seeing something now. This is really in the weeds Get your goggles on, because this is going to be good.
Speaker 3:Get the weed wacker. Are we underwater? No, underwater, this is like in the swamp.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So we now have a. There is the rise of the managerial class, which is the majority of people. It used to be like this a small percentage of people that have all the power. Now those people want to live their life and do their thing and they need the managerial class to manage all of the stuff that they own.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So this is a and to keep the engine running. Okay, when those people, like you, know what. I don't really want to do this for you anymore because I'm not getting treated a certain way. Now. This rise of the managerial class is more powerful than because the top needs that workforce to keep doing what they're doing. So just bookmark that and pin that just for a second. So you take that and then you go. Okay, so you have a power dynamic that is changing in the world in general in terms of and COVID did this to us- as well.
Speaker 1:It made everybody feel that they should just be able to not work and still get paid, and it's created weird behaviors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we also.
Speaker 1:You guys see where you're going with this, and now we're also this a certain segment of the people who don't trust government now because they, you know, seemingly didn't handle things well. Some people can call them deception. Other people go as extreme and call them lies. It wasn't done well. Everywhere in the world it's just a huge mess.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well nobody knew what they were doing. It's not like we have a pandemic every five years to go and manage Exactly. I just say I think what's most wild is, you know, we talk, we say like, oh, in the pandemic or before the pandemic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But like nobody's really, I don't think as a society have we dealt with the collective trauma of having gone through that I very much see.
Speaker 1:You know the same thing like yeah, in 1918, 1919,.
Speaker 2:You know it's the same thing. It's going to be a paragraph in a history book which is what I remember from learning about. You know the.
Speaker 1:Spanish flu, which is the Spanish flu, yeah, and the plague and all. Yeah, black plague, was it Spanish and the black plague the? So now, when, when, when you're on a job site, there is a significant hierarchy that has to stay in place, otherwise people get hurt, stuff doesn't get done. It is a different lay. You can't be as soft and as unstructured and bitchy and all that.
Speaker 2:As the rest of the world is you can't do that, so on a job site.
Speaker 1:It's got to be a certain way. So what I find interesting is that, as you said earlier, you know it's multiple companies showing up to do business at one place. If you have a field worker from sub trade A, and then the developer owner, who is paying for the entire project, comes and does a site visit, site visit, boom. Does that field worker understand that? That is the hand that feeds, do they like? Oh, yeah, so, and so is here.
Speaker 1:I mean in other places in the world. It'd be like, oh, this person's coming to site everyone best behavior, blah, blah, it's all, it's all like this. But I don't think that that person even has any idea who is actually putting the food on the table.
Speaker 2:Well, there are, you know, eight steps removed, potentially.
Speaker 1:I get it, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2:But don't you think that's one of the maybe again making this a conversation of? Isn't that maybe one of the beautiful things about construction? That yes, there is a hierarchy, but there's also a certain level of you're also just a dude. Do that, whatever. Coming onto a construction site, I've got my job to do. To use your example of every bar, you know that's what I'm doing today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't care that the guy in the the clean, pristine white hard hats coming on.
Speaker 1:But okay, my okay, okay. You're totally right. So my question to you is is there any contempt from that person to that person? I want that, I want. I don't want stickers all over my heart. I actually want to be the person who comes on and shows up in a big FTV and is like, oh, this is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the BMW or whatever, yeah Do you think that there is a you know we're getting. How about this, how about this? So there is a situation with the GC via the developer and now that sub trade has had instructions from that morning from their foreman, that's like okay, guys, we've got some stuff happened the other day. We had some mistakes. We got to clean this up. We really need to like hustle right now. And then the site visit guy shows up with the you know white hard hat.
Speaker 2:Is that person like?
Speaker 1:oh, thanks a lot. It's all his fault, her fault. Do you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean I'll say I genuinely don't know. I mean I am one of those people that come, you know, from the office scenario. So for me to even remotely try to speak for the boots on the ground person, I'm not going to wait into that, but I do think you know it's the original sin of construction is that divide between the you know, the site worker versus the office worker.
Speaker 1:The reason I say this is because I really, you know, in our company having a field management application like we have, it is our mandate over the next number of years to give the field person the best experience possible.
Speaker 1:And then it's not just gonna be about using an application. This is about making them feel like something was built for them, they have some benefits from that and that there is an ally on their side, because I get the feeling that it feels like every besides, like the company barbecue that they come to once in a while and they get a free t-shirt and they get a hot dog and it's like it's all they get right.
Speaker 2:They're very much disconnected, I think, from the larger, and I don't think they should be, because they're so critical.
Speaker 1:And you know, that's why I, you know, to identify whether or not that is actually happening on a job site or not is critical in order to have a prescription for change. So if we all were like, yeah, you know, a lot of people are just kind of, you know, 50% of people show up kind of pissed off every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like how do we make them less pissed off and super jacked about what they're doing? Maybe they just need to feel a little bit more appreciated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, sorry, as you're saying, that, you know, is part of that disconnect, because they're hourly and if that, when that job ends, if there's not immediately something for them to go, do you know they're laid off. I don't know how you can stay super connected to a company and entity and feel you know, loved and valued, if in the back of your mind, you know. So. I mean, is it turn everybody's salary? I have absolutely no idea. Again, this is just a conversation that we're all having. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's all it is. Don't worry, we're not creating treaties here Contracts, writing it down.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I think, to kind of tidy it up and bring it all together.
