Making mistakes & fixing them on your own time? 12

[shacked]

First, this is most likely going to relate to structural engineers since that is the field that I work.

As I am sure most of you know, when a project is completed and sent out to the city or client, there are always going to be mistakes, but the job is to minimize the amount and size of mistakes.

Last year I was the project engineer for a small 2 story wood framed residence. At the time I don't think that the PE who was stamping the plans thoroughly reviewed it but he did review it and stamp the plans.

Well, now they are building the house and the contractor called with a question and it turns out that I specified the wrong joist hangers on a detail.

So my boss tells me to fix the problem on my own time and not bill him, basically work for free. I realize that I made a mistake, but the contractor installed ALL the hangers and didn't even think about how he was going to secure them to the steel beam. The second that he installed the 1st hanger he should have called me and asked, but he didn't. I realize that I did make a mistake, but I also think that for me to spend my own time working on this for free is not right.

 

[corus]

I was always told that if there is a mistake made then the person who should be blamed is the one who checked the work. Your responsibility for the design should end when it is checked and approved by a certifying authority such as the PE, though if you're looking to blame and looking for people to do work for nothing then you're in the wrong place. Go tell your boss to stick his job up his back side and get someone else to do his donkey work.

corus

 

[SomptingGuy]

I can understand your boss not wanting to bill the client for the rework. Surely your firm should be absorbing the cost, possibly reprimanding the PE who screwed up.

- Steve

 

[TenPenny]

Of course the customer should not have to pay for the redesign.

You, on the other hand, shouldn't have to do the redesign on your own time; allowance for mistakes is part of what any firm includes into its overhead.

Mistakes happen, and we all try to minimize them. But they are a fact of life.

 

[TheTick]

Your boss is almost certainly breaking the law. One can state with even greater certainty that he is a knob.

 

[oneintheeye]

agreed hes wrong to tell you to do it. If it was a reletive easy rework I probably offer to do it in my own time (couple of hours of calcs etc). Although it has been signed off its still a mistake of yours. Most mistakes are a failure of company procedure though. If someone has signed it off and missed it, he maybe can not be considered competent to do so and therefore the company is at fault fo r appointing him in that position. Personnally I feel he should carry the can in the main, but you made the initial mistake.

 

[oneintheeye]

i was basing the last post on you being an experienced competent engineer. A inexperienced graduate should not be liable for any mistakes.

 

[TheTick]

Part of the risk of being an employer is that employees make mistakes. In the end, it is the employer's risk and responsibility. Apparently your boss doesn't realize this.

 

[csd72]

Put this into perspective, it must be only 1 or 2 hours maximum to sort this out. This will put you out one evening as opposed to blowing the budget and possibly losing a client.

You need to take some personal responsibility for your actions, this attitude that it is no longer your responsibility after it has been checked is just plain wrong.

You should take pride in your work, strive for perfection, and feel bad for the company whenever you do make a big mistake. Yes, the PE should have checked it more thoroughly, but you spend 10 times as long as the checker on the project and you expect the checker to pick up everything?

I have made worst mistakes and I have worked in my own time to sort it out, not because it was demanded of me, but because it was the right thing to do.

On the flip side, I do understand your frustration with the guys on site. If you assume them to have no idea and to not care then you are often not far wrong.

 

[SomptingGuy]

At the bare minimum, there should be a post mortem to dicover where the hole is in procedures and an action plan to fix that hole.

- Steve

 

[Unotec]

In my opinion, you should do it, I know I would have probably offered to do it if I was in that situation. However, the issue I see is that your boss lacks a little on inter-personnal skills, I think. There are much better ways to prompt a good engineer to offer resolving a problem and 'taking one for the team'. Maybe his approach is wrong.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[TheTick]

I disagree that donating one's own time to fix mistakes is "the right thing to do". In most is pointless self-flagellation that sets a very bad precedent. Where will it end?

