Misadventures in Rubber Stamping 7

[KootK]

Obviously, it is a dangerous thing to admit to rubber stamping on this forum. Many members here feel that no version of rubber stamping is acceptable. They will want to chastise me and quote a whole bunch of state regulations justifying their stance. And I encourage that to some degree.

That said, my preference here is that the community discuss the ethical part of this amongst themselves, without involving me. I wish to not engage in that part of the discussion because:

1) It is my experience that those debates are unwinnable for me and can lead to unproductive conflict and;

2) My misadventure in rubber stamping has gone horribly off of the rails for reasons other than ethical ones. And it is that I wish to share with the community in the hope that I can prevent others from getting into similar trouble. I feel that we are often at our best when honestly discussing our practices and the pitfalls encountered in the course of our practice.

THE GENERAL SITUATION

a) ClientX is a manufacturer of things that are normally of a very small scale and come with very small potential consequences.

b) ClientX has worked with other rubber stampers in the past who clearly have never challenged them on anything. As a result, ClientX has the impression that they are capable of executing the structural design in full and that I am truly nothing but extraneous "sign off" required by the jurisdiction where they do work. This, obviously, is a negative consequence of engineers rubber stamping. It promulgates this perception in clients.

c) My signoff for one of ClientX's projects typically costs about $500 CAD. Cheap.

d) ClientX does not do great structural detailing. Much of it is antiquated and not in keeping with modern best practice. I let most of this slide because the work is of a very small scale and of low consequence.

e) ClientX also does not do proper shop drawings. They do higher level drawings and fabricate things themselves based on those. This makes pre-construction quality control difficult.

f) Why do I choose to work with ClientX? Two reasons:

i) I like them as people.

ii) There are many months where I earn $2,000 per month on ClientX's work where the effort involved is little more than the act of stamping and invoicing. Basically lawyer money.

THE SPECIFIC MISADVENTURE

a) Along comes a project that is 6X the height of a typical ClientX project. It's also vastly more complex with respect slenderness and geometry. In my mind, this one requires "real" engineering attention.

b) This new project tickled my Spidey senses but, at the same time, I optimistically thought this might be an opportunity where I could bring real value to ClientX's work. And I didn't feel that I could plausibly say "Nah, now that you have a project requiring real engineering, you'll need to find another engineer for that".

c) Naturally, ClientX wants this for the usual cost of $500 and 24HR turnaround. They bemoan my $2,500 fee and 3 week schedule but agree to it.

d) ClientX is unwilling to negotiate with the architect on anything. Not even things that would make the design and construction substantially easier with no meaningful compromise to the architectural vision. They view such negotiation as failure. This makes it difficult to prosecute the design. I can no longer do smart things for smart reasons.

e) ClientX is very difficult to deal with on what can only be an iterative design process. They fight me on absolutely everything. Everything that I do is needless overkill and not in keeping with what they've done with previous rubber stampers. Moreover, when they receive my suggestions, they respond with "Can we do this instead? What you've propose will be problematic for our fabrication team." That part is fine but what is difficult is that they are unwilling to share what it is about my recommendations that will cause them problems unless I tease it out of them painfully over the course of several days. Their proposals often do not work but I'm unable to tweak mine to please them because I don't know what they don't like about my recommendations for long periods of time.

f) I sketch ClientX beautiful connection details that are basically shop drawing level. Instead of reproducing my details, they condense them into a couple of notes to save effort. It's pulling teeth to get them to produce drawings that I would consider acceptable for the communication of a significant and complex design. And, as you can imagine, ClientX is frustrated with me "bullying" them into expending effort in the course of a work process with which they are not accustomed.

THE UNFORTUNATE RESULT

a) In terms of hours, I've now burned through my $2,500 fee twice over. And, worse, I've come to the conclusion that I won't ever be able to get ClientX to produce design drawings that I will be happy with on this assignment. But, nonetheless, I need to bring this assignment to a close. So there will be ethical compromise here that even I am not comfortable with.

b) My client is unhappy with my work.

c) I am unhappy with my work. It does not feel good to disappoint a client so utterly.

d) My cash cow, easy money relationship is dead in the water.

e) While I've been tending to this nightmare, I've been dragging my feet on other projects with clients that don't want to kill me (yet).