Speaker 1:Was it messy?
Speaker 3:No, no, it wasn't. I mean, we were just unpacking a lot of different things there and I think it's good not cutting it off, because you bring a lot. There's a lot of things that are brought to light. The job site is. It's tricky, right. There's a lot of moving parts. People are there for different reasons. James, you say it a lot, you know, sometimes people just are at a certain stage of life and they need to get out there and that's the job they have. It's true, it is true, and there's, like you said, there can be a lot of disconnection in that no one's connecting the dots to the guy in the suit when they're out there just needing to get an hourly wage.
Speaker 1:But that person's still getting up early in the morning, showing up at site doing their thing. Yeah, and you know there has to be some added added in a matter of respect for somebody who is actually when things are difficult, they're still doing it.
Speaker 3:Right, you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean yeah, yeah, other people just curl up under a blanket and don't get out of bed, right?
Speaker 3:Oh well, yeah, I mean that's like showing up and doing anything I got to provide for myself or somebody else Like yeah, and they're getting up, of course, of course, like that, there's an element of respect there.
Speaker 3:But even to just say that these people that show up and they're disgruntled for whatever other reasons, of the macro issues that are happening around the world, or guys going through, or gals going through a divorce or something who knows they show up with their various amounts of for lack of a better word baggage or difficulties that they're bringing into, it just makes it tricky and when you got so many bodies and so many different companies coming together, it's hurting cats.
Speaker 3:The job site is a crazy place and it's difficult, I think, having these kinds of conversations and looking to bring in younger generation, cause I don't think overall productivity goes in an upward direction If you're just saying the amount of people taking their work seriously is just shifting up in the age group because they're getting older and less able to. I'm not, I'm not steroid, I mean. I don't think. I think there's a. There's a productivity age in your physical, work and mental work in your career.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't think it happens when you're in your 60s, 70s and 80s.
Speaker 2:Unless you're Joe Biden.
Speaker 3:Unless you're, joe Biden. Crushing it, oh, just crushing it. Oh yeah, we won't get into that. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I was like, sorry, I was like, do I mention?
Speaker 3:it no, no, no, no, it's all good.
Speaker 1:But who do you want to get in? Just kidding.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, either somebody younger, and I just blissfully am unaware of it, you guys can cut this afterwards, Like why do you think I'm in Mexico? World's going to hell in a hand basket.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna sit on the beach. I had a friend of mine do that. He's like you know Canada's toast I'm, and he just moved. He's like bought a house in Mexico and is like I'm out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a lot of the Americans that I met, like that's, that's exactly it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Or just you know, like nope, well, canadians are doing it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Canadians are shifting for their, because everyone okay, everyone. I mean we don't have to go into the weeds on this one. You know the political conversation, but I mean it is the macro and it's affecting everybody. Covid became a political thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're seeing your weather change from whatever you believe. That's the reason. You know people are seeing that. They're feeling it Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And then they go. I'm not comfortable here anymore. I am moving. People are physically getting up and moving to different parts of the US or different parts of Canada or different parts of the world, because they're feeling a certain way. Anyway, that does affect. You know how things go in construction in one way or another.
Speaker 1:But I got a question, though what? Do you think of Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta.
Speaker 2:I know no comment we are. I feel bad. I opened this whole line of thinking.
Speaker 1:Okay. Do you know much about her or not?
Speaker 2:I mean I follow it when it pops up in the news because she seems to do things that get her.
Speaker 1:In trouble.
Speaker 2:No, I was gonna say like front and center.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see.
Speaker 2:Above the fold, as it were.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The mainstream media makes a fuss.
Speaker 2:I'll say I worked in politics when I was quite young, you know I think it was 23 to 27 before I got into construction. So my level of cynicism for politics is exceedingly high.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little bit there.
Speaker 3:Both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Politics is a popularity contest. It's just messy and to your point, like there is a lot of like there again, whether data or statistics are actually real, what the heck is real anymore? You get so much nonsense being tossed around but it's everywhere it's coming from.
Speaker 2:you know not, and everybody is not getting their news from Walter Cronkite.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, but it's tolis plunder, but it's politics it's, corporations it's.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to get literally. It's anything. It's anything you go and where your grocery is from, everything could be affecting you and how you feel and where you shop and where you buy and what you're doing, which is like I don't know if that's a climate that we've ever not weather climate, but temperature of socioeconomic climate.
Speaker 1:I got four potatoes the other day and it was $6.50.
Speaker 2:Shut up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, yeah, six bucks.
Speaker 2:Six bucks for four potatoes.
Speaker 3:So now James moves out to the Fraser Valley and starts to grow his own potatoes.
Speaker 1:No, he doesn't Okay.
Speaker 3:Well.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was gonna say just back to put a-.
