Stressed!

I thought today would be an easy day, I will just drop by my site, confirm with the air-con technician how the aircon will be repositioned and then be on my way home. 

I even wore shorts to site because I was expecting it to be really quick, but it wasn't. When I entered the apartment, the air-con technician brought up how messy the previous renovation work was because the aircon piping was all over the place, I didn't think too much about that because that is just piping management stuff, as long as the pipes work then who cares since they are going to be covered with a layer of false ceiling anyways.

So I started walking around the apartment just to observe the other areas and that was when I noticed one of the existing water outlet pipes for the aircon had a hole in it. The day before, I had told the air-con's technician boss..

"Please get your worker to help me check if any pipes need to be replaced."

... because he told me it was better to replace the pipes, but then it was $200 per pipe and my client has 5 aircons, so I thought if there are pipes that can still be reused, we will reuse them, but if the pipes are damaged, then definitely have them changed. I just didn't want my client to have to pay an additional $1000 for nothing.

I bring this issue up to the air-con technician and his response to it was...

"Yup, that needs to be changed. But today my job is only to reposition the pipes, once I am done with that I am leaving, I still have other sites to head to."

... I got a bit confused because from what I understand, his job today was to also check if any pipes needed to be replaced and have them replaced, so I ask him if the pipe replacement is usually done by a different group, and he goes...

"Nope, I can change as well, but that is not my job today. You do need to get that replaced  though because once you cover it up with tiles, it is going to be a headache for you in the future. I don't want to be responsible when it starts having issues in the future"

... and I just couldn't believe what was happening. He was talking about the pipe like it is not his problem to solved. DUDE! YOU ARE THE BLOODY AIR-CON TECHNICIAN, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO HELP ME FIX THE PIPES! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE DAMAGED PIPE LIKE IT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM?

I then call the boss up to check what was happening, I share the damaged pipe issue with him and he suggest for me to have it replaced, so we hang up and he calls the air-con technician. They have a quick conversation which then ended with the technician saying...

"Let's not discuss about this anymore, I won't be touching the pipes, today my job is only to do the reposition works, which I have already done."

... and then that was it. I was appalled at how that whole situation was handled, so the boss calls me a while later and then explain to me that he will be sending a second group down to take over the works. At this point, the air-con technician was just sitting on this tool box, I guess waiting for further instructions from his boss through me, but having heard what the boss is telling me about sending a second group down, I soon realize that he had probably gotten into an argument with this air-con technician and will not longer be using him for my site anymore, so I told him to just go first since he had other sites to rush to.

The boss then tells me he will try and arrange a second group to drop by later in the evening to take a look and advise me on what I can do, I was a bit worried because the timing was a little late and I was quite doubtful that the condo's security guard would even let them enter the premises. He requested for me to be around as well, so I decided to just wait at my Showroom rather than go home since it was a direct bus ride away and it was air-conditioned.

 

First time reporting to the Showroom in shorts.

So I waited for about an hour and a half, then headed back to the condo after receiving a call from the boss that his guys were on their way. I was 15 minutes late and the second group was already waiting outside the condo, so I went up to the guard first to get permission to enter the condo with my air-con contractor, assuring them that it was purely just to do a site visit, that no works will be happening, and their answer was..

"No contractor after 5pm! The management's rule."

... it was already 6pm when I reached.

To say I was a little annoyed would be an understatement, I had to walk up to the lorry of the second group of air con technician and shared the bad news with them. Started by apologizing for having wasted their time, they were very understanding and told me they had expected this to happen. I tried to explain the issue to them with pictures, but unfortunately, in order to properly assess the situation, they needed to see it in person, so no progress was made and their next available date is 2 fucking weeks later.

FML!

I brought this issue up to my client and she was also apologetic for that wasted trip I made, thankfully she is not actually holding me accountable for the delays because some unreasonable clients actually do that even when the delay isn't the project manager's fault.

That being said, I really can't deal with this project anymore, there is always something happening at every stage of the renovation, first was when we dismantled the existing floors, thinking we could reuse the old tiles underneath and then come to realize that the underneath layer was in horrible condition. 

After that, my client requested to hack their toilet last minute, which messed up the entire work schedule, and because of the hacking works for the toilet, both the water pipes and aircon pipes got damaged. 

Running into problems during the renovation is normal, but running into so many problems within such a short time span is not, pair all these issues with the severe lack in manpower and you really have a recipe for disaster.