When we're talking about entry-level field staff, some people tend to talk about the "techs", and I recently overheard a young geologist refer to himself as a "field technician". In consulting, field technicians and entry-level scientists are not the same thing, even though what they do in the field can look awfully similar. This is why I always refer to the samplers working under the supervision of a field manager as "field staff", because they can be either.
Generally, a technician does not need a four-year degree, has a clear list of regular, standard tasks, and does not make field decisions. A field tech is not considered a "professional" and therefore is not exempt from overtime rules. So many consulting firms claim that all of their junior staff are scientists who happen to also take regular samples/measurements. They really need to watch it, though, and make sure that those junior scientists are also working on more technically involved work and are in a position to make project decisions.
Technicians are not necessarily low level staff. I work with a CAD (computer aided design) technician whose pay is on a similar level to my own even though I have two more degrees and ten years more working experience than they do. While the CAD technician does some really cool stuff these days, the person who manages, reviews, and signs off on the drawings/renderings is a licensed professional scientist/engineer.
In my experience, field technicians (vs. scientists) are relatively rare in consulting. But this may vary by region/corner of the environmental business...
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2018
Friday, December 2, 2016
frac tank ice cubes
Now that it's the beginning of December, it's about the time to start worrying about ice cubes. Really big ice cubes. Like, 21,000 gallons.
I complained here and here and here about frac tanks, which we use when we need to containerize large volumes of water. That large volume of water will turn into a big problem in the winter when it starts to freeze. We do try to expedite things and button up the fieldwork for the winter, but if we're not in time to get rid of the water, it will turn into a giant ice cube and then we're stuck renting the tank until spring.
I have occasionally witnessed various attempts to un-freeze frac tanks. If you catch them before they're totally frozen (say, a couple of inches thick), you can break up the ice into giant chunks with a pickaxe or other deadly object, and toss the chunks into drums to be thawed. But once they're mostly frozen, you're looking at a huge thermal mass that you need to warm up. I have witnessed giant propane heaters aimed at the walls, elaborate warm-water recirculation plans, and other hairbrained schemes. But really, the rental fee on a frac tank for 3-4 months is not as much as it would take a crew of professionals and various bits of equipment to spend days on end trying to melt a ice cube of that size.
I will admit that I have not worked in an arctic or subarctic environment, where the threat of freezing frac tanks is present for much of the year. I assume, however, that the plan would still be the same: deal with the tanks as quickly as possible, and get them emptied and off-site before they freeze.
I complained here and here and here about frac tanks, which we use when we need to containerize large volumes of water. That large volume of water will turn into a big problem in the winter when it starts to freeze. We do try to expedite things and button up the fieldwork for the winter, but if we're not in time to get rid of the water, it will turn into a giant ice cube and then we're stuck renting the tank until spring.
I have occasionally witnessed various attempts to un-freeze frac tanks. If you catch them before they're totally frozen (say, a couple of inches thick), you can break up the ice into giant chunks with a pickaxe or other deadly object, and toss the chunks into drums to be thawed. But once they're mostly frozen, you're looking at a huge thermal mass that you need to warm up. I have witnessed giant propane heaters aimed at the walls, elaborate warm-water recirculation plans, and other hairbrained schemes. But really, the rental fee on a frac tank for 3-4 months is not as much as it would take a crew of professionals and various bits of equipment to spend days on end trying to melt a ice cube of that size.
I will admit that I have not worked in an arctic or subarctic environment, where the threat of freezing frac tanks is present for much of the year. I assume, however, that the plan would still be the same: deal with the tanks as quickly as possible, and get them emptied and off-site before they freeze.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
clock-punching
The fourth question in this post a couple days ago was more of a complaint, about being forced to punch in and out, including for lunch. The poster thought that this was "blue collar" and demeaning. Setting aside the "demeaning" bit, which came in for a torrent of criticism, it is strange to me that being accountable for ones' time is considered non-professional. Maybe I have spent too much time around consultants and lawyers, but I have always been required to track my time. That's how the clients get billed. Even for a lump-sum contract, we still have internal controls and time tracking, so that the organization has some idea of the level of effort expended for the work.
I do not use a time clock, however. Given that sometimes I end up flitting from one project to another, a time clock would be counterproductive. I picture something like:
Client calls with some crisis or another. *PUNCH!* I get off the phone, make a few notes, and then someone calls from the field on another project. *PUNCH!* My computer stalls out and refuses to reboot. *PUNCH!* While waiting for the IT department to do its thing, I get cornered in the hallway for a side discussion. *PUNCH!*
This is why I have a little notebook to jot down the time and a word or two about what I'm doing. It takes no time and is accurate enough for toting up all the hours at the end of the day. Really, it's neither difficult nor demeaning.
I do not use a time clock, however. Given that sometimes I end up flitting from one project to another, a time clock would be counterproductive. I picture something like:
Client calls with some crisis or another. *PUNCH!* I get off the phone, make a few notes, and then someone calls from the field on another project. *PUNCH!* My computer stalls out and refuses to reboot. *PUNCH!* While waiting for the IT department to do its thing, I get cornered in the hallway for a side discussion. *PUNCH!*
This is why I have a little notebook to jot down the time and a word or two about what I'm doing. It takes no time and is accurate enough for toting up all the hours at the end of the day. Really, it's neither difficult nor demeaning.
Friday, November 4, 2016
Frac tank logistics
I had a good couple questions on my last post, and once my response in the comments reached two paragraphs, I thought it would be better to split it out into a separate post.
So, how do I clean frac tanks, and why do I worry about cleaning them, instead of the person I rented them from? And if I clean frac tanks, do I have a death spiral of cleaning ever smaller containers? (...paraphrasing)
So, the frac tank company rents out tanks to everybody. You see them by the side of the highway and on big construction sites for clean water storage. I arrange for them to store water contaminated with all sorts of stuff, although usually not with hair-raising concentrations (those get segregated separately as hazardous waste, and usually end up in smaller containers, like drums). I've also used them to store exotic mixtures of water + stuff to treat contamination, like oxidants and nutrients for bioaugmentation (feed bugs that break down contamination). The frac tank company is not expert in oily water or treatment chemicals or random contamination. So they require that the tanks be returned clean. I admit that I have not previously worried about how clean they were upon arrival to the site, because honestly, by the time you get to 21,000 gallons, that's a heck of a lot of dilution.
I always arrange for a transportation and disposal contractor to get my investigation-derived waste (IDW) off-site and to do the tank cleaning. And I usually have them deal with the tank/roll-off rental (for a modest mark-up, of course), because then it's their responsibility to clean the containers sufficiently that they'll get be accepted back.
When we're developing wells (removing fines!) or drilling, we'll always end up with sediment in the water. And we can arrange for bag filters and secondary settlement tanks and all that, but we'll inevitably end up with at least some gunk on the bottom of the containers. So the IDW contractor, who has all the appropriate certifications and equipment to go traipsing around inside contaminated tanks, takes a power washer to it and gets all the gunk out. Usually someone is standing by to suction the water+gunk into a drum. And since the water that was in the tank has been characterized and accepted for disposal (which is why the tank is empty now), the wash water is the same stuff, only diluted, and it goes off to wherever the rest of the water went. The drums get recycled (washed out, worst of the dents banged out, cooked, maybe get a new coat of paint) and then off they go to the next drilling job.
When I first started out, it was a bit of a surprise how much time was spent on things like cleaning tanks compared to science. But that's the environmental consulting business - science is fine, but a big part of the job is logistics.