Speaker 3:It's example. People would probably do it, though.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sure I mean we could bring that into I guess just people's wages generally is have they inflated enough to cover? Six dollars potatoes for four potatoes. But I was gonna say just to end it off with politics is I really think wanting to be in politics should be disqualifying If you wanna run as a politician in an election, that's disqualifying Right away. That's a red flag.
Speaker 3:Career politicians.
Speaker 2:Oh my God Career politicians are the problem. Yeah, I'm nodding, that may not come through on the-.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Again, it's disqualifying If you don't have any other lived experience other than maybe starting off as a staffer and working your way through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It is a good place to tidy it up because there's a lot to go on there, but this has been a really thorough deep dive into your world, but also just the construction world in general.
Speaker 1:We need martinis next time.
Speaker 2:I think we really can end it you guys are like a little bit of teasers about that. We talked about wine last time and-.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, next time, I know, next time we're I didn't book the time.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I don't even know how it got to. 9 am Honestly like okay, anyway, we will do an afternoon one. Regina will come.
Speaker 1:We'll do around 2.5.
Speaker 3:We'll get it done, but you're not off the hook because we're doing rapid fire round of questions here to tidy things up. How's that sound?
Speaker 2:That's good, excellent.
Speaker 3:Get right into it. What is something that you do that someone else would think is insane?
Speaker 2:This is the one I struggled the most with, Probably maybe not so much in construction, but you know, kind of a 5 am wake up, yeah, that's ideal. When I was in construction, I mean the ops manager, general super, and I used to have a standing meeting at 5.30 in the morning. Doesn't both be up then, yeah.
Speaker 3:I was at the thing with construction. I mean, you were at work at 5? No, because, like.
Speaker 2:It's typically sitting on my couch with my laptop for two hours before going to the office and then doing more. Coffee. Oh yeah, okay. That's the only reason I get out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 3:Nice. How many cups? A sprux of drip, drip. How many cups?
Speaker 2:Oh, not many Like maybe two max. Otherwise I'm jittery all day yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good. Early morning is a common answer. If you weren't doing what you're doing right now okay, you're helping. You're navigating the collaboration conversation in construction procurement what would you be doing? Non-construction related what would you be doing?
Speaker 2:Definitely still working for myself and having control over my own day and my own time, but sitting on a beach, maybe running a Tiki bar?
Speaker 1:that consisted of you could be good at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean pouring drinks out of a cooler. I mean, that's probably it, like I think I've always come off as somebody who works a lot. Can't put it down, da-da-da-da-da, I am shockingly good at doing nothing.
Speaker 3:That's a thing these days, because people go crazy when they're not doing something, and then they develop all sorts of TikTok addictions and stuff like that. Anyway, all right. Last one we're the site visit construction podcast. You come from the GC world and now in the consulting world. What is your most memorable story from the job site or from a past project?
Speaker 2:We didn't touch much on the role of consultants and architects in our industry. I mean, I'll go off about the quality of documents and that's not a reflection of them, but the tensions in our industry and labor shortages, all that, the pressure to get to construction. But for me it was a project I was involved in doing affordable social housing, huge ramp up of pre-construction. So we get on site. We've got the politicians there doing their sod turning and the architect leans over to me and says we're out of our fee and I went.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I thought I misheard. I just I said what are you what? Sorry, what? And they said, yeah, we don't have any fee left in this project, so they're done Like they're. Everything else that they're doing is for free and costing the money. And you know, yeah, and I think back to what we talked about today of, like the bad word of profit, you know, everybody needs to make money in this industry and I mean I felt for them. I think we might have been in the same boat. I can't imagine that. The trades probably fared too much better. But yeah, I think I'll end it there. That one stands out to me the most we're out of fee.
Speaker 3:How did the rest of that project go?
Speaker 2:I think everybody got out of it. You know, I think that's the most important thing. But if you're talking about consultants, I mean how much you know faster are they gonna review shop drawings when they know they're not getting paid for it?
Speaker 1:essentially, oh yeah, that was nice. That's a good one. When you heard that were you like the camera's still going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was, I-.
Speaker 1:Was it a whisper?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're completely out of fee. And I it was like I didn't know what to say. I mean construction hadn't started. I mean, yes, design, you know that's design done, but they had still had to do contracted men.
Speaker 3:Oh man. Well, never shorter surprises construction, especially when it comes to contracts and trades and getting projects off the ground. This is a good conversation and I think it's gonna be. It's full of content that's gonna be super useful to our audience and hopefully to yours, and you can share this, but definitely have to do another round and get Regina back in here. And, of course, some wine.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Perfect, you get that in writing.
Speaker 2:We're gonna get a contract. Well, it's on recorded.
Speaker 1:I know why he likes to do it a lot, and I know you do too, but it's like for some reason, you know I was like, oh yeah, that podcast, it's at nine o'clock in the morning, yeah.
Speaker 3:I was offered bubbly. This is gonna be a day you were next time it'll be real, but thanks, katie, for joining us.
Speaker 1:Well, that does it for another episode of the site visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building. Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.