Imagine working for someone who you know is letting the client believe a lie in hopes it will end up bringing them more work. Would you play along, or would you make sure the boss didn’t get his way?

In this story, one Engineering Intern is in this exact situation, and he decides to make a “mistake” on purpose.

Let’s read all the details.

Submit what I have right now? Will do!

In the past, I worked for a Civil Engineer – essentially working as an Engineering Intern despite lacking the certifications to be one officially.

In effect, I could (and did) do anything he could, but it all needed signed off on by him in the end since he was the licensed engineer and I was (officially) just a CAD technician.

However, despite me not actually being licensed, my work and troubleshooting abilities were good enough that he rarely looked at any of it except if I brought part to his attention for clarification or to suggest possible alterations or concerns.

This involves one of those concerns.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for!

We were set up to do the site design for the new location of a moving business into an urban development area. The client was trying to save money, so instead of getting us to survey the site for them, they went with lowest bidder and used someone else.

That surveyor sent us the file and I go to get started, but see that the survey is dated ten years previously.

I point this out, the boss informs client, they go to surveyor, and next day I get a new file dated two days previous… but it was the same file. They didn’t re-survey, just put new date on the old file. (You go cheap, you get cheap.)

OP didn’t agree with the boss’s decision.

Boss’s take when I pointed it out was: “Not our problem. We can’t verify site conditions, that’s what the survey is for. If it’s not accurate, that will be his problem. We have a stamped survey saying that’s what’s there, so design to that.”

I wasn’t happy with this as I figured we should at least let client know, but… he was the boss.

So, I get designing.

We end up with some tricky issues due to the way storm water currently entered and left the property, combined with very strict city codes for the plot due to the urban development they had going in the area. (Have to make sure everything is pretty for visitors to the city and it matches everything that will be built around it.)

OP noticed some BIG problems.

I finally get everything to code after some back-and-forth with the codes department to make sure there won’t be any surprises when we go to planning meeting for permits and, just from curiosity while waiting for boss to come and approve submitting stamped copy to head of codes for final pre-approval, I pulled up the city’s land tracking software and looked at the site.

I immediately noticed some issues.

Via the satellite imagery and street-view photos I could see that there was a 5-lane road fronting the site, not the 2-lane road in survey. Additionally, actual conditions showed power poles on property, an existing building foundation, and that neighboring business’s parking lot extended into property (and had sturdy fence built around it).

None of that was on the survey.

He did some more searching.

A quick bit of searching found that the road had been expanded 5 years previously (well after the survey of 10 years ago) in anticipation of the upcoming plans for developing the area.

With all of these things in mind, our design would actually be building into the roadway, our sidewalk was set directly over the existing power pole, and part of our client’s building would be in the neighbor’s encroaching parking.

I grabbed the satellite photo and loaded it into our drawings underneath our design so that I could show my boss the problem. And it was a BIG problem since the design was now very out of code if you consider actual conditions.

Submitting the design would really backfire.

If we submitted and got approval as it was, then the day contractors went to site they’d have to stop and report to the city, and the city would shut everything down and require inquiry and full re-start of project approval process.

Costly just from standpoint of the normal process fees, which would have to be paid all over again for new project, but additional costs for any number of issues if the city wanted to “make a point.”

And if the contractor wasn’t smart enough *not* to start working when site didn’t match plans there could be even larger fees.

It would also be a more expensive job due to the required demo.

Additionally, contractors bid based on the work expected using the plan’s depictions of existing conditions versus planned development.

And existing parking lot, fence, building foundation (and potential electrical/sewer/water) to be removed – as well as a power pole to be relocated – would be a large additional cost that the contractors wouldn’t know to bid during the process and would delay construction once on-site. (Plus negotiation of the additional costs for the unexpected work.)

I interrupted boss to bring this to his attention immediately because the client was on a deadline to get new business open and letting this play out would put him months behind.

Again, OP didn’t agree with the boss’s decision.

Boss looked it over and said, “Not our problem. He didn’t want to use us for his surveying, let him deal with it. When it all goes down the client will just end up having to use us for survey and we’ll get to do project a second time. Package up what you already have and send it, now.” And he walked out.

This attitude ticked me off.

What boss basically meant was “we can get paid twice for the same project without any liability, so I don’t care.” And this wasn’t the first time he’d pulled things like that – knowingly screwing over client because he knew he couldn’t be held liable and he’d get more money if he didn’t help client out.

I was already on my way out the door with only a week or so left at the business, so I decided to do what he told me to, and packaged up what I had – which included the layer showing *actual* conditions – and sent it to the head of codes.

He knew the head of codes would notice the layer showing the current conditions.

Now, this individual was the OCD type – not necessarily a bad thing when dealing with verifying things are to code – but he could be a pain to work with as well.

He personally went over the entirety of anything submitted to him, and was not shy about returning a 50+ page document because of a typo. So, I knew that my “slip-up” wouldn’t slip by him.

When he saw it, he obviously had some questions.

The boss didn’t get his way.

A Public Works surveying team ended up being sent to the site and confirmed actual conditions did not match those submitted.

Turned into a bit of a mess, which my boss ended up not liable for – legally anyway – and did require restart of project.

Given that the satellite image had been in our submitted files though, the client (rightly) assumed boss knew of the issue already and decided *not* to use him for the re-design.

There weren’t any consequences for OP.

Boss got upset at me, but I just told him I must have missed turning off that layer in the program before generating the PDF to submit.

That happens here and there when you’re dealing in files with large numbers of layers – some that are set to be visible, but not print – when a check box isn’t checked/unchecked properly.

It’s one reason why the final product is *supposed* to be printed off and manually reviewed by the licensed engineer before it goes out. So, he really couldn’t do anything to me over it.

And I moved on as planned shortly after. Doubt he learned from that incident, but one can hope.

Also, from what I know of that particular head of codes, anything coming from my boss’s office is probably subject to much closer review now.

That boss doesn’t sound like a good guy to work with. He was intentionally letting the client believe a lie because he was upset about not getting hired to do the survey. He also didn’t look over the work. He sounds greedy and lazy.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person makes a good point.

Another person is on the boss’s side.

This person would’ve reported the boss to the licensing board.

Another person applauds OP for a job well done.

I’d never want to work with that engineer again!

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.