Subcontract Frustration

Thats why I gave up doing any further work for these national account ass hole company's . I have enough work do not need there f*ck ups to deal with

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 7:12:47 PM UTC-5, JoeRaisin wrote:

nd the only NAC print is a layout with hand drawn device locations - no cir cuits identified or candela settings - and now the sales guy for the "Natio nal-Alarm-Company-That-Won't-Be-Named" is up in arms 'cause I say we can't run the 65 new horn strobes in a large plant (30 of which are high candela) off of ONE FCPS24-FS8 power supply. I swear to God I should just do it the way he wants and walk away... But then I'm the one standing there with my thumb up my ass in front of the electrical inspector and the Fire Marshall. .. So instead I just spent an hour and a half composing a 1000 word essay i n the form of an email to my boss and the half the install management team for the "National" on current draws of each setting and how it doesn't frig gin matter if EACH circuit is capable of 3 amps, you are still ONLY going t o get 8 amps out of all four. (still ain't enough anyway) And I'm STILL gon na get flooded with calls tomorrow asking every question I answered in the email, so I may as well just sit there and not even try to get anything don e until they all get tired. BTW - my boss is on my side, shares my frustrat ion but says we're contractually obligated to stand the inspection. PFFT!!! Contract, schmontract... Sales weenie called it... sales weenie stands the inspection... Past experience says I will end up with what I want but it A LWAYS has to be a major PITA to get from here to there. I suspect all the c ontortions are because the sales guy has to eat the added equipment.

You could always put your thumb under their nose after the inspection. :-)

I don't do commercial fire anymore ..... just for reasons like you're exper iencing. I just can't (refuse) to deal with all the bureaucratic nonsense. What I used to call ..... intentional stupidity but after many years, final ly realizing that most times it actually IS stupidity. Nice money but I'd r ather do a bunch of small commercial and resi burg jobs and go home with a smile. I get to ply my skills and not get sucked up in all the unnecessary paper work solely designed to cover everyone's ass.

hole company's . I have enough work do not need there f*ck ups to deal with

Other companies aren't so bad. We do contracts for Diebold that don't have this sort of crap going on. And we just did our first set of jobs for Siemens - they were easy to work with and feedback says they were happy with the work.

Even this same National-that-won't-be-named can manage camera, card access or even BA jobs without the same sort of fuckups.

As soon as it's a fire job though - everyone seems to lose their minds. Never enough wire, wrong peripherals, short on hours... I don't understand it.

Kudos to your boss, and your firm! Impressive that he is willing to 'eat the cost' rather than try to weasel out of it. Sounds like you're working for a firm with integrity, and a good boss.

Hopefully, with the cost coming out of the sales' accounts, their tactics will come under the scrutiny of the CEO/CFO and their bonuses will get dinged, or should. Perhaps in the future, they'll word the contracts to include "..client is responsible for any and all costs to bring the system under regulatory compliance." From which point onwards, your firm accepts maintenance responsibility.

I guess it's just thst New Yorkers are nastier people or ..... maybe it's just me. I can't tell you how many times I've told them to send a sales person and make an appointment for them to come to the house ( sometimes even a different address) when I know I'm not going to be home. I've had some call three and four times to re-schedule the appointment.

What better way is there to tell them that they're not wanted then to take away from their profit. Hanging up the phone doesn't do a thing to stop them. You're got to waste their time.

I would love to have the amount of time to setup the address on camera and just watch the action.

Les

Give them the address for a local police substation.

If you are recording it, maybe it would be a lot of fun to give them the address of your shop - assuming it is well marked as an Alarm Company.

That would be fun to watch. I have in the past, once the caller confirmed that it was a telemarketer call would tell them that "I shoot and bury every other telemarketer in the backyard. Today is your lucky day." CLICK