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dpb

Robert Allison wrote:
wrote:

I have hired a team of electrician (3 of them) to do some re-wiring of
the house I am working on. They are 50% completion and I have been
furnishing all the materials.

....
Problem, at the end of the day I go around and between the three of
them it is not unusual that I found 15 or more drink bottles. They
drink a lot? Noooooo... most of those are 80% full. ...
Same thing with materials. I got them a box of EMT couplings, 50 of
them, three days later they needed more, ok another 50, then another
50, I started to wonder, ... and round up everything and yes I
have 3 boxes of couplings, almost 90% full in each of them, ...

Welcome to the wonderful world of general contracting. If you supply
the materials, what incentive do they have to conserve anything? Now a
really good human being and electrician may do it because it is the
right thing to do, but those guys are not around much anymore, so you
have to deal with what you get.

Here is how I do it: I supply drinks, but I get a 10 gal. cooler and
fill it with water and the gatorade mix of their choice. I give them
enough of those packets to last however long they are going to be
working, or a weeks supply, whichever is less.

Materials; I give them the materials and I tell them that this is
enough to complete the job (plus some) and I tell them that if they run
out, they need to show me where all of them went. I make sure that they
understand that there will be no more coming unless they can demonstrate
that they used more than I estimated. Sometimes they do and I don't
give them a hard time, but I do check to make sure that they haven't
walked off the job.

Ask them to be a bit more organized because it is a money and safety issue.

If you can talk to them you're ahead...

I concur it now is the only way to deal w/ them--otherwise one has to be
there babysitting 100% of the time which isn't possible/practical.

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