Bids are due today for a building I was thrown into. I joined my firm this past October and the drawings for this building were about 35% complete. I lead a team to complete the drawings by December in order for the bids to be due by the end of January. Due to some site work issues, we delayed the bid due date to today. This is a dysfunctional team and a dysfunctional project. The budget is $7M and I am not hopeful that we'll hit that number today.
For those who don't know the design & construction process, the Architects, Engineers and other designers design the building and its systems and then produce drawings and specifications to tell the building contractors how to build it. The traditional method is called "design-bid-build" in that the Architect's team designs it, a group of contractors prepare bids or the amount of money each requires to build the building, and then the firm requiring the lowest amount of money gets to build the building for that amount. That's how this project will be delivered, so the bids are due today.
I love bid openings because of what contractors put themselves through. I began my career in Mississippi, where all projects with public funding are administered by the State Bureau of Buildings. Their offices are in the big State office building in downtown Jackson, the capitol. Regardless of where the project is to be built, bids are recieved and opened in Jackson.
To get to the Bureau's offices, you stepped off the elevators into a large lobby. At one end of the lobby is a pair of dark-stained wooden doors with no windows. Those lead into the Bureau's reception area. The bids are due at 2:00 PM precisely on either a Tuesday or a Thursday, never any other day or at any other time. Bid are delivered to the reception desk where they are date & time stamped. Off to one side is the large conference room where the bids are publicly opened.
I frequently attended the bid openings and enjoyed one for a project with an $8M budget. On this bid day, a particular contractor that my boss knew well had sent his son to the bid opening. His son, probably just under 30 years old at the time, was learning the ropes from his old man. As my boss & I got off the elevator, the son was in a corner of the elevator lobby having a heated conversation with the father via cell phone. Finally, he put the phone down, walked over and asked us the budget for the job. My boss played his hand by saying "7 and 1/2 million." The kid gets back on the phone & relays this information. Instantly, he starts yelling, "NO! I'm NOT going to f-ing do that!" This exchange goes on for several minutes with several other profanities as 2:00 PM approached. Finally, the kid writes something on the bid form, seals the envelope & turns it in. When the bids are opened, his price was $7,100,000 and he wasn't even the low bidder!