Name one person who is reasonably competent and makes every effort to perform due diligence that does not make errors. No one???? Thought so. It is not reasonable for an employer to expect free fixes for legitimate errors.

 

[oneintheeye]

i pesonally would feel responsible for the error, whether the employer 'expects' errors to happen or not. As i feel responsible i wouldn't let other work slip putting my mistake right. There are obvious procedural things wrong here which should be addressed however. If errors are accepted as you suggest you may as well employ cheap incompetent designers and then pick everything up on checks.

 

[SomptingGuy]

The issue seems a lot easier to comprehend in my domain.

I write engineering simulation and analysis software. It is inevitable that some of my bugs will scrape through testing, no matter how thorough the testing is. Some of those bugs get to and impact our customers.

Would I ever be expected to fix those bugs on my own time? No.

- Steve

 

[TheTick]

I am not saying one should not take responsibility for one's mistakes. Such an attitude should not be tolerated.

Errors do not occur in a vacuum. It is exceptionally rare to find a mistake that is entirely the fault of one individual.

The fact remains that humans often incur what is termed in some circles as "human error". Error is a an eventual certainty. When it occurs, it should be dealt with in a sane, professional manner.

 

[MTPipeliner]

One more vote for doing it on company time, not your own. The design is a product of the company, not an individual. If you were no longer an employee when the mistake was found they wouldn't expect the new guy to fix the mistake for free.

If it's a quick fix it may not be worth the fight, but it sets a poor precident for the future. Sometimes the little things are worth fighting over.

I'm really tired of the attitued that most companies take with employees about working extra hours, such as not paying overtime for salaried employees, but that's a topic for another thread.

 

[monkeydog]

I see an attitude on the OP that doen't sit right with me.

The OP admits he made an error, but in the same breath say's he does not think the PE was doing a thorough review at the time. Then he says it is the contractor's fault for not calling him right away because he should have known the drawing was in error.

So, it is not the OP's fault that the PE did not review it enough to catch his error, and it's the contractor's fault for building to the stamped drawing.

Perhaps the Boss is seeing this same type of attitude, and is either trying to teach him a lesson, or get him to quit.

 

[ewh]

I don't see it quite that way. The OP admits to his error. I feel that he is correct in stating that the error should have been caught by the PE or the contractor.

"...he does not think the PE was doing a thorough review..."

- well DUH! If he were, wouldn't he have caught it? The contractor is different. It would have been advantageous had he pointed it out before he did, but he was only bound by the drawing.
Perhaps the OP should not have made the error in the first place, or at least found it earlier, but NOBODY IS PERFECT!!! The blame SHOULD be spread around to those that should have caught it before it got as far as it did. That's the whole purpose of teamwork.
I admire this type of attitude much more than a brown-nosing Uriah Heep only looking out for his own interests.

And what kind of lesson does ignoring labor laws teach?

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[oneintheeye]

couple of points how i see it; some, most it seems would disagree.
1) when i design something i accept responsibilty for it. Errors included.
2) if errors are not picked up in checking/approving then this is partly a procedural thing (not being done properly) and partly the checkers fault.
3) blame should be shared around checker, approver and designer.
4)just cause your work gets checked DOES NOT abdicate responsibility.
5) There will always be things a checker can miss and may not agree with.
6) Your boss handled this badly it seems. You should not be overly critisized for a mistake. Maybe he was annoyed with upsetting a valuable client.
7) You are not obliged to repair in own time, however I would, depending on case probably do so. Not out of some kind of brown nosing or guilt towards the company, but because i take pride in what i do and will be annoyed with myself.
8) i have spotted mistakes in my work AFTER it has been checked. This is especially valid in modelling FEA etc. where checking is difficult.
9) Other than when i first started and could not be expected to have sufficient knowledge i would not attempt top hang out the checker in the wind due to my mistakes.

 

[melone]

If you made the mistake on company time, you should fix the mistake on company time....