Real life. How government kills business.

[Bob the Citronaut]

So I have a relaxing day set up for one our crews today after they worked their ass off yesterday and got ahead on the schedule.

Crew starts their day at 6am to be on site at 7 to finish the few small odds and ends and dig one footer before the county inspector shows up at his scheduled time between 11 and 1. They have a 2-4 hour leeway in case something goes wrong. The crew worked their ass off yesterday because today needed to go smoothly to pour concrete in the afternoon since the GC has the parking lot being paved tomorrow and we won't be able to get back in for 5-7 days.

Something goes wrong #1:
DOT pulls the truck over at 6:50am, literally three miles from the jobsite. They spend two hours going over everything on the truck and trailer that are both already certified for 2017, not to mention this same truck was pulled over by DOT in November. Crew gets underway again at 9am. Not a killer but it puts the guys under a little pressure.
Company Loss - $250

Something goes wrong #2:
County inspector decides to show up to the jobsite at 8:45, without notice, instead of after 11am like he scheduled. Fails five inspections because the crew hadn't been to site yet to finish the few things they would have had finished if DOT hadn't wasted their time.
Company Loss for Red Tags - $210
I'm sure the five minutes the inspector spent on site is worth $210...

Something goes wrong #3:
Crew arrives at jobsite to find that the inspector had already been there. Inspector refuses to work with us and come back later in the day. He's too busy and is not obligated to go by the schedule he set. So there is no sense in digging the last footer and letting it sit open until Monday. The other four footers will be caved in as well from all the equipment running around the property doing the asphalt tomorrow. I also cancel the concrete delivery we had on will call. Tell the crew that the fuking government sucks and to come back in, what a fuking waste of a day.
Company Loss for Travel To and From Jobsite - $250
Company Loss to Redig Four Footers - $500
Concrete Company Loss for Cancellation - ???
Employee Lost Pay for Missing 5-6 Hours with most being OT since Tuesday is the end of the pay period - $230

TLDR, government interference and ineptitude costs...
Company - $1210
Employees - $230
Concrete Company - Our bill would have been about $800 so if they couldn't rebook that was lost revenue for them.

Total Loss Caused by Government on ONE SMALL CONSTRUCTION JOB in one day - $2240

And this type of bullshit with inspectors and DOT is not rare. We price it in and the customer is paying for it. I can't imagine why prices for everything are so high...

 

[Sir Galahad]

But they are protecting us.

 

[CommuterBob]

Your fault for scheduling the inspector to come by on the day you were to finish the work. 2-4 hours is hardly enough contingency and you know they don't keep their scheduled times.

 

[Bob the Citronaut]

Not at all. We can only schedule footer inspections on the same day as finishing and pouring. A lot of inspectors understand that. With the water table in Florida we can't dig below 4-5 feet and expect the footer to last more than a day or two without it collapsing and caving in.

According to your expertise we should hire a company out of JAX that can drive steel culverts into the ground at $3000 a day instead of just having inspectors follow their schedule that's set up days in advance. Lol...

 

[UCF11and1]

1. Since they did 4 footers yesterday, they should have done the 5th footer too and be ready for inspection. Same for the other "minor" stuff
2. You can't claim the money "lost" by employees. Now they'll get the $500 to re-dig the footers
3. Concrete company: I don't think they lost any money and they'll get the $800 on Monday.
Since you priced it in, the company didn't lose any money

 

[cnsaguy]

Something goes wrong #1:
DOT pulls the truck over at 6:50am, literally three miles from the jobsite. They spend two hours going over everything on the truck and trailer that are both already certified for 2017, not to mention this same truck was pulled over by DOT in November. Crew gets underway again at 9am. Not a killer but it puts the guys under a little pressure.
Company Loss - $250

Buddy of mine has a steel business and purposely doesn't travel highways because of this. Says DOT is a PITA.

 

[Bob the Citronaut]

1. Since they did 4 footers yesterday, they should have done the 5th footer too and be ready for inspection. Same for the other "minor" stuff
2. You can't claim the money "lost" by employees. Now they'll get the $500 to re-dig the footers
3. Concrete company: I don't think they lost any money and they'll get the $800 on Monday.
Since you priced it in, the company didn't lose any money

The last footer couldn't be left open over night. With the high water table it would have caved in and been nothing more than a swimming pool by morning.

The employees lost that money. Instead of working a full day they worked half.

The concrete company lost that revenue if they weren't able to rebook. It was a lost opportunity for them. They'll still get our money but they could have made more if they had another customer in our slot.

 

[KingDavid]

Buddy of mine has a steel business and purposely doesn't travel highways because of this. Says DOT is a PITA.

...and racists as hell. We have a driver that drives one of our box trucks (with our company name on the box, mine you) to the Kissimmee area via the turnpike every day and gets pulled over by the DOT/FHP (they're the same thing now) about once a month. He's Hispanic. We have another driver who is also Hispanic that drives our flatbed forklift truck and covers the three county area. He gets pulled over at a similar frequency. Our other drivers are all white and only get pulled over once or twice a year.

 

[fabknight]

...and racists as hell. We have a driver that drives one of our box trucks (with our company name on the box, mine you) to the Kissimmee area via the turnpike every day and gets pulled over by the DOT/FHP (they're the same thing now) about once a month. He's Hispanic. We have another driver who is also Hispanic that drives our flatbed forklift truck and covers the three county area. He gets pulled over at a similar frequency. Our other drivers are all white and only get pulled over once or twice a year.