 

[XR250]

Or, at the least, there was no reward in terms of remuneration or power. The opposite really. Engineering firms are for profit businesses and being a pedantic technophile simply is not the path to increased profits or happier clients. At best, I was rewarded with a measure of internal respect.

In my business being a "pedantic technophile" can hurt or help things. It allows me to come up with clever solutions to problems - which contractors appreciate. OTOH, It also makes it hard to ignore laws of physics that my competitors don't even recognize - which contractors do not appreciate. Sorry to hear about this situation and thanks for being vulnerable enough to share it.

 

[jhnblgr]

the engineers plight the client often wants the most cost effective solution even if it doesn’t work. I think there are really two options explain the concerns, try to find a middle ground that allows you to feel comfortable while optimizing, sometimes it can be done with creativity but not always possible. Explain to them that quality gets repeat business and being cheap most often leads to issues down the road.

 

[KootK]

I don't actually consider ClientX to be a "bad client". I lament our parting of ways. In keeping with some of @Enable's comments, I mostly view this as a failure of client management. And the nature of the failure caught me by surprise which is the main reason that I decided to share the tale.

Strip away my professional obligations and examine my actions critically from a purely business perspective and it plays out a bit like this:

1) I knew what the relationship was when I pursued it.

2) I perpetuated the impression that my core service was extraneous.

3) When I lost my nerve, I changed the rules of the game.

Not exactly how one makes friends and influences people. Don Draper would kick me to the curb.

I think that we all intuitively recognize that rubber stamping can be lucrative. You know, in the sense that, contrary to the platitude, crime actually does tend to pay quite well. When I imagined the risks associated with rubber stamping, these were the kinds of things that I considered:

a) Perhaps there will be failure?

b) Perhaps I will be disciplined by an engineering association?

c) Perhaps I will have to face @lexpatrie in a dark alley and answer for my sins?

Manageable risks. It did not occur to me that danger lurked in the form of a genuinely interesting/challenging assignment manifesting itself.

I viewed the more challenging assignment as an opportunity. In retrospect, I should have approached it as a threat, a crisis to be managed. The threat being that it would destabilize a relationship that was generating positive relationships and a steady, lucrative revenue stream.

If I had it to do over again, I think that I would handle it like this:

i) I would charge more than normal but, fundamentally, treat the assignment as a loss leader. Something to be gotten past as expeditiously as possible en route to getting back to the routine, steady state work.

ii) I would assume responsibility for drawing production, even if that hurt me financially. This would have allowed me to exert more quality control and smooth out the painful coordination / negotiation process.

 

[XR250]

Perhaps I will have to face @lexpatrie in a dark alley and answer for my sins?

Too funny.

 

[KootK]

I miss @lexpatrie. He/she seems to have disappeared while I was taking a break myself. Oh well, many of us come and go as circumstances dictate.

 

[bIockhead]

If I had it to do over again, I think that I would handle it like this:

i) I would charge more than normal but, fundamentally, treat the assignment as a loss leader. Something to be gotten past as expeditiously as possible en route to getting back to the routine, steady state work.

ii) I would assume responsibility for drawing production, even if that hurt me financially. This would have allowed me to exert more quality control and smooth out the painful coordination / negotiation process.

Appreciate seeing this thread in general but mostly your "postmortem" analysis breaking down the lessons learned. As a young engineer, I really appreciate your insights and lessons here. There's a reason everyone doesn't share these types of experiences, but that makes it more valuable to glimpse in to the ones we get a chance to see. Thanks again

 

[milkshakelake]

While this may have business advantages, it saddens me just the same.

For me, it was freeing to learn that not every project will go well, and they don't have to. Just like relationships, not every client is compatible. We all have skeletons in our closets. I move on to the next one, and learn what I can from it, if there's anything to be learned in the first place. It's also okay to be in a bad place for a while. Like take a day off or something, and reorient like a pro.

