Consensus Construction
I have gotten myself into a funny place…again. That funny place has to do with my deck renovation project. This is unlike any other project I have undertaken before. The fundamental reason is that I probably have too much time on my hands. Precisely speaking, I have both the time and am home-bound by COVID like we all are. That is proving to be a very expensive combination. I write 1,200 – 1,400 words a day for this blog. I read everything I can about current events including the state of the world vis-a-vis COVID, the state of our democracy vis-a-vis the absurd actions of our man-child-in-chief, the state of the global economy as it struggles with the size of our global population, the growing nationalism that comes from an environment of paucity and a world in need of rebooting to account for a new sociological protocol. Even all that is not enough to occupy my day in full and with spare time on my hands right now as the year winds down (certainly this is not always the case when expert witness work surges, venture funding puts itself front and center or some teaching obligation grabs me by the seat of the pants). So, I find myself getting deep into the game of construction management like a sailor lulled onto the rocks by the Greek Sirens. I always thought that was Medusa, but apparently she, with her snake-filled hair, turned onlookers to stone, so let’s assume Medusa is turning to stone what the Sirens are luring me onto. This project has enough danger signs that it can easily handle several Greek priestesses of the occult and my journey makes those of Perseus, Homer and all those other brave dudes of old look like walks in the park.
The problem is that I find myself at the intersection of significant structural issues and an abject lack of experience that requires input from experts. I am paid a healthy sum each week for my expert opinions, so I am inclined to honor the value of expertise and experience. But while I can opine all day long about geopolitical and global economic machinations or sophisticated financial malfeasance, I am a veritable babe in the woods when it comes to construction. Between my work heading AFI (USA) for two years with its twenty-two trophy development projects and my six years trying to build the $640 million New York Wheel project with all its structural challenges and finesse, I have plenty of office trophy hardhats, High-Viz Yellow Signature T-shirts and Vests and enough time on the construction sites listening to all manner of expert that you think I would have learned something. That was never my bailiwick per se, but I tried hard to absorb nonetheless. I’m sure there are many construction guys who are still snickering behind my back as I have walked off into the sunset having enticed almost $4 billion of capital to let us try to make things work on half-built buildings, old warhorses in need or complete revamping and repurposing and esoteric and aggressive structures like the world’s largest observation wheel being lifted into place by the leading heavy-lift jockeys of the world. But I need hands-on rehabilitation construction expertise specialized in decks. Now all I have to do is find it and extract it.
The lay of my land, literally, is that my deck is on the Western side of my hilltop house, with the property falling away down a rocky ravine towards a distant highway of which we can only see a bit. That is relevant to this story because the deck’s location makes it very difficult to demolish and rebuild due to the limited access only around the northern side. The initial discussion with a demo company was that a partial demolition would run over $20,000….for a goddam deck. It was also clear that this approach would result in a prolonged project since even the demo guy was openly wondering if we should wait to start until after the holidays. I saw a six months project coming at me very slowly and painfully, not to mention ruining any landscaping within 20 feet of its path. I wanted to finish this project between now and mid-January and as minimal disruption to our daily living in this hilltop house as we could possibly have. I knew those were lofty objectives, but they were my guiding light.
I have three independent handymen/carpenters working on the project, aided by two Mexican day laborers (one of whom is a Dreamer and speaks fluent English, thank God). The Mexicans like the work and have no allusions of what they can and can’t do. They just want the work and they have the strong backs and ambition to back it up. The Honchos, as I tend to call the three amigos, are all men of a certain age (52-66 years) with lots of life experience but in areas ranging from tile and stone, carpentry, construction, culinary arts, Eastern medicine and God-knows what else that hasn’t come to the surface yet. They are all in this for the work and money, but also like an interesting project where they can show their capabilities. None of them are afraid to get dirty, and they all have varying degrees of expertise. None will measure only once but I assure you they all measure differently before they cut that once that’s needed. They are all good workers and they all have their particular strengths and skills, and most importantly, they all get along with and more or less respect one another when they are working. But they all see solutions from different perspectives. One was taught The Way by his father, another grew up in the school of hard knocks and learned things the hard way, probably with a smack to the side of the head. One wanted to be an architect but came up a few credits light and the other would rather be a chef, but knows that construction pays and baby needs a new pair of shoes and all that. One likes to grumble and complain while he straps it on every morning and does the dirtiest of the jobs. The other likes to blast his oldies tunes on his Bluetooth Boom Box while he sits on decaying joists and crowbars up rotting wood. Its a skilled crew that gets shit done, but shakes their head at at least 60% of the suggested fixes for any given problem.
That last bit, the part about solutions management, however, becomes the issue of the moment. What’s worse than a job without a foreman? A job with a foreman who needs the advice of his crew because he doesn’t have enough knowledge to be effective without it. Wait a minute, let’s add one more layer to this little situation, add a sister and brother-in-law who are local architects used to building schools and churches where commercial vendors are happy to tread and where commercial solutions lead to sometimes different answers than they would for residential applications. In other words, there is lots and lots of room for disagreement and no one (certainly not the Honchos and mostly not the Architects) wants to be the decider. Unfortunately for me, I am the homeowner and also the guy who has spent his last forty years always being the guy where the buck stops. In other words, I have no choice and have to be the decider on anything big…and most things small. The number of times everyone has said, “it’s your decision” has now past the point of calculation. So what is a new-age enlightened manager to do? Manage by consensus. Go around the room and get everyone to declare or forever hold their peace if they disagree. It is amazing how painful that process can be. I love telling someone they get to go first. I assure you, none of these guys wanted to sit in the front row of the classroom, no matter how talented or smart they were.
So we stumble forward from one consensus decision to another as we discover new problems that need new solutions. I would like to think that as we turn the corner from discovery demolition work into the teeth of remediation, the solutions will be less controversial, but you just know that ain’t gonna be true. This is where we are and who we are and we will stagger forward with advice from all corners of the room and remind everyone that at very least we will do this job better than any of those asshole consensus construction management guys who built this piece of shit deck in the past.