“We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field…”

John Fogerty captured it best when he sang “Centerfield” back in the 1980’s.  Today is opening day for most Major League Baseball teams and we really do feel renewed on this occasion.  Sure, the calendar first day of spring was a couple of weeks ago, but winter overstayed its welcome here and in most parts of the country this year and today is, for all intents and purposes, the real first day of spring.

I love opening day and the optimism that surrounds it.  Everyone is undefeated, no stars have been lost to injury, there are no contract/free agency squabbles, no manager has been fired, and every player on each of the 25-man rosters is primed for a career year.

My town, Atlanta, has held precisely one victory parade in its existence and it came in celebration of the Atlanta Braves’ 1995 World Series win.  That’s it.  The Braves, Hawks, and Falcons have played a combined 140 seasons with but one championship to show for it.  But, today, I’m liking our chances of having another parade sooner than later.  On paper, this is our strongest roster in years and hopes are high.

Today is a little bittersweet though for those who knew the late Ted Miller.  Baseball was a passion for Ted and the first opening day without him makes us pause in remembrance.  We wish he was still with us, especially on this day.

Enjoy the action today, whoever you root for.  I hope it’s blue skies and baseball wherever you are.

Thanks for reading.

Scott Stafford

The Miller-Clapperton gang is dressed for baseball today! 

Sometimes our customers are confused and a little put off when we will not proceed with ordering additional material or working overtime or sending extra men to a jobsite without getting the financial terms in writing first in the form of an executed change order.  We often hear, “Isn’t a verbal go ahead or e-mail sufficient?  Why do you guys insist on this being so difficult?”  The answer is, we do this because there are unethical general contractors out there and we must protect ourselves.

Let me provide you an example.  We bid a renovation to King Springs Elementary School in Smyrna,GA to a local, small time GC in June of 2011.  The job was scheduled for turnover to the owner in October of that year.  The job wasn’t that attractive and we might have passed on it due to its small size except for one thing, I attended King Springs many moons ago and I and several of our employees live a short distance away.  This is also the school that my sons will attend.

There was some ambiguity in the drawings as to material types in some locations and we were concerned about what was to be Aluminum Composite Material panels and what was to be brake metal.  When asked, the GC responded that the roofer was picking up the material at the clerestory and the glazer was picking up the material at the entrance vestibule, so we specifically excluded those areas in our quotation.   It turns out that this inept GC never bought out these scopes from the roofer or the glazer and approached us about doing the work as a change order to our scope in early 2012 (yes, they were already months behind schedule).

Now, shame on us for thinking they were honorable people and for going ahead with ordering material and commencing the extra work without a signed change order.  We could have saved considerable hassle had we simply refused to proceed without an executed change order.  Instead, we went ahead and performed the work, the GC was kicked off the job for poor performance, the building was finally turned over to the owner in May 2012 (and it has been plagued by leak problems ever since), and here we are griping via blog and still awaiting final payment after going to arbitration.  At least we can Take some solace in knowing that this GC will never perform work in Georgia’s third largest school district (Cobb County Public Schools) again.  We are told by the county that they are banned.

GET IT IN WRITING!  LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKE!

Still reading?  Thanks.  Thanks for letting me vent.

Scott Stafford

Project of the week:  The World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta is a simply a cool building, especially at night.  We were very happy to be part of the construction team on this project for the world’s most recognizable brand.