Knuckling up to other Engineer firms!

[TerryBPP]

Civil Engineering firm has a unspoken code. The code states that if another engineering firm is doing a project next to you, inherits your foul up, or is continuing a process that was ended it is common courtsey that you share information with each other.

There are +/- 50 CE firms in my city and all of them follow this code accept for 2. We will call them J engineering and M engineering. Every month they call us up asking for info on projects and we kindly give them it. But I started realizing that when we call them for info they either don't return calls, give the bare minimum, or flat out decline to give us the info! Keep in mind these 2 firm are some of the old in this town.

So the other day J engineering sends and email to one of our CAD and asks for a CAD file for a property adjacent to one we worked on. I overhear him talking about it and asked him to foward it to me. Here's how it ended:

J eng: It would be most helpful if we could get this as an electronic drawing file, ie autocad or microstation. Is this possible?

Me: It would be possible but in the past we have had issues with J Eng.
sharing Cad files with us. If in the future your company is more forth coming with digital files then I have no issues with sharing ours with you.

J eng:Interesting. Thank you for your cooperation.

So, instead of just appolgizing and promising a better repor he makes a smart azz comment. Funny thing is, this guy is one of the presidents of the company. I would have expected a tad more professionalism.

Anyway, I feel better now.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Eff 'em then. We run into the same thing with other architectural offices - most will work with you in similar situations (we're in one now, where we inherited a big job from another firm that got kicked off for sloppy performance) but some will try to screw you. Reasons vary - either they want to delay you, make you sweat or perhaps make you look bad, or they think that they can "get back at" the former client that they now have an axe to grind with (oddly usually due to their own screw-ups).

I've found that most often a cordial and open dialog about what you need, keeping opinion out of it usually works. It's an awkward situation but usually you can talk your way through it. This particular firm should get no further response from you. I'd wait for their next electronic data request to come in and then shoot back an e-mail saying "Interesting." Maybe they'll get the hint.

[id10t]

Take the file, rot13 it, and send it to 'em. Let them figure it out from there.

[Jims5543]

Its same same I imagine in most "professional" circles.

We were trying like hell to get this guys property sorted out. He paid a rather large firm in West Palm Beach to survey it initially when he bought the property and they did not survey it. They guessed and they guessed wrong. I was becoming the bearer of bad news when I realized the 6' tall concrete walls he built were 20' in the wrong place. I had quoted a fee to do the job but quickly realized this was going to turn into a court case and I would have to do a LOT more work.

I returned the mans money and instructed him to tell the firm in West Palm Beach to go and actually survey it this time. I told him he could quote me.

My frustration here is competing with other surveyors that do not really survey. They fly through ripping off the client that knows no better. I hope as time passes my honest business practices will pay off for me. So far it seems like the bad guys finish 1st.

[wludavid]

This thread reminds me of something a successful business owner once told me when I asked him how to come up with a new idea for a business. He said, "You don't need a new idea. You just need to be competent at what you do. There's so much incompetence out there that the business will come to you."

I imagine he was exaggerating, but the idea stuck with me.