How would you feel about either being appointed (or having appointed over you) an independent foreman/project manager? Think it's a waste of money and another party to have problems with?
This is a tricky one. I’ve worked with a project manager plenty of times for one of my biggest clients. He owns guest houses and I work in every one of them in terms of upgrades and maintenance. The project manager he appoints happens to be my neighbor and good friend almost 10 years and then just very recently we discovered our dads are actually cousins. Never had issues but you can also see how this could be based on our personal relationship.
On our current job this guy happened to be doing something else for the client and I was indirectly appointed as a project manager from quality control to paying wages (my client trusts me with his bank card Which has a 50k withdrawal limit per day). There were some issues with the window guys and I had to point out their flaws. The old experienced window guy refused to listen and I had to do something about it. Took it up with the owner and they’re no longer on site and I will be doing the windows now as well (which I initially declined due to timelines).
being the project manager was fine and all until I had to have these guys sent off site. I hate being the one to take away their income especially since I know the guy who was given this job. I suppose it would have been different if I did not know them at all.
these are my only experiences other than clients who think they’re project managers and eventually give over reigns when they can’t handle it anymore.
I think if the project manager is really independent and doesn’t know anyone on site it can benefit you as he should have your best interests at heart. However you do also get those guys who sleep on their bakkie all day and just want to see when the job is done without really knowing what went into the finished project and this can be a huge waste of money.
From a friend who works on bigger projects (malls, Cticc, standard bank building, FNB building etc) I have herd that there are some project managers who just play the boss and don’t implement any real planning like they’re supposed to. Situations where the floor guy, window guy and painter are all on the same place at the same time and cannot work properly. Project manager just chooses one to continue and sends the other 2 to different places... and they end up messing up the first guys work while doing their own.
tough choice To appoint. But personally I wouldn’t mind having one over me as long as he knows what he is doing, and wouldn’t mind being one but it would be site dependent. I won’t be able to oversee something I cannot do.