So, how do I clean frac tanks, and why do I worry about cleaning them, instead of the person I rented them from? And if I clean frac tanks, do I have a death spiral of cleaning ever smaller containers? (...paraphrasing)
So, the frac tank company rents out tanks to everybody. You see them by the side of the highway and on big construction sites for clean water storage. I arrange for them to store water contaminated with all sorts of stuff, although usually not with hair-raising concentrations (those get segregated separately as hazardous waste, and usually end up in smaller containers, like drums). I've also used them to store exotic mixtures of water + stuff to treat contamination, like oxidants and nutrients for bioaugmentation (feed bugs that break down contamination). The frac tank company is not expert in oily water or treatment chemicals or random contamination. So they require that the tanks be returned clean. I admit that I have not previously worried about how clean they were upon arrival to the site, because honestly, by the time you get to 21,000 gallons, that's a heck of a lot of dilution.
I always arrange for a transportation and disposal contractor to get my investigation-derived waste (IDW) off-site and to do the tank cleaning. And I usually have them deal with the tank/roll-off rental (for a modest mark-up, of course), because then it's their responsibility to clean the containers sufficiently that they'll get be accepted back.
When we're developing wells (removing fines!) or drilling, we'll always end up with sediment in the water. And we can arrange for bag filters and secondary settlement tanks and all that, but we'll inevitably end up with at least some gunk on the bottom of the containers. So the IDW contractor, who has all the appropriate certifications and equipment to go traipsing around inside contaminated tanks, takes a power washer to it and gets all the gunk out. Usually someone is standing by to suction the water+gunk into a drum. And since the water that was in the tank has been characterized and accepted for disposal (which is why the tank is empty now), the wash water is the same stuff, only diluted, and it goes off to wherever the rest of the water went. The drums get recycled (washed out, worst of the dents banged out, cooked, maybe get a new coat of paint) and then off they go to the next drilling job.
When I first started out, it was a bit of a surprise how much time was spent on things like cleaning tanks compared to science. But that's the environmental consulting business - science is fine, but a big part of the job is logistics.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Investigation-derived waste
I haven't had any field rants recently, so I spent a couple minutes brainstorming, and I realized: I haven't complained about investigation-derived waste (IDW), one of my biggest management headaches! How did that happen?
So. When we do an environmental investigation, we are poking around for sample material - anything from scratching the surface with a trowel to drilling boreholes hundreds of feet deep to install monitoring wells. Inevitably, we will end up with stuff that came out of the ground which may be contaminated. Depending on the jurisdiction and the level of contamination (and how much we know about the site already), we may be able to discharge water to the ground surface or dump the soil back in the hole we got it from. We may not. So it gets put into drums or stockpiles or tanks for characterization and disposal.
The real problem is with the smaller sites, which have much less room for this stuff and aren't on any contractors' priority list because of the small volume involved. For smaller jobs, you wait until the end of the field project, so that you aren't generating more stuff after characterization. So you try to arrange the characterization (sampling for disposal), get it all approved with the client and the regulatory regime and the disposal place, and try and get someone with signing authority who will be available at the same time as the transport/disposal people. By the time all these pieces are in place, the IDW has been sitting quietly in a corner with nobody around to keep an eye on it, because all the active work has finished. And inevitably, neither the signing person nor the transport/disposal contractor have been to the IDW storage area before, and there will be some sort of access or technical problem (the drums froze overnight! The ground thawed and the drums disappeared into a frost heave! A fleet of trucks is parked in front of the drums! Something got mislabeled and your drum count is wrong!) that causes everything to grind to a halt.
I have had more headaches with trying to get IDW properly staged for disposal, approved, and carted off site than with any other phase of an investigation.
So. When we do an environmental investigation, we are poking around for sample material - anything from scratching the surface with a trowel to drilling boreholes hundreds of feet deep to install monitoring wells. Inevitably, we will end up with stuff that came out of the ground which may be contaminated. Depending on the jurisdiction and the level of contamination (and how much we know about the site already), we may be able to discharge water to the ground surface or dump the soil back in the hole we got it from. We may not. So it gets put into drums or stockpiles or tanks for characterization and disposal.
The real problem is with the smaller sites, which have much less room for this stuff and aren't on any contractors' priority list because of the small volume involved. For smaller jobs, you wait until the end of the field project, so that you aren't generating more stuff after characterization. So you try to arrange the characterization (sampling for disposal), get it all approved with the client and the regulatory regime and the disposal place, and try and get someone with signing authority who will be available at the same time as the transport/disposal people. By the time all these pieces are in place, the IDW has been sitting quietly in a corner with nobody around to keep an eye on it, because all the active work has finished. And inevitably, neither the signing person nor the transport/disposal contractor have been to the IDW storage area before, and there will be some sort of access or technical problem (the drums froze overnight! The ground thawed and the drums disappeared into a frost heave! A fleet of trucks is parked in front of the drums! Something got mislabeled and your drum count is wrong!) that causes everything to grind to a halt.
I have had more headaches with trying to get IDW properly staged for disposal, approved, and carted off site than with any other phase of an investigation.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Billable hours
A comment on this recent post reminded me that I haven't directly addressed one of the most intimidating parts of the consulting biz: being billable.
Because consultants are mostly paid by the hour (and even for lump-sum projects, I've always billed hourly to the project so that internal management can see if the project's on track), we need to track what we're working on. And if we're not billing to a project, we bill to some sort of administrative project.
The tracking of hours really isn't that complicated - it just becomes a habit. I keep a running tally of what I'm doing throughout the day, and then at the end of the day, I figure out how many hours I've billed to each project. Fieldwork is easy because it's usually one project all day. I used to use a flurry of post-it notes and scrap paper, but now I have a notebook-based system so I can go back and check. Other non-luddites may use tracking software, but I like the ability to jot things down on paper while I'm going from one task to another.
Of course, the big fear for newbies is not having billable work. Here's the thing: having billable hours merely quantifies what would be happening anyway. If I never have a project to work on and I'm just twiddling my thumbs all day, a firm would have a problem with that regardless. Having it in numbers just makes it more obvious. A reasonable firm will have an understanding that nobody will spend their time entirely on billable work - people go on vacation, have mandatory training, work on proposals, etc. And sometimes work is slow and after you go through the round-robin of all the people who may have work for you, and you can't find anything billable, you end up reorganizing the equipment room or watching some webinars. That's life.
Entry-level staff have the least agency, and are less likely to have long-term projects that they can pull out and work on when work slows down. However, those people often have extremely high billability overall, because they tend to do the bulk of the fieldwork. Also, they're cheap. It's really not a hardship for them to be temporarily non-billable. Higher level staff (like me) aren't expected to be quite as billable, because we're more likely to work on proposals, train other staff, and have explicitly non project-related management work. In my experience, higher level staff are also expected to "eat" more hours and not charge as many hours to administrative tasks as they actually work, but this varies so much that I can't really generalize.
Switching from a non-billable environment (academia, oil and gas, etc.) can be an adjustment, but I don't think it's intrinsically more stressful than other work. But maybe I've just gotten used to it...
Because consultants are mostly paid by the hour (and even for lump-sum projects, I've always billed hourly to the project so that internal management can see if the project's on track), we need to track what we're working on. And if we're not billing to a project, we bill to some sort of administrative project.
The tracking of hours really isn't that complicated - it just becomes a habit. I keep a running tally of what I'm doing throughout the day, and then at the end of the day, I figure out how many hours I've billed to each project. Fieldwork is easy because it's usually one project all day. I used to use a flurry of post-it notes and scrap paper, but now I have a notebook-based system so I can go back and check. Other non-luddites may use tracking software, but I like the ability to jot things down on paper while I'm going from one task to another.
Of course, the big fear for newbies is not having billable work. Here's the thing: having billable hours merely quantifies what would be happening anyway. If I never have a project to work on and I'm just twiddling my thumbs all day, a firm would have a problem with that regardless. Having it in numbers just makes it more obvious. A reasonable firm will have an understanding that nobody will spend their time entirely on billable work - people go on vacation, have mandatory training, work on proposals, etc. And sometimes work is slow and after you go through the round-robin of all the people who may have work for you, and you can't find anything billable, you end up reorganizing the equipment room or watching some webinars. That's life.
