Oh Contractors

There's nothing that can make you feel like all the work you do is pointless quite like doing an As-Built. You know, when you have mark up your original plans to reflect how they were actually built.

You start to notice little things like discrepancies in elevations. Okay so maybe you didn't need to get so precise when you were checking things to 2 decimal places. A few tenths off here and there aren't disasters. I can handle that the stationing is slightly off too. But then you just shake your head. The sidewalk location is 6 feet off and it seems the contractor extended paving 40 feet beyond what you had designed. I just don't know how this happens; the plans are clearly dimensioned off of existing monuments and bench marks. And now your client is footing the bill for some worthless paving with some subgrade that costs $60+ per sy.

Oh yeah and the building is also 25 ft off. But you already knew that. The contractor insisted that they didn't need your reliable surveyor to stake building coordinates. Which means all that paperwork you did for the public easements and other public areas will have to be modified because they are no longer in the right shape or location. You can at least breathe a sigh of relief that the actual finished floor is not lower than what you designed. Otherwise you'd rip your hair out. And the sewer and waterline are in the right place. Your reliable surveyor was able to bring some justice to your original plans.

You'll finish these plans in a few hours and get back to engineering new plans. Your perfectionism will be a little hurt, but you'll eventually become anal again.

Until the process repeats itself.