It's not racism, it's profiling. If hispanics didn't illegally enter the USA to join gangs, sell drugs, or murder and rape our citizens it wouldn't be an issue. What's on the side of your box truck, "Farm Fresh Produce"?

 

[UCFRogerz]

It's not racism, it's profiling. If hispanics didn't illegally enter the USA to join gangs, sell drugs, or murder and rape our citizens it wouldn't be an issue. What's on the side of your box truck, "Farm Fresh Produce"?

"No Mexicans Inside. Honest."

 

[cnsaguy]

I have a white guy that drives our box truck and never gets pulled over. Maybe you're on to something...

 

[Bob the Citronaut]

We only have white guys driving our trucks. They get pulled over/stopped at weigh stations 6-7 times a year.

 

[chemmie]

Lol. Blaming others because you couldn't pass inspection. Nice work, snowflake. You cost the company. You should be canned.

 

[KnighttimeJoe]

Lol. Blaming others because you couldn't pass inspection. Nice work, snowflake. You cost the company. You should be canned.

Pretty much this. If you don't like your job, quit. No one is forcing you to work there. Maybe if you spent as much time trying to do ur job as you do on here bitching and moaning about liberals, Obama, and defending every last thing that the orange raccoon does, this wouldn't have happened. Quit wasting your family's time and $$$$.

 

[CommuterBob]

If shady contractors weren't trying to fleece customers and do shoddy work, we wouldn't need inspectors. If shady contractors would take care of their equipment instead of having it fly all over the roads or break down causing traffic jams, we wouldn't need FHP to inspect commercial vehicles.

 

[fabknight]

If you didn't pull permits, you wouldn't have to worry about inspections. That's what I do and I've never had a problem.

 

[cnsaguy]

If you didn't pull permits, you wouldn't have to worry about inspections. That's what I do and I've never had a problem.

Great, now you will be putting the person that doesn't pick up you phone call or return emails out of a job. Way to go.

 

[fabknight]

Great, now you will be putting the person that doesn't pick up you phone call or return emails out of a job. Way to go.

Probably an illegal anyway.

 

[UCFhonors]

So I have a relaxing day set up for one our crews today after they worked their ass off yesterday and got ahead on the schedule.

Crew starts their day at 6am to be on site at 7 to finish the few small odds and ends and dig one footer before the county inspector shows up at his scheduled time between 11 and 1. They have a 2-4 hour leeway in case something goes wrong. The crew worked their ass off yesterday because today needed to go smoothly to pour concrete in the afternoon since the GC has the parking lot being paved tomorrow and we won't be able to get back in for 5-7 days.

Something goes wrong #1:
DOT pulls the truck over at 6:50am, literally three miles from the jobsite. They spend two hours going over everything on the truck and trailer that are both already certified for 2017, not to mention this same truck was pulled over by DOT in November. Crew gets underway again at 9am. Not a killer but it puts the guys under a little pressure.
Company Loss - $250

Something goes wrong #2:
County inspector decides to show up to the jobsite at 8:45, without notice, instead of after 11am like he scheduled. Fails five inspections because the crew hadn't been to site yet to finish the few things they would have had finished if DOT hadn't wasted their time.
Company Loss for Red Tags - $210
I'm sure the five minutes the inspector spent on site is worth $210...

Something goes wrong #3:
Crew arrives at jobsite to find that the inspector had already been there. Inspector refuses to work with us and come back later in the day. He's too busy and is not obligated to go by the schedule he set. So there is no sense in digging the last footer and letting it sit open until Monday. The other four footers will be caved in as well from all the equipment running around the property doing the asphalt tomorrow. I also cancel the concrete delivery we had on will call. Tell the crew that the fuking government sucks and to come back in, what a fuking waste of a day.
Company Loss for Travel To and From Jobsite - $250
Company Loss to Redig Four Footers - $500
Concrete Company Loss for Cancellation - ???
Employee Lost Pay for Missing 5-6 Hours with most being OT since Tuesday is the end of the pay period - $230

TLDR, government interference and ineptitude costs...
Company - $1210
Employees - $230
Concrete Company - Our bill would have been about $800 so if they couldn't rebook that was lost revenue for them.

Total Loss Caused by Government on ONE SMALL CONSTRUCTION JOB in one day - $2240

And this type of bullshit with inspectors and DOT is not rare. We price it in and the customer is paying for it. I can't imagine why prices for everything are so high...

If there was only a political party who understood this... well there is one. It's called the Libertarian Party.

But I feel your pain and you make an excellent point.

If people would step back and think, I believe they would realize that increasing pay is every hard to do. But reducing the cost of living is easy and naturally happens in free markets. The only thing stopping that is government regulations.

See the prices of good and services that are not government regulated go down in prices - deflationary. Government regulated goods and services seem to always go up in price and YET some people think that is a GOOD thing like with housing.

We need a complete overhaul of what type of economics we teach. So don't feel bad for once being a socialist. You were taught that way. We all were.

 

[Great2BAKnight2]

Exhibit A on government interference in business is the Auto Sales industry. Local laws everywhere protect the dealers from competition (i.e. only one car dealer of a particular make for a territory). The car manufacturer can't even close a dealership without cause, even if the area could no longer support a dealership (due to population shifts or change in demand).

This leads to less competition, higher prices, and a dealer that has no reason to provide good customer service. All in an effort to protect jobs.