Entry-level staff have the least agency, and are less likely to have long-term projects that they can pull out and work on when work slows down. However, those people often have extremely high billability overall, because they tend to do the bulk of the fieldwork. Also, they're cheap. It's really not a hardship for them to be temporarily non-billable. Higher level staff (like me) aren't expected to be quite as billable, because we're more likely to work on proposals, train other staff, and have explicitly non project-related management work. In my experience, higher level staff are also expected to "eat" more hours and not charge as many hours to administrative tasks as they actually work, but this varies so much that I can't really generalize.
Switching from a non-billable environment (academia, oil and gas, etc.) can be an adjustment, but I don't think it's intrinsically more stressful than other work. But maybe I've just gotten used to it...
Thursday, November 5, 2015
management accessibility
Most environmental projects with a field component have an office-based project manager (PM), who works out the budget and schedule, deals with the client, and bargains with the other managers for appropriate personnel.
Then the field crew goes to work. The crew has a dedicated field team lead, who's responsible for getting the work done and communicating any issues/changes to the PM, who will notify other stakeholders (including the client) and adjust the overall project accordingly.
If you're a PM and your field crew is working outrageous hours, you need to be available for those hours. You may not need to be in the office, but you need to be on-call. Sure, it sucks to be chained to your phone in the evening or get rousted out of bed early in the morning, but the field crew doing your work is out there in the (potentially lousy) weather, doing physical and possibly stressful work.
Also, if the crew comes back from working long hours in the field and needs to spend another several hours in the office processing and shipping samples, and the PM is going to spend the rest of the afternoon at a golf tournament, the PM shouldn't be surprised if the field crew is a little... testy.
Then the field crew goes to work. The crew has a dedicated field team lead, who's responsible for getting the work done and communicating any issues/changes to the PM, who will notify other stakeholders (including the client) and adjust the overall project accordingly.
If you're a PM and your field crew is working outrageous hours, you need to be available for those hours. You may not need to be in the office, but you need to be on-call. Sure, it sucks to be chained to your phone in the evening or get rousted out of bed early in the morning, but the field crew doing your work is out there in the (potentially lousy) weather, doing physical and possibly stressful work.
Also, if the crew comes back from working long hours in the field and needs to spend another several hours in the office processing and shipping samples, and the PM is going to spend the rest of the afternoon at a golf tournament, the PM shouldn't be surprised if the field crew is a little... testy.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
outside office work
As I've moved into more analysis/inside technical work, I've occasionally had to work long hours inside. Whenever I need to do this, I'm reminded of how much more draining office work is. Sure, in the field I'll work 10-11 hour days with no ill effects, but a lot of that time is running around, collecting measurements, taking notes, and watching contractors.
I fit the extra office-type work in the office. I'm not the sort of person who can work well at home - I prefer to have a clean break from whatever is stressing me out. Even in grad school, where my setup for my apartment and my office at school was essentially the same, I would still make the trek in to do my homework. That means that in a pinch, I'll haul myself all the way to the office on a weekend to work. And because I'm a morning person, and if I'm stressed/under deadline, I will tend to go to bed early in an attempt to get more sleep and then wake up extremely early, I do all my extra office work before hours. By the time close of business rolls around, I may have already put in 10 hours and am wiped out.
I have coworkers who prefer to work extremely late, and ones who prefer to hide out at home to avoid distractions. I also used to work with someone who would take his stuff to a local bar to catch up on work. Of course, the best alternative would be to have a reasonable schedule and not have to work a ton of hours to catch up, but with project-based work, we rarely have the luxury of spreading out the workload.
I fit the extra office-type work in the office. I'm not the sort of person who can work well at home - I prefer to have a clean break from whatever is stressing me out. Even in grad school, where my setup for my apartment and my office at school was essentially the same, I would still make the trek in to do my homework. That means that in a pinch, I'll haul myself all the way to the office on a weekend to work. And because I'm a morning person, and if I'm stressed/under deadline, I will tend to go to bed early in an attempt to get more sleep and then wake up extremely early, I do all my extra office work before hours. By the time close of business rolls around, I may have already put in 10 hours and am wiped out.
I have coworkers who prefer to work extremely late, and ones who prefer to hide out at home to avoid distractions. I also used to work with someone who would take his stuff to a local bar to catch up on work. Of course, the best alternative would be to have a reasonable schedule and not have to work a ton of hours to catch up, but with project-based work, we rarely have the luxury of spreading out the workload.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
scientific $$$ competition
In both the academic world and the consulting business, many of us chase after big pots of money - the sort of money that would fund an entire research program or keep an office employed for years. Sometimes we compete for individual projects, or we compete for the chance to be put on a list for future work. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the sorts of organizations that have these pots of money are also big, and usually have complicated and occasionally opaque selection processes. If the proposal/bid requirements are especially onerous, part of the selection process may be to see how good the competitors are at following future onerous contract requirements.
With this in mind, I have two pieces of advice:
1. When putting together a bid or an application, follow the directions. If it says to include registered copies of corporate/individual certifications, scrounge them up. If the CVs/resumes/project examples are to be 1 page each and in Times New Roman Font, then format them. If it says you have 12 minutes for an in-person presentation, then don't prepare an hour long presentation.
2. If you do decide that the requirements are ridiculous, don't send an e-mail blast to the grant/contract people and the bidding group, saying that the entire process is bogus and that you're dropping out of contention because you have better things to do with your time.
With this in mind, I have two pieces of advice:
1. When putting together a bid or an application, follow the directions. If it says to include registered copies of corporate/individual certifications, scrounge them up. If the CVs/resumes/project examples are to be 1 page each and in Times New Roman Font, then format them. If it says you have 12 minutes for an in-person presentation, then don't prepare an hour long presentation.
2. If you do decide that the requirements are ridiculous, don't send an e-mail blast to the grant/contract people and the bidding group, saying that the entire process is bogus and that you're dropping out of contention because you have better things to do with your time.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
billable lunch?
When I first started doing fieldwork, I had to eat lunch. I was ravenous.
Now that my metabolism has slowed down, I either have something small/snacky (a granola bar or handful of nuts) or go without lunch altogether. It depends on whether or not I cobbled together a good breakfast and how busy I am - if I'm running around like a crazy person, I may forget about eating altogether.
If I don't eat lunch, and I'm going, going, going all day, then clearly the entire day is billable to the client. But what if I'm overseeing people who stop and take an actual lunch break?
I generally consider the entire day to be billable. If the field crew is taking lunch, if I'm not eating something (or I spend 2 minutes eating a granola bar), I'm catching up on paperwork, mucking out the trailer, answering phone calls and e-mails I've ignored, etc. It is a slow day indeed if I have nothing to do for a half hour or so.
If the budget is super tight, I may donate that half hour or so. If there's a chance that I'm not going to have at least 8 hours of work that day, I'll probably consider the lunch time to be billable. On a very rare occasion I'll actually Go Out and sit down for lunch with coworkers/contractors, and that time is definitely not billable.
Consultants, what's your lunch/billing policy?
Now that my metabolism has slowed down, I either have something small/snacky (a granola bar or handful of nuts) or go without lunch altogether. It depends on whether or not I cobbled together a good breakfast and how busy I am - if I'm running around like a crazy person, I may forget about eating altogether.
If I don't eat lunch, and I'm going, going, going all day, then clearly the entire day is billable to the client. But what if I'm overseeing people who stop and take an actual lunch break?
I generally consider the entire day to be billable. If the field crew is taking lunch, if I'm not eating something (or I spend 2 minutes eating a granola bar), I'm catching up on paperwork, mucking out the trailer, answering phone calls and e-mails I've ignored, etc. It is a slow day indeed if I have nothing to do for a half hour or so.
