First Impressions and Organizational Culture: How do you fit in?

The construction industry is an interesting industry because there is such a dichotomy of people, regarding race, socioeconomic class, intelligence, skills, interests and personalities. The differences between the individuals is what makes it such an intriguing industry. In one afternoon you can have a conference call with a devloper who recieved their MBA from Harvard and twenty minutes later you could be talking to a stone mason who didn’t graduate from fourth grade while living in Mexico. For this reason, it is important to be able to wear many different hats when confronted with different situations regarding different individuals. Within my company I fit in fairly well. My company is composed of the two co-presidents who are partners (one of whom is swedish), the company has three full time project managers and they have taken a unique approach as they have employed four other project managers as independent contractors. The company takes this approach to cut overhead and to avoid various taxes and insurances, while also allowing for the contractors to have a high degree of freedom. Within the office there is a high degree of professionalism, on the site it is quite different as it is a completed gendered-bias and racially segregated as there are no women on the site and the ladder of managment is largely white males at the top with less-educated hispanics at the bottom. It is interesting to see the difference in personalities between the various sub-contractors, the oriented detailed trim carpenters are wild crew of california born surfers who are madly obsessed with biking, the excavators are probably the roughest group as the cuss widly and use various forms of tobacco, the stone masons are a group of brothers and cousins form Tobasco Mexico who are hard working and very strong as they carry stone all day, the electricians are very nice guys who may have been shocked all couple too many times. The different sub-conctractors interact with eachother constantly usually jokingly, unless one is in the way of another, which evokes a shouting match. The do’s and don’ts are pretty flexible: be professional in front of the client at all times and they are paying the bills so they demand the upmost respect. Prod the sub-contractors, but prod them gently they are doing the work, if the quit the job cannot continue keep them happy, guide them gently but keep them going. When working with sub-contractors, you have to remember the qoute, “Tread lightly and carry a big stick.” When meeting with a client you need to dress, what I call “colorado casual”: look professional, but maintain that aire of the colorado mountain man, a look that the client (usually a second home homeowner) covets and respects. When on the job it is essential for the project manager to dress in a way that demands respect but also is functional, as you could be knee high in a septic tank one day or covered in saw dust the next.