i went home early from work today. filled all the forms that needed to be submitted and went home to sleep. im too tired, too pressured to spend another 3 hours facing someone who behaves very unprofessional.

im an engineer doing a restoration ceiling work, on a very tight schedule. and yesterday, the general contractor notified me that they are going to dismantle the scaffoldings that we are using in a certain area, so we worked up till midnight yesterday to finish all the necessary fastenings at the upper portion of our ceiling. and this morning a few minor corrections were needed at one side of our dropped wall because the general contractor's engineers were commenting on the plumbness of the hanging frames. and when i say hanging, it is literally hanging because only the upper portions are screwed on top.

by the way, i was quite confused with the situation, they gave me a notification that they will dismantle the scaffoldings, what shall happen if im not yet finished with my work? shall they leave my men hanging like monkeys there? aint the scaffolders supposed to wait for me to finish my work? i know they have their schedule to dismantle the upper level of scaffolds, but it only follows that if im not yet through they wont be able to dismantle the scaffolds yet.

yesterday, i told one of the scaffolders to relocate their stair because it was placed straight up to a sprinkler head as well as a large duct, their safety engineer was not present at that time so i asked the workers to please relay my request. at first i pointed a certain area and has been told that it is not possible because there are no frames below it and the only option is to relocate it at the left side. with that i proceeded to go the other area we are working on. i was not able to check the new location that afternoon because the scaffolders finished early.

WAIT a minute. ive been specifically been told by the gen con's lady engr before i started working that they have a NO ENGINEER, NO WORK policy. so why again was i looking for the safety engineer yesterday?  does it only apply to our group?

back to my story ...  this morning our safety officer checked the new location of the stair and was dicussing the possibility of relocating it again with the scaffolder's engineer as well as the pro's and con's. i approached the gen con's engineer and told him of the situation, we were discussing it, when the scaffolder's engineer told him our request regarding the possibility of relocating the stair he said "dapat umpisa pa lng na foresee na (it should have been forseen at the start), dapat na check kahapon pa (it should have been checked yesterday)." he raised his voce saying "ngayon babaklasin, (now it will be dismantled), tatanggalin lahat ng maapektuhan (all obstructions will be removed), it will take one day, another waste of time!" a fellow engineer was beside me when this happened (the electrical engineer of the maintenance group) , i felt like a cadette being shouted by their commanding officers. i could have shouted back, could have a heated argument with him, but definitely it will not reolve anything. i kept my mouth shut, and did not said a single thing to him afterwards. our people will be the ones  wasting time everytime to go upstairs because we are the ones that shall be using the erected scaffolds everyday.

i called my boss and told him what happened, filed a formal complaint with the gen con's construction manager. asked our safety officer to attend the regular 1pm progress meeting presided by the gen con's, (but he was not able to because he doesnt have his mobile fone with him). and i left the building ....

went home, slept. and called our safety officer at around 5:30pm. he said that the gen con's engrs were looking for me, so he said that i left for personal reasons. he's been told that he should know where i went and why, so he reasoned that he doesnt control my decisions and i have a mind of my own. and another thing, he was told by the engrs that a civil engineer should be the one supervising our work, our safety officer is a competent one, he might be an electrical engineer but he has more experience in architectural works, so they dont have to sell short of our staff.

well, i shall be facing them again on monday. but at least at that time i shall have my needed rest.