If the budget is super tight, I may donate that half hour or so. If there's a chance that I'm not going to have at least 8 hours of work that day, I'll probably consider the lunch time to be billable. On a very rare occasion I'll actually Go Out and sit down for lunch with coworkers/contractors, and that time is definitely not billable.
Consultants, what's your lunch/billing policy?
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
overtime vs. base pay
Ages ago, I discussed the (usually low-end/cheaper/commodity) environmental firms that keep their entry-level folks in the field non-stop and save money by not paying overtime. But what about organizations that prefer to retain employees and are willing to pay them to do so?
I've always worked for environmental firms that paid overtime for fieldwork/billable work, although policies varied regarding non-billable work. But I know of other firms that do not pay overtime. Instead, they have a much better base pay.
I like being paid overtime. It means that when I work an outrageously long day (or week), I have something tangible to show for it. It also means that I don't have as much pressure to work long hours if the firm isn't as busy. However, I do have enough of a financial cushion that I'm ok with somewhat erratic pay, and my overtime is a bonus and not a personal financial requirement.
If you could choose a higher salary to make up for a lack of overtime, how much higher would it need to be? Would it be equal to your base pay + overtime, averaged over an entire year? Or would you want to be paid a certain amount extra, to make up for the uncertainty in your schedule?
I've always worked for environmental firms that paid overtime for fieldwork/billable work, although policies varied regarding non-billable work. But I know of other firms that do not pay overtime. Instead, they have a much better base pay.
I like being paid overtime. It means that when I work an outrageously long day (or week), I have something tangible to show for it. It also means that I don't have as much pressure to work long hours if the firm isn't as busy. However, I do have enough of a financial cushion that I'm ok with somewhat erratic pay, and my overtime is a bonus and not a personal financial requirement.
If you could choose a higher salary to make up for a lack of overtime, how much higher would it need to be? Would it be equal to your base pay + overtime, averaged over an entire year? Or would you want to be paid a certain amount extra, to make up for the uncertainty in your schedule?
Friday, September 12, 2014
a culture of safety
Someone on ask a manager recently asked for advice on creating a "culture of safety" (sorry, can't find the link now).
In the environmental biz, safety is A Big Deal, not because we're all intrinsically concerned about it (I mean, of course we are!), but because of the nature of the work and the clients. Most major clients (government, heavy industry, large corporations) in the modern era have found that if they have a problem (property/environmental damage, injuries, deaths), they can't just handwave it away by putting the blame on contractors and subcontractors. One way to mitigate some of those political issues is to have tough rules for contractors, so that if there's a problem they can say "we did everything we could". That's where we come in. Also, as consultants, we're paid to be experts. If the fieldwork is a mess of health and safety issues, it looks terrible to clients and potential clients, and will impact the ability to get and retain work.
In environmental consulting, we have something new every day. We have different field sites with varied environmental issues, a slate of different contractors, changing weather, and other random stuff that pops up (new neighbor who thinks the field crew is trespassing, you get a big rainstorm and your staging area becomes uninhabitable, your contractor develops union problems, etc). So we can't keep safe by just relying on a static checklist.
A few things that can help create a culture of proactive safety:
1. Have a safety guru (or group) outside the lines of project/program management authority. My earlier discussion of safety/management conflicts of interest applies. This person carries out the safety program and is the point person for clients, contractors, and employees if there's a safety issue. The safety person conducts audits, encourages/regularly reminds folks of safe practices, and does post-incident evaluations. The safety person also coordinates the various trainings and medical exams the field personnel need (40-hour HAZWOPER, 8-hour refresher courses, OSHA construction safety courses, first aid training, and others as needed).
2. Field audits, preferably ones focused on practical solutions and not paperwork checks. Is the working area reasonably clear of tripping hazards? Do the contractors have all the safety gear (personal protective equipment [PPE], recently-inspected fire extinguishers) they need? Is there a safer way to do the work?
3. Reporting: we all know that incidents are bad. OSHA-reportable incidents are worse. But the best way to minimize the big problems are to catch the small problems that can lead to them. So there should be a mechanism to report small incidents and near-misses so that they can be analyzed and better practices developed. This can be tricky, because nobody likes to admit that something bad may have happened but didn't.
4. Lessons learned: if there is a safety issue, let the field staff know. Drillers used a novel technique that didn't work so well? Discuss it and the reasons why it failed. Someone hit a utility line? Maybe it's time for a refresher on utility mark-outs and indications of potential utility corridors in the field.
5. Carrots/sticks: it's easy for a safety program to slide into a series of punishments: you missed something you should have, and then equipment broke or someone got hurt. You should have seen that coming and addressed it proactively. However, if there's an incident, the organization (hopefully) had a bunch of people working at the same time who were just going about their business in a safe manner. It was quiet because the result was something that didn't happen. It's a good idea to seek out and reward those folks who did something extra-safe, whether it was fixing a potentially dangerous situation or keeping their head and applying first aid/following the emergency plan when something went haywire. I'm personally not a big fan of applying "xx hours with no incidents" to everything and making that a big deal, because that's how small stuff and near-misses can be encouraged to be buried.
6. How much logistical/financial/timeline stress do you put on the field staff? Is everything a crisis? Do projects need to be completed no matter what? It's easy to talk safety, but if the field staff is running around like crazy, trying to squeeze in a million different things, it's easy to be distracted and for safety to be relegated to a lower priority. And shortcuts start to look more appealing.
It's not necessarily easy to create a culture of safety, especially when it's much easier to just do whatever's fastest/easiest/cheapest. But it's critically important in the environmental biz, where we juggle so many different things and we have the potential for terrible things to happen.
In the environmental biz, safety is A Big Deal, not because we're all intrinsically concerned about it (I mean, of course we are!), but because of the nature of the work and the clients. Most major clients (government, heavy industry, large corporations) in the modern era have found that if they have a problem (property/environmental damage, injuries, deaths), they can't just handwave it away by putting the blame on contractors and subcontractors. One way to mitigate some of those political issues is to have tough rules for contractors, so that if there's a problem they can say "we did everything we could". That's where we come in. Also, as consultants, we're paid to be experts. If the fieldwork is a mess of health and safety issues, it looks terrible to clients and potential clients, and will impact the ability to get and retain work.
In environmental consulting, we have something new every day. We have different field sites with varied environmental issues, a slate of different contractors, changing weather, and other random stuff that pops up (new neighbor who thinks the field crew is trespassing, you get a big rainstorm and your staging area becomes uninhabitable, your contractor develops union problems, etc). So we can't keep safe by just relying on a static checklist.
A few things that can help create a culture of proactive safety:
1. Have a safety guru (or group) outside the lines of project/program management authority. My earlier discussion of safety/management conflicts of interest applies. This person carries out the safety program and is the point person for clients, contractors, and employees if there's a safety issue. The safety person conducts audits, encourages/regularly reminds folks of safe practices, and does post-incident evaluations. The safety person also coordinates the various trainings and medical exams the field personnel need (40-hour HAZWOPER, 8-hour refresher courses, OSHA construction safety courses, first aid training, and others as needed).
2. Field audits, preferably ones focused on practical solutions and not paperwork checks. Is the working area reasonably clear of tripping hazards? Do the contractors have all the safety gear (personal protective equipment [PPE], recently-inspected fire extinguishers) they need? Is there a safer way to do the work?
3. Reporting: we all know that incidents are bad. OSHA-reportable incidents are worse. But the best way to minimize the big problems are to catch the small problems that can lead to them. So there should be a mechanism to report small incidents and near-misses so that they can be analyzed and better practices developed. This can be tricky, because nobody likes to admit that something bad may have happened but didn't.
