You know it has been awhile now since I started working for the summer. We are about halfway through my summer at New England Construction so it’s almost like sophomore year. At this point you’re pretty much caught up on everything going on with jobs that have started that you got throw into. You know all the subs (subcontractors) working by name, and for me personally it does not take a GPS to get around to all these job sites anymore. There was a little shake up with my project assignments too.
I went from being solely on Dick’s Sporting Goods (DSG) to being on an array of jobs across the company. I am now working on Moses Brown Y Lab, Middlebridge School, Chick-fil-A, and doing paperwork for other miscellaneous jobs. It was easy to adapt with Suzette (my Associate Project Manager) helping me, but the only thing that was hard about it was losing the time on DSG. I went from being fully involved to only being there a couple days a week. That was a challenge because I felt like I was able to do a lot for that job, but I've learned that you have to be a team player and trust that your manager knows the proper course.
Adapting to the two new jobs that I was assigned to was not hard because they were a little smaller in scope than DSG. Moses Brown Y Lab only had about 10 subs working at a time and as an outside job the recent weather has affected their need for me at Middlebridge. I adapted and even started helping with submittals for Chick-fil-A in the office. I also began to go to training sessions for multiple things including a session about buyouts and submittals. From remembering to have rebar caps and to buy out caulking of dissimilar products, to reading through electrical submittal’s voltages, I felt like my hand was going to fall off after all the notes I had taken. All in all the meeting was a success because it taught me things that I would have probably not learned until I screwed something up.
The biggest thing I have been trying to learn this summer though is time management. Whether it has to do with a 3 week look ahead or allocating paperwork I need to be doing while in the office, I am always trying to pick up on little things and take those with me. For example, trying to gauge how long it will take for the framers to frame and board a certain room. The Superintendents have also be great on giving me tips and pointing out stuff. Things such as a single conduit run cannot have more than 360 degrees of turns on a single run or that a window has to be recessed a little into EIFS (Exterior insulation and finsh system) will leak inside eventually have been extremely helpful. These little tips and technicalities I'm picking up have made it easier learning the industry.
All the things I’m learning are helping me to advance my knowledge so that someday soon I can “graduate sophomore year” and continue on this journey for the rest of the summer.