I might be going out on a limb here, but I highly doubt you screw up as often as I do

 

[bones206]

Yea, don't beat yourself up too much. Their loss.

I agree with the post mortem item i). In many of my current business relationships there seems to be unpsoken quid pro quos, where you are expected to take one for the team once in a while if you want to remain as the client's go-to guy. But the client should also be savvy and respectful enough to know where the lines are and not abuse the relationship. Good engineers absolutely do have value and they will probably learn that lesson and come back down the road if they get burned using someone less competent. It can be tricky to navigate for sure, especially in a small market. There are quite a lot of structural engineers out there and people feel like they can shop around.

 

[KootK]

There is another aspect of this where I question my client handling and professional ethics. There were several instances of this but I'll just highlight the most severe one.

1) I say that the foundation has to be laid out as I've recommended because the piles need to be spaced at least 2.5D c/c.

2) ClientX says, we've spaced our piles closer than that on dozens of similar, past project that we did with our previous engineer.

3) I point to some references justifying my position and say that, if their previous engineer was allowing their piles to be spaced more closely, then I have to question their competence with respect to foundation design. I happen to know that their previous engineer was not actually a structural engineer but that doesn't change much.

This, obviously, was not a good look for me. I could tell, at once, by ClientX's response: a sterile "thank you for sharing your insights with us KootK". Basically, we think you're off of your rocker but we're going to give you a wide berth in the hope that you don't tank our project.

Why did I do this, throwing another engineer under the bus in the process?

1) For sure my ego was rearing it's ugly head a bit. I don't much like being accused of being the incompetent party.

2) I was frustrated and felt as though I needed to win the argument in order to keep the project moving forward at a reasonable pace.

3) Strategically, I thought that there might be some value in trying to convince my client that I am in fact competent. Trust and all.

But was that 10/10/80 or 80/10/10? It's hard to know. Regardless, it went over like a shovel to the face.

 

[kipfoot]

i) I like them as people.

It's easy to lose this ^ sentiment with the intransigence of client X, then the whole model goes to shit. It's clearly an important part of the work.

 

[SWComposites]

i) I like them as people.

I can't reconcile this with the rest of the story or interactions. They clearly don't respect you.

If it was me, I would have bluntly told them, "this is what I will sign (put my name to); if you can't accept that, find someone else". my reputation is far more important than any consulting client.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

KootK: I think that we all intuitively recognize that rubber stamping can be lucrative. You know, in the sense that, contrary to the platitude, crime actually does tend to pay quite well. When I imagined the risks associated with rubber stamping, these were the kinds of things that I considered:

Another comment on something that some would consider to be "rubber stamping," but where I disagree.

I have a good friend that used to stamp something like 200 drawings a week. He worked on swimming pools. That company had a set of standard plans that they would stamp for just about anyone.... As long as the site plan and project met certain criteria. He would review the site information, soils, and such and make sure everything matched up with the limitations placed on their standards. The key here is they had calculations to back up anything they stamped. They just knew exactly what to look for that would invalidate those standard designs.

If those things were identified, they would not stamp those for the nominal fee they usually charged. Rather, they would tell the pool contractor that this one required project specific engineering and would be done at a different price and on a different time-line.

To me, this is just what "niche" engineering is. You find a small field of engineering / construction and set out to become an expert in it. If you know it really well, you can do the work cheaper and faster than anyone else. Once you've done that, you can attract a much greater volume of work because you are offering much more value to your customers.

 

[phamENG]

throwing another engineer under the bus in the process?

There's a difference between throwing somebody under a bus, and saying "hey look, everyone, that guy just jumped under a bus!"

I try not to criticize other engineers when I can avoid it, but in situations like this where you are being challenged directly based on another engineer's work, you have say something. Saying nothing is saying that they are right and you are wrong, which is no good either if you are, in fact, right. I usually try to say something like "I'm not familiar with the particulars of that project and what may have allowed them to use a closer pile spacing, but I can tell you on this project we are limited to X'-X" spacing." It gives just enough benefit of the doubt to the other engineer that I don't come off looking like the insufferable know-it-all, but also establishes the fact that I have authority over engineering decisions on this project, not the other guy.