4. Lessons learned: if there is a safety issue, let the field staff know. Drillers used a novel technique that didn't work so well? Discuss it and the reasons why it failed. Someone hit a utility line? Maybe it's time for a refresher on utility mark-outs and indications of potential utility corridors in the field.
5. Carrots/sticks: it's easy for a safety program to slide into a series of punishments: you missed something you should have, and then equipment broke or someone got hurt. You should have seen that coming and addressed it proactively. However, if there's an incident, the organization (hopefully) had a bunch of people working at the same time who were just going about their business in a safe manner. It was quiet because the result was something that didn't happen. It's a good idea to seek out and reward those folks who did something extra-safe, whether it was fixing a potentially dangerous situation or keeping their head and applying first aid/following the emergency plan when something went haywire. I'm personally not a big fan of applying "xx hours with no incidents" to everything and making that a big deal, because that's how small stuff and near-misses can be encouraged to be buried.
6. How much logistical/financial/timeline stress do you put on the field staff? Is everything a crisis? Do projects need to be completed no matter what? It's easy to talk safety, but if the field staff is running around like crazy, trying to squeeze in a million different things, it's easy to be distracted and for safety to be relegated to a lower priority. And shortcuts start to look more appealing.
It's not necessarily easy to create a culture of safety, especially when it's much easier to just do whatever's fastest/easiest/cheapest. But it's critically important in the environmental biz, where we juggle so many different things and we have the potential for terrible things to happen.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
firing contractors
A comment on the previous post raised the issue of "firing" drillers/drilling companies. We all have different tolerance levels for bullshit from contractors. I look young (read: inexperienced), I'm a bit of a crier, and I can be a perfectionist about the standards I hold the contractors to. This may lead you to think that I kick drillers off-site left and right.
Au contraire. I may be young looking, picky, and sensitive. But I'm also stubborn and forever convinced that I can work with/around anyone. I also haven't worked with that many drillers or other contractors who were unsafe and insubordinate, so if I have to stand on someone and nag them to wear their PPE (personal protective equipment), invite field safety audits (by my firm or theirs), stop them every 20 minutes to change what they're doing, and extend the morning tailgate meeting to an hour-long roundtable discussion, then that's what I'll do.
For projects I manage, I would be a lot more proactive about booting unsafe/difficult drillers, because I wouldn't expect the people working for me to put up with what I'll put up with. I've never had an issue with drillers/other subcontractors on projects I've managed, though. That's probably a numbers issue - I've worked with many more individual drillers/contractors than projects I've managed.
I have not fired or been involved in projects that fired drilling companies. We work out the end of the contract and then go our separate ways. The largest investigations tend to go in phases (and be contracted in phases) as we look at previous results and adjust what the next phase should entail. And that usually means sending out new specifications, and going through the bidding/driller selection process again. That's the point at which I take a hard look at the drilling company's performance. Did we just have one bad egg (and I can request someone else), or is it a larger bad management/culture issue? Maybe we pick someone new next time. If we routinely have problems with a particular drilling firm, we drop them from the bidders list.
I've had very few individual drillers and firms that were unsafe/insubordinate/unable to do the work. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I think that as the environmental industry matures and consolidates, the "rogue" firms and drillers have been pushed out, and the number of "firings" have decreased.
Au contraire. I may be young looking, picky, and sensitive. But I'm also stubborn and forever convinced that I can work with/around anyone. I also haven't worked with that many drillers or other contractors who were unsafe and insubordinate, so if I have to stand on someone and nag them to wear their PPE (personal protective equipment), invite field safety audits (by my firm or theirs), stop them every 20 minutes to change what they're doing, and extend the morning tailgate meeting to an hour-long roundtable discussion, then that's what I'll do.
For projects I manage, I would be a lot more proactive about booting unsafe/difficult drillers, because I wouldn't expect the people working for me to put up with what I'll put up with. I've never had an issue with drillers/other subcontractors on projects I've managed, though. That's probably a numbers issue - I've worked with many more individual drillers/contractors than projects I've managed.
I have not fired or been involved in projects that fired drilling companies. We work out the end of the contract and then go our separate ways. The largest investigations tend to go in phases (and be contracted in phases) as we look at previous results and adjust what the next phase should entail. And that usually means sending out new specifications, and going through the bidding/driller selection process again. That's the point at which I take a hard look at the drilling company's performance. Did we just have one bad egg (and I can request someone else), or is it a larger bad management/culture issue? Maybe we pick someone new next time. If we routinely have problems with a particular drilling firm, we drop them from the bidders list.
I've had very few individual drillers and firms that were unsafe/insubordinate/unable to do the work. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I think that as the environmental industry matures and consolidates, the "rogue" firms and drillers have been pushed out, and the number of "firings" have decreased.
Monday, June 30, 2014
drilling payment
When I plan subcontracts, there are generally two ways that I prefer to pay for the work: by the unit of x produced, or by time spent. For drilling, most of the time, I prefer to pay by the foot rather than a day rate.
The footage rate is a performance basis. If the driller brings equipment prone to break down or encounters problems with the geology and can't go as fast as he'd planned, then the drilling company is on the hook for that extra time. This carries more risk for the drilling company, so their cost proposal is likely to be on the high side. However, if I have lots of information about the local geology and quirks of the site (for example, if we've already put in a couple of boreholes) and we have a pre-bid meeting, then the drilling company has less risk and will provide a more reasonable footage rate.
If a crew is being paid by the day, then there's less incentive for them to be as efficient as possible, and if they have equipment breakdowns or obvious periods when they're not productive, then I need to have a reckoning regarding how much of that time I'm willing to pay. However, if the work involves a lot of not drilling (they're required to decontaminate the drill rig with toothbrushes, they need to haul all their equipment and investigation-derived waste back to the staging area every night, etc.) then paying by the day does make sense. The drillers would need to have a wildly inflated footage rate to account for all that extra work.
I have zero interest in paying for stuff on a time and materials basis: today the driller used 2.5 bags of sand on this monitoring well, 3 bags of sand on that well, 2 rolls of teflon tape, 3 well caps, 3 well locks, 15 protective casings because they were all installed at once... It's a good way to make things overly complicated, and I don't really care what items were used, as long as the work was done safely and to our standards.
In the past, I've used a mix of payment items (mobilization fee, footage rate for each type of drilling, standby for delays that I cause). If it's a big job with multiple rigs, it's really best to go through and determine how much of each item on a daily basis. Otherwise, the accounting gets... difficult. And generally, the driller has his own items which I don't care about because they'll get rolled into the final invoice back at the office. But as I've gotten older, I've tried to minimize the number of items so that I have the level of accounting I need but the person watching the rig doesn't spend ages trying to figure out what we'll pay for.
On the surface, the intricacies of subcontracts appear overly nitpicky and not all that interesting. But since I've been stuck with massive cost overruns, invoices that bear no resemblance to reality, and heated arguments in the field about who paid for what... it pays to get this stuff right. And it doesn't take all that much effort to do so - you just need to consider what the end goal of the project is and how the subcontract helps or doesn't help that goal.
The footage rate is a performance basis. If the driller brings equipment prone to break down or encounters problems with the geology and can't go as fast as he'd planned, then the drilling company is on the hook for that extra time. This carries more risk for the drilling company, so their cost proposal is likely to be on the high side. However, if I have lots of information about the local geology and quirks of the site (for example, if we've already put in a couple of boreholes) and we have a pre-bid meeting, then the drilling company has less risk and will provide a more reasonable footage rate.
If a crew is being paid by the day, then there's less incentive for them to be as efficient as possible, and if they have equipment breakdowns or obvious periods when they're not productive, then I need to have a reckoning regarding how much of that time I'm willing to pay. However, if the work involves a lot of not drilling (they're required to decontaminate the drill rig with toothbrushes, they need to haul all their equipment and investigation-derived waste back to the staging area every night, etc.) then paying by the day does make sense. The drillers would need to have a wildly inflated footage rate to account for all that extra work.
