Imagine working in construction, but you notice something that looks like it might be a mistake on the blueprints.

If the architect claimed there weren’t any mistakes, would you take him at his word, or would you make sure the problem got resolved appropriately?

In this story, one contractor is in this situation, and he decides to teach the architect a lesson the hard way.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

old school construction architect with an ego

So this dates back to 1998. I had been working construction for a year as a drywall finisher “spreading mud” when I was offered a job on a big crew.

Only reason they wanted me was to be a translator between English and French, I was good but not fast or great at this point but hey $18 hr was good money.

We were working on a 5 story building, it was the first time I really had seen just the bones of a building.

Remember, this is before email was as common as it is now.

For those who are unfamiliar with this era of construction I’m going to give a little background on how it worked on sites this big.

Each company had their own construction trailer, no one really had email so each trailer had a couple of phone lines and a secretary.

This building was for a real estate company, it was to be their headquarters. It was designed by an architect in New York as a favor to the owner of the building.

So here’s where the problem goes.

Al noticed a problem.

My boss Aland (Al) had all the framing, hanging the drywall, finish the seams and acoustic ceiling ” ceiling tiles with metal grid”

Al goes to the general contractor with an issue on 3rd floor training room.

Al: we got height problem with 3rd floor ceiling.

General contractor: what wrong now.

The contractor agreed that it sounded like there was a problem.

Al: he’s got it at 4ft off the floor.

General contractor: wait what???

Al: yeah both ceiling reflected plan and elevation show’s 4ft off the finish floor. If I scale it it would be 12 ft…

General contractor: yeah that don’t sound right, go ahead and send an request for information

Here’s how sending the request worked…

Back then request for information were different than today, usually meant someone was going to have to pay.

So Al faxes over the request for information and marks it urgent.

When request for information comes back they were sent to both the General contractor and the subcontractor.

So I’m sitting with Al and the General contractor just chatting around and both secretary come out to the site almost running with high heels through the debris, and both with huge grins on their faces.

The secretaries knew what was up.

I’m thinking oh man this should be good.

Al and General contractor: slow down lady’s. Where’s the fire.

General contractor secretary: you got an urgent fax

Al secretary: we got the request for information back.

Looking at the other secretary giggling

The response was pretty funny.

They look at their paper then look at me and General contractor reads it out loud.

request for information #xxx from office of Architect inc

Urgent request information of discrepancy on ceiling height from Aland office about training room xxxx

Answer: How hard is it for you construction workers to understand never scale anything. I DON’T MAKE MISTAKES. Refer to page A804 for detailed height instructions.

The contractor decided to comply.

Queue malicious compliance

General contractor: well Al what does A804 say about ceiling heights.

Al: 4 ft bud

General contractor: hey Frenchie do you think you can translate that to the ceiling guys, and tell them its a hot priority I want it done by Sunday.

The ceiling guys were hesitant to comply.

Al: you heard him. Tell him to drop what he’s doing and go to it.

Me: 10-4

I go to the guy and they greet me with a tabarnak “french Canadian cuss word” are you nuts kid.

I tell them what had transpired and told them that Al said to make it 4ft.

They grumbled saying they would charge to do it again.

This was going to be a huge but short room.

Now this training room wasn’t your typical space, it was 300 feet long by 40 feet wide that could be separated to make multiple training room or one giant one with folding partition.

Monday come General contractor instructs the electrician to install all the lights as per prints. “Yes even his prints had 4 ft notation” typically we would wait for electrical inspection but we didn’t.

By Wednesday the Crew is putting tiles in.

Saturday comes and theirs an owner meeting where he walks the job site with General contractor and talks about progress.

The owner was shocked when he saw the 3rd floor.

Everything is going good till he gets to the 3rd floor training room door and sees a bar 4ft from the ground and all the wires for the ceiling is in plain sight.

Owner: what in the hell is this, don’t you know how to read blue prints.

General contractor: Yes sir we do and we did. We also sent an RFI. “Show’s him the fax”

Owner: “grins ” Yeah he definitely has an ego from hell. Do you have everything documented pictures and all…

General contractor: you know it.

They knew they’d have to fix it.

Owner: ok smart alec, now do it at 12 feet. 4 feet from the deck. You’re making 20% on this screw up aren’t you?

General contractor: 20% to the billed invoice. We’re going to have demo crew come in, then all new material plus the crew already said it’s going to be 50% upcharge since we’re preventing them from going to their next site. Yeah, just be happy it’s not coming out of your pocket.

Because the architect gave wrong information and it was built as per his guidelines he had to fork out a few thousand out of his pocket to us dumb construction workers to fix his mistake.

Here are the lessons he learned.

Learned 2 valuable lessons that day.

1 always do as your told no matter if it makes sense. Except when it endanger a life.

2 document everything no matter how trivial, it will cover you.

That’s hilarious. So, it sounds like 12 feet was correct for the ceiling height. If the architect had just taken a minute to think through his response, none of this would’ve happened.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I hope the architect learned his lesson.

Double checking your own work is always a good idea.

This is true.

Anyone can make a mistake.

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