I read this in a recent issue of Construction Dive, in an article titled “It’s Not Just You: Construction Really Is Risky Business,” the following statistic was provided:
Construction businesses had 212,582 legal filings entered against them last year, resulting in cumulative losses exceeding $3.36 billion
Source: CreditSafe
How’s that for some perspective? If you thought your days as a construction engineer would be spent in the field building things, be aware that you have obligations beyond just checking manhole inverts and checking lane closure setups.
Construction is a business. Engineering is a business. Working for a government agency requires you to interface with businesses. And business is navigated by contracts. It’s how agreements are formalized.
This article, for me, was a simple reminder to be aware of the business, contract & legal world that we work in. While most of us go to work fully-intending to do a good job and treat everyone around us fair-and-square, sometime the circumstances of an issue can’t be solved with just a handshake. Sometimes each of us thinks we are right. Sometimes we disagree. It doesn’t mean that either of us is wrong, it just means we don’t see eye-to-eye. And that’s OK. We have a written document to help us determine what to do.
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