I have zero interest in paying for stuff on a time and materials basis: today the driller used 2.5 bags of sand on this monitoring well, 3 bags of sand on that well, 2 rolls of teflon tape, 3 well caps, 3 well locks, 15 protective casings because they were all installed at once... It's a good way to make things overly complicated, and I don't really care what items were used, as long as the work was done safely and to our standards.
In the past, I've used a mix of payment items (mobilization fee, footage rate for each type of drilling, standby for delays that I cause). If it's a big job with multiple rigs, it's really best to go through and determine how much of each item on a daily basis. Otherwise, the accounting gets... difficult. And generally, the driller has his own items which I don't care about because they'll get rolled into the final invoice back at the office. But as I've gotten older, I've tried to minimize the number of items so that I have the level of accounting I need but the person watching the rig doesn't spend ages trying to figure out what we'll pay for.
On the surface, the intricacies of subcontracts appear overly nitpicky and not all that interesting. But since I've been stuck with massive cost overruns, invoices that bear no resemblance to reality, and heated arguments in the field about who paid for what... it pays to get this stuff right. And it doesn't take all that much effort to do so - you just need to consider what the end goal of the project is and how the subcontract helps or doesn't help that goal.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
tailgate wrangling
It's standard to have a tailgate (field team briefing) meeting every morning of fieldwork. Everyone gets to the trailer/office/designated meeting area and we discuss the plans for the day and any health and safety items of note. It usually takes about 10 minutes. Did anything go wrong/did anybody notice anything yesterday that we can do better today? Any special issues with what we're doing? Where will everyone be, and how do we all stay in touch as needed? The tailgate meeting is where I hand out the sign-in sheet, and often I have a form everyone has to initial documenting their attendance at the meeting.
The whole point of the meeting is that everyone shows up at one place so we can go through this stuff before we scatter to the wind. As the field team leader or the site safety person, I can give multiple team briefings as needed if someone's going to show up at a different time, especially on days when crews first arrive at the site. But it's far better to have a single team briefing at one time, so we can include everyone and I'm not chasing after stray people.
So how well does this work out? In my experience, from best (easiest to wrangle) to worst (hardest to wrangle):
1. Coworkers who are full-time field people (for the job in question), for a job that we're staying somewhere for: We're all at the same hotel. I have your cell phone information and have no compunction banging on your door if you don't show up.
2. Coworkers who are full-time for this job who are commuting: You may get stuck in traffic. Once or twice. After that, you'd better be here early enough that you can account for traffic variations. I have various options for exerting pressure on you to be on-site as needed (usually a discussion with management will shake loose some solutions).
3. Skilled labor subcontractors: Drillers, heavy equipment operators, other construction types. These folks are used to clients who demand exact (and early) arrival times. With very rare exceptions, once instructed (and they see that I'm serious about expecting them, so after the first couple of days) they will show up on time to the meeting, will head immediately to the gathering spot, and will help me out by publicly shaming anyone who shows up more than 2 minutes late. They may be caught late in traffic or have heavy equipment that will take a while to arrive, or switch out personnel (who will require a whole site briefing) unexpectedly.
4. Scientific subcontractors: These are more variable, and include folks such as remediation specialists, surveyors, geophysics folks, archaeologists, etc. Most of the scientific contractors I've used have been great, although in many cases they are used to being totally independent and may need to be reminded to check in for the tailgate meeting. However, a few contractors have considered themselves above the rules - not showing up when they say they will, ignoring safety protocols when they're inconvenient, not turning on their radios or checking out so I have to do a manhunt before I lock everything down for the night... It is a rare scientific contractor who is so special, they cannot be replaced with someone else. Maybe not for that project, but those contractors shouldn't expect another bid request from me.
5. High-level technical coworkers: These include corporate health and safety personnel, the project manager, and various technical leads. They should at least be aware of health and safety/site access protocols, but tend to drop in unannounced. I usually just give them a quick site briefing when/if I find out they're on-site.
6. Regulators, client representatives, neighbors, facility staff: They may have no idea how the site runs, and in the case of some client reps and facility staff, have no experience or interest in health and safety/environmental investigations. Regulators are better about checking in. The worst is when "not direct line of command" but interested parties want to know the content of these briefings but may not actually be interested in showing up. Or they say they'll show up, and you keep 10 or 15 or 20 other people waiting for no-shows.
The tailgate meeting is often just an exercise in attendance documentation. But if I'm trying to keep a complicated project moving forward, it's important to make sure everyone, from contractor foremen to laborers to scientific staff, are on the same page, and to have a forum to communicate changes and complications.
The whole point of the meeting is that everyone shows up at one place so we can go through this stuff before we scatter to the wind. As the field team leader or the site safety person, I can give multiple team briefings as needed if someone's going to show up at a different time, especially on days when crews first arrive at the site. But it's far better to have a single team briefing at one time, so we can include everyone and I'm not chasing after stray people.
So how well does this work out? In my experience, from best (easiest to wrangle) to worst (hardest to wrangle):
1. Coworkers who are full-time field people (for the job in question), for a job that we're staying somewhere for: We're all at the same hotel. I have your cell phone information and have no compunction banging on your door if you don't show up.
2. Coworkers who are full-time for this job who are commuting: You may get stuck in traffic. Once or twice. After that, you'd better be here early enough that you can account for traffic variations. I have various options for exerting pressure on you to be on-site as needed (usually a discussion with management will shake loose some solutions).
3. Skilled labor subcontractors: Drillers, heavy equipment operators, other construction types. These folks are used to clients who demand exact (and early) arrival times. With very rare exceptions, once instructed (and they see that I'm serious about expecting them, so after the first couple of days) they will show up on time to the meeting, will head immediately to the gathering spot, and will help me out by publicly shaming anyone who shows up more than 2 minutes late. They may be caught late in traffic or have heavy equipment that will take a while to arrive, or switch out personnel (who will require a whole site briefing) unexpectedly.
4. Scientific subcontractors: These are more variable, and include folks such as remediation specialists, surveyors, geophysics folks, archaeologists, etc. Most of the scientific contractors I've used have been great, although in many cases they are used to being totally independent and may need to be reminded to check in for the tailgate meeting. However, a few contractors have considered themselves above the rules - not showing up when they say they will, ignoring safety protocols when they're inconvenient, not turning on their radios or checking out so I have to do a manhunt before I lock everything down for the night... It is a rare scientific contractor who is so special, they cannot be replaced with someone else. Maybe not for that project, but those contractors shouldn't expect another bid request from me.
5. High-level technical coworkers: These include corporate health and safety personnel, the project manager, and various technical leads. They should at least be aware of health and safety/site access protocols, but tend to drop in unannounced. I usually just give them a quick site briefing when/if I find out they're on-site.
6. Regulators, client representatives, neighbors, facility staff: They may have no idea how the site runs, and in the case of some client reps and facility staff, have no experience or interest in health and safety/environmental investigations. Regulators are better about checking in. The worst is when "not direct line of command" but interested parties want to know the content of these briefings but may not actually be interested in showing up. Or they say they'll show up, and you keep 10 or 15 or 20 other people waiting for no-shows.
The tailgate meeting is often just an exercise in attendance documentation. But if I'm trying to keep a complicated project moving forward, it's important to make sure everyone, from contractor foremen to laborers to scientific staff, are on the same page, and to have a forum to communicate changes and complications.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
checks and balances
Environmental investigations requires several different roles: management, data collection, health and safety, quality control, etc. The division of roles, how much they overlap, and the level of expertise/cost of each person will vary. But you always have a field manager who's in charge in the field and a project manager (PM) who's in charge of the entire project. You also have an in-field safety lead.
