What happens on site when the project manager and site manager are both away?

No one asked me to be on site at that hour. It 6am. Was the cA on builderside for a commercial builder in newstead, brisbane. The pM for that project was interstate. I was just the cA. I was just the paperwork guy, right? It was not my obligation to do this but I knew that if I didn't step up to it something would go wrong and that something be a delay that affects both us as the builder the subbie costs them money so it delays our project program it costs the subbie money and overall wastes everybody's time for an issue that didn't have to occur.

Was friday afternoon the site manager told me he was going to fiji I believe it was at the time the site manager was going to adelaide for a project we had going on in adelaide that left me with this project which was fortunately just down the road from our office in newstead realized I was the only real guy who could have managed site or just filled in that gap I knew these two people the two core project I guess you'd say, managers more so, going to be gone.

But no one had decided was going to be managing site in their absence, was going to be covering all those little gaps that guess they didn't pick up or delegate to they were gone. So I just realised, okay, look, didn't happen, this didn't happen, that didn't happen. One of the core things was that next monday morning was that the roofer had some of his roofing scope to do to finish his last portion we hit pC practical completion was going to be on site monday morning 6am I remember the site manager telling me no one's arranged for this guy to have access it was to a different section of the site yes there was a key code which he could have used to get into the actual site itself there was no access arranged for him to with the landlord of that site there was was

a weird little section of the project where he needed special access and sort of between a few different stakeholders including us the builder for what he needs to do the landlord of that neighboring property we had to coordinate that but no one had coordinated anything I was like ran through the chain in my head over the weekend I was thinking about a bit it wasn't really of my priority list it came monday morning and I was laying in bed at like 5am my alarm had gone off I just realized I didn't get up and access for that roof up I just pictured getting annoyed no one wants an angry subbie on site being delayed them just standing around at 6am not doing anything just waiting on someone fun for anyone that means for them is that's cost that's delays and inevitably they've got two three

guys on site who just stand around nothing also gonna on our end delay the program on their end they're delayed not doing anything cost and they could charge us for that that's a variation to the work or delays however put it through in the end for us that meant just wasted time and guess more risk that we wouldn't hit pC and then more risk that we could get charged LDs from our just decided look just skipped breakfast up got changed hit the office grabbed a coffee on the way I can't quite remember grabbed my laptop grabbed the of site management documents I was like screw it I'm going to be the site manager for the day so fortunately like I said the office was next to the site it was like a two minute walk so that helped save the day this was just a

minor issue it wasn't anything big but it could have blown up like it didn't have to happen it could have blown up to just affect everybody and that's just unnecessary nobody needs that so that's why I decided to get up for it after grabbing my laptop and high vis and whatever else I needed from the office, paperwork, you name it. Walked down to the site and to be honest, I got there pretty early.

Weren't even there yet, but I was just there ready to prep for them. Business as usual after that. They rocked up at six. Let them in. Got to work. Nobody saw anything different happen, to be honest, but I ran that chain through my head prevented it from happening. And I'm no superhero. That's just a minor little technicality there's much bigger issues that happen on site the thing people most subbies and builders don't realize is that smallest problems can snowball into your biggest nightmares that can be in the form of lds delays it is it's not fun for anyone and it costs all parties whether it's time or money at the end of the day that will end up being disputes,

and form it comes in, not going to be pretty for anyone. So it's all about preventing small mistakes from snowballing into bigger ones. A brief story about me up when I needed to be a site manager that was just one of the many occurrences. I think it's very common in this industry everyone, no matter what role you're in to put on a different hat any day that's the nature of the construction industry you know some days you're an estimator other days you're p.m the next day you're making executive decisions just like a director would I've seen is a lot of builders and subbies are understaffed the nature of the industry is that needs to put in a little bit of got to bust your ass like work a bit of overtime obviously if you have your own boundaries and great happy for you but

knows that it's quite a norm to know ass off when you need to and step up and take on responsibility when you must order to drive the project home successfully and not cause unnecessary issues from arising. So a little story. Hope you enjoyed it. If you are an aussie subcontractor, I exist for you. Me and my business exist for you. So you need help, support or free tools, the links you may possibly need are in the description.

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