4 years the office went through a bunch of hoops to get "qualified" to be a surveyor for a bunch of government projects. The company requesting this qualification process/audit was going after some work on small projects but there were a bunch of them.
Anyway, not sure how many hours went into this process but I'll say 15-20.
It was a big back and forth and finally all was well.
So a couple of days ago get a call from a guy with that company. He was really happy to inform me that they had done 2m worth of work for these little jobs around the region and we needed to sign back up so all of it could continue. Great!!!!
Except we never did a dime of work with them.
Anyway, not sure how many hours went into this process but I'll say 15-20.
Except we never did a dime of work with them.
At least you got paid for the 20 hours...
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I'm not certain that is so. Usually these application processes are unbillable.
Except we never did a dime of work with them.
Obviously it is time for a heart to heart talk.
Hate to say how many hours on 254 and 255 forms. Good work then engineering firm lost their contract. Tough battle with all of that. Always knew the money was there but 2nd mortgage or whatever to get work done.
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If you didn't have it there already, maybe now is the time to get a contract whereby if they get the work, you get a least a certain minimum percentage of it (or a percentage of their winnings).
I was only involved on the very edges of the original proposal, circ 2016. I found the file and OMG. Not exactly sure how many hours went into that thing but it must approach the time to put together the DOT audit.
Anyway, we did lots of work with that firm, but they got bigger, had a name change when they merged with another company, work dwindled. I went back and see the last real job number is 2014. Probably time to move on from them.
I am about to find out how valuable my signature is. Probably not all that valuable.
With multi-year IDIQ contracts, knowing how to manage contracts is more important than knowing how to manage projects.
We went through the process for this mess, then in 2018 had to do it again for more proposals, they only awarded two of the jobs. They both went to local firms and the big job which was local was shelved cause all the bids were "way too high". The annoying thing is that after filling out all the info, forms, ect in 2016 they couldn't use any of that because the new forms were different or something.
I'm taking a different tact, work is coming in, I'm done with overhead that is onerous, just going to take care of my clients that need my help and anyone asking for bids will need to step up and pay or no thanks.
If you can keep your hopper full on that basis then I can certainly understand an unwillingness to participate in the public works grinder.
The public works project process is difficult but once you get the mill going it can be lucrative. They find breaking in a new consultant as irritating as you do.
I've noticed that the only ones that are in the position to ask for a bid on their projects are also the ones that are in the position to be able to pay whatever it costs to get the project completed.
My first comment after anyone asks for a bid is that "I don't bid for work", here is my number for you to put in your budget for the surveying.
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