The safety person is the person focused on making sure everything is safe, and is the point person for all emergencies. Large investigations (multiple crews, lots of people, high-risk work) may have a dedicated safety person, but this is rare. In my experience, the safety person can be anyone from the organization running the work who is in the field, and if they leave for any reason, the role is rotated to someone else physically on-site. The best practice is to not use the field manager as the safety person, because the field manager is primarily focused on doing the work under the direction of the PM. The safety person may report to the PM, but if there's any question of safety that isn't adequately addressed by the field chain of command, they ultimately work for corporate health and safety, and not the project. Of course, if I'm the only field person from my institution, I wear all the hats. If there's two of us, one is the field manager and one is the safety manager.
Field management is often a stepping stone to overall project management. Lower-level PMs often have small, uncomplicated sites that they also do the fieldwork for. It makes sense - if you've been running the fieldwork, it's easy enough to continue doing so even after you've had other responsibilities added. And it's really easy to coordinate your own fieldwork, data collection, analysis, report writing, etc. The problem is that, as PM, it's a little too easy to adjust things in the field based on your understanding of the client and what they want. Or because you know the budget is a little tight right now...
Far better, from a technical and legal standpoint, to have separate roles for the different types of managers.
The safety person is the person focused on making sure everything is safe, and is the point person for all emergencies. Large investigations (multiple crews, lots of people, high-risk work) may have a dedicated safety person, but this is rare. In my experience, the safety person can be anyone from the organization running the work who is in the field, and if they leave for any reason, the role is rotated to someone else physically on-site. The best practice is to not use the field manager as the safety person, because the field manager is primarily focused on doing the work under the direction of the PM. The safety person may report to the PM, but if there's any question of safety that isn't adequately addressed by the field chain of command, they ultimately work for corporate health and safety, and not the project. Of course, if I'm the only field person from my institution, I wear all the hats. If there's two of us, one is the field manager and one is the safety manager.
Field management is often a stepping stone to overall project management. Lower-level PMs often have small, uncomplicated sites that they also do the fieldwork for. It makes sense - if you've been running the fieldwork, it's easy enough to continue doing so even after you've had other responsibilities added. And it's really easy to coordinate your own fieldwork, data collection, analysis, report writing, etc. The problem is that, as PM, it's a little too easy to adjust things in the field based on your understanding of the client and what they want. Or because you know the budget is a little tight right now...
Far better, from a technical and legal standpoint, to have separate roles for the different types of managers.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
pre-entry level
An interesting discussion regarding volunteering is buried in the comments here. The question is, if you're just starting out and don't have any internship experience, does volunteer work count? What about unrelated non-office work?
In the environmental biz, internships and OSHA certifications are a big help when you're just starting out. Volunteer work is a little more iffy. I don't think that volunteering for an environmental cause is much of a draw unless you can show significant leadership or a serious time commitment. And if you come in all "Yay! I'm going to save Mother Earth!" it makes me worry that you don't realize the dirty, non-glamorous work that we actually do.
So what sort of non-environmental consulting work experience would I like to see in entry-level folks? For me, office experience is sort of a take it or leave it thing. But one thing that I do like to see is experience in being outside in all sorts of weather, working long hours. Because the number one reason why people bail out of environmental work is the drudgery of fieldwork. Getting rained on. Getting cold. Some people don't last a week. So, landscaping experience is good. Or construction. Or being a former camp counselor. Or farm work.
I do think that folks who want to be more than technicians need to have a strong science background, which means good grades or a good explanation for your grades. And strong communication skills are important if you want to advance. But all that doesn't help if you can't handle the fieldwork.
In the environmental biz, internships and OSHA certifications are a big help when you're just starting out. Volunteer work is a little more iffy. I don't think that volunteering for an environmental cause is much of a draw unless you can show significant leadership or a serious time commitment. And if you come in all "Yay! I'm going to save Mother Earth!" it makes me worry that you don't realize the dirty, non-glamorous work that we actually do.
So what sort of non-environmental consulting work experience would I like to see in entry-level folks? For me, office experience is sort of a take it or leave it thing. But one thing that I do like to see is experience in being outside in all sorts of weather, working long hours. Because the number one reason why people bail out of environmental work is the drudgery of fieldwork. Getting rained on. Getting cold. Some people don't last a week. So, landscaping experience is good. Or construction. Or being a former camp counselor. Or farm work.
I do think that folks who want to be more than technicians need to have a strong science background, which means good grades or a good explanation for your grades. And strong communication skills are important if you want to advance. But all that doesn't help if you can't handle the fieldwork.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
managing in tears
This is the story of my introduction to project management...
I'd just been made project manager (PM) for a site that I was the field manager for. I'd been keeping a bunch of balls in the air, and apparently I was a little too good at that particular skill, because I was asked to take it over entirely. I'm not a believer in doing the fieldwork for projects I manage (that's a topic for another post), but we were short-staffed and so I went.
While that particular phase of fieldwork was happening, we were also deep in the weeds with another phase of the project that was totally outside my field of expertise. The previous PM had a couple of different proposals for how the work should be done, but things on the ground had changed significantly.
As the field manager, I had enough on my hands already. We had a regular field crew plus multiple contractors, plus tricky site access I was trying to work around, plus an inflexible schedule. And things weren't going all that well. The stress had built up with one of my coworkers (Bob) throughout the week. Then, Bob discovered that he'd made a vast and long-term sample label mistake (this is why we need consistent nomenclature!) that was partially because of my unclear directions (I was distracted!), and he totally blew up. Had an epic meltdown, complete with yelling, swearing, and drop-kicking of hard hat a fair distance. Then the phone rang.
I saw it was the client calling, so I hustled over to my truck, which was parked, like, 15 feet from the action. I hopped in, and he said, "I'm going to need you to change your proposal to do this radically different thing that you have zero knowledge of. Also, because of this logistical issue that's been a problem for the whole project, I'm going to need a revised budget estimate by, oh, close of business today."... and I burst into tears.
Not knowing what else to do, I hung up on him.
Then I cried for a while because the project was going all wrong and Bob had just yelled at me and I had no clue what I was doing and I had just hung up on the client. I pulled it together and called him back ("sorry, bad cell phone reception!") and wrangled an extension without getting hysterical again, rubbed my eyes, and stepped out from my truck (still parked 15 feet from the subcontractors) and carried on with the fieldwork.
The subs were very quiet for the rest of the day.
Anywhoo, everything worked out ok in the end. The budget wasn't irreparably busted, nobody got hurt, and I learned that the world wouldn't end if I said "no" to clients occasionally. But "trial by fire" is not a management training experience I'd recommend.
I'd just been made project manager (PM) for a site that I was the field manager for. I'd been keeping a bunch of balls in the air, and apparently I was a little too good at that particular skill, because I was asked to take it over entirely. I'm not a believer in doing the fieldwork for projects I manage (that's a topic for another post), but we were short-staffed and so I went.
While that particular phase of fieldwork was happening, we were also deep in the weeds with another phase of the project that was totally outside my field of expertise. The previous PM had a couple of different proposals for how the work should be done, but things on the ground had changed significantly.
As the field manager, I had enough on my hands already. We had a regular field crew plus multiple contractors, plus tricky site access I was trying to work around, plus an inflexible schedule. And things weren't going all that well. The stress had built up with one of my coworkers (Bob) throughout the week. Then, Bob discovered that he'd made a vast and long-term sample label mistake (this is why we need consistent nomenclature!) that was partially because of my unclear directions (I was distracted!), and he totally blew up. Had an epic meltdown, complete with yelling, swearing, and drop-kicking of hard hat a fair distance. Then the phone rang.
I saw it was the client calling, so I hustled over to my truck, which was parked, like, 15 feet from the action. I hopped in, and he said, "I'm going to need you to change your proposal to do this radically different thing that you have zero knowledge of. Also, because of this logistical issue that's been a problem for the whole project, I'm going to need a revised budget estimate by, oh, close of business today."... and I burst into tears.
Not knowing what else to do, I hung up on him.
Then I cried for a while because the project was going all wrong and Bob had just yelled at me and I had no clue what I was doing and I had just hung up on the client. I pulled it together and called him back ("sorry, bad cell phone reception!") and wrangled an extension without getting hysterical again, rubbed my eyes, and stepped out from my truck (still parked 15 feet from the subcontractors) and carried on with the fieldwork.
The subs were very quiet for the rest of the day.
Anywhoo, everything worked out ok in the end. The budget wasn't irreparably busted, nobody got hurt, and I learned that the world wouldn't end if I said "no" to clients occasionally. But "trial by fire" is not a management training experience I'd recommend.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
what to expense
Last week on ask a manager, someone asked about expensing asprin while on a business trip. They were insulted that the firm wanted to be repaid the $4 for the asprin.
All the organizations I've submitted expenses for (college and grad school research, work, travel under a grant) required a strict accounting for those expenses. And they all had a definite and short list of qualifying expenses. Over the counter medicine was out, unless you were stocking up for a large field job and you could justify a giant container of asprin as a health and safety item for the project.
It was interesting to read the comments on that post. Several people suggested that the mere fact that they were traveling meant that various items should be covered by the firm (dry cleaning, random inessentials like gum) since they were away from home. I had an oddly visceral reaction against this, and I think it's because I work so hard to be perceived as professional.
I travel for work. Because travel is an expected and necessary part of my job, I am prepared for it. Just like I had to buy whole separate outfits for office and fieldwork, at great aggravation and expense, I also bought a complete and separate set of toiletries, sunscreen, migraine meds, and other stuff that I know I'll need. Those things are dedicated to my travel bag so that I can just grab and go as needed.
If you travel for work, how much do you get away with (or try) for your expense reports? Am I just sucker for sticking only to the essentials?
All the organizations I've submitted expenses for (college and grad school research, work, travel under a grant) required a strict accounting for those expenses. And they all had a definite and short list of qualifying expenses. Over the counter medicine was out, unless you were stocking up for a large field job and you could justify a giant container of asprin as a health and safety item for the project.
It was interesting to read the comments on that post. Several people suggested that the mere fact that they were traveling meant that various items should be covered by the firm (dry cleaning, random inessentials like gum) since they were away from home. I had an oddly visceral reaction against this, and I think it's because I work so hard to be perceived as professional.
I travel for work. Because travel is an expected and necessary part of my job, I am prepared for it. Just like I had to buy whole separate outfits for office and fieldwork, at great aggravation and expense, I also bought a complete and separate set of toiletries, sunscreen, migraine meds, and other stuff that I know I'll need. Those things are dedicated to my travel bag so that I can just grab and go as needed.
If you travel for work, how much do you get away with (or try) for your expense reports? Am I just sucker for sticking only to the essentials?
Monday, December 9, 2013
environmental interns
There was a kerfuffle in the commentariat on this Ask a Manager post regarding unpaid interns.
In environmental consulting (in my experience), interns do Real Work for Real Pay (i.e. not minimum wage). We can always use a hand for the big summer projects. When I was an intern, I never really had any downtime, and I've always managed to keep interns busy now that I'm occasionally in charge of them. A partial list of stuff that interns do in the environmental biz:
1. Transcribe logbooks so that I don't have to go hunting through 17 of the buggers to track down one observation.
2. Research everything there is to know about an oddball contaminant/particular manufacturing process/location. For the latter, you'll likely need a field trip to the local library or historical society. Write a memo summarizing the results. Include a reference section with notes on how, exactly you found the info.
3. Report quality control. Does this text refer to the correct table? If we cite specific numbers, are they consistent with the actual data? Is the first (and only the first) abbreviation spelled out? As much as I like to do this stuff, my time would be better spent on more advanced work.
4. Sample management assistant: label jars, help pack samples, schlep coolers.
5. Keep the equipment/supplies inventoried and in order so that the field crew can drop their stuff and move to the next thing and the storage area doesn't become a fire hazard.That way I don't order new sample jars when we've already got 37 boxes in the back. Similarly, try to make sense of all the paperwork for a particular project so it can be filed (electronically or otherwise) correctly.
You'll notice that I haven't mentioned fieldwork. If you're at a contaminated site and may come in contact with nasty stuff (sampling or doing anything intrusive), you need HAZWOPER certification, which is a significant investment for a short-term job. If an intern gets the needed OSHA training, then the universe of stuff an intern would be expected to do increases significantly (and makes my life way easier):
1. Act as field buddy for remote jobs that technically only need one person to complete.
2. If a site is small or has lots of well clusters (so supervision is easy), collect groundwater samples.
3. Assist with "all hands on deck" situations, such as a water level round for a large site that has to be conducted in a couple of hours.
4. Hand augering for soil samples. The more muscle to crank that damn auger around roots and gravel, the better.
5. Anything else that involves carrying lots of stuff, getting dirty (sediment sampling!), or long treks, which doesn't involve major potential hazards and can be carried out under supervision.
An internship is a 2-way street. Sure, I get help with some of the thankless and tedious work I do, but the intern gets a good idea what it's really like to be in the environmental biz. I also find some time to show off/explain the more complicated stuff, like how a drill rig works and why we're collecting these samples in the first place. And hey, if the intern likes the work and we're impressed with what we see, there may be a job held for when the intern graduates.
In environmental consulting (in my experience), interns do Real Work for Real Pay (i.e. not minimum wage). We can always use a hand for the big summer projects. When I was an intern, I never really had any downtime, and I've always managed to keep interns busy now that I'm occasionally in charge of them. A partial list of stuff that interns do in the environmental biz:
1. Transcribe logbooks so that I don't have to go hunting through 17 of the buggers to track down one observation.
2. Research everything there is to know about an oddball contaminant/particular manufacturing process/location. For the latter, you'll likely need a field trip to the local library or historical society. Write a memo summarizing the results. Include a reference section with notes on how, exactly you found the info.
3. Report quality control. Does this text refer to the correct table? If we cite specific numbers, are they consistent with the actual data? Is the first (and only the first) abbreviation spelled out? As much as I like to do this stuff, my time would be better spent on more advanced work.
4. Sample management assistant: label jars, help pack samples, schlep coolers.
5. Keep the equipment/supplies inventoried and in order so that the field crew can drop their stuff and move to the next thing and the storage area doesn't become a fire hazard.That way I don't order new sample jars when we've already got 37 boxes in the back. Similarly, try to make sense of all the paperwork for a particular project so it can be filed (electronically or otherwise) correctly.
You'll notice that I haven't mentioned fieldwork. If you're at a contaminated site and may come in contact with nasty stuff (sampling or doing anything intrusive), you need HAZWOPER certification, which is a significant investment for a short-term job. If an intern gets the needed OSHA training, then the universe of stuff an intern would be expected to do increases significantly (and makes my life way easier):
1. Act as field buddy for remote jobs that technically only need one person to complete.
2. If a site is small or has lots of well clusters (so supervision is easy), collect groundwater samples.
3. Assist with "all hands on deck" situations, such as a water level round for a large site that has to be conducted in a couple of hours.
4. Hand augering for soil samples. The more muscle to crank that damn auger around roots and gravel, the better.
5. Anything else that involves carrying lots of stuff, getting dirty (sediment sampling!), or long treks, which doesn't involve major potential hazards and can be carried out under supervision.
An internship is a 2-way street. Sure, I get help with some of the thankless and tedious work I do, but the intern gets a good idea what it's really like to be in the environmental biz. I also find some time to show off/explain the more complicated stuff, like how a drill rig works and why we're collecting these samples in the first place. And hey, if the intern likes the work and we're impressed with what we see, there may be a job held for when the intern graduates.
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