[week.05] rock and roll meets independence

This week was very busy! I spent a lot of time getting organized and straightened up, and on Tuesday we had a head-to-toe look at the Scripps Headquarters building. It was really great - I know we saw it a few months ago in school, but getting a second look was really great. The tour was very thorough- we got to see the executive offices, mailrooms, HVAC rooms, etc. We even got to see a space within the building that they are about to renovate. We were there for about three and a half hours actually. We are mainly there to look at systems furniture and programming for the building. 

My iphone has just about been my best friend this week - seems to me that I just can't turn it off. I am listening to all sorts of different stations, and rocking out while I get my productivity on. July 4th was great - very nice to have a holiday, but so strange to have one in the middle of the week! None of us could figure out what day it was. 

Thursday we had a breakthrough with one of our clients - we are done with final decisions and starting construction documents! It's a wonderful feeling. So this week's focus is to jump in head first to get the job done! We are in the finalizing stages for two projects right now actually, so we are keeping busy documenting! 

At Smee Busby, Elaine is our in-house purchaser! She does the purchasing and is great at seeking out good deals, etc. Project fees are determined by market standard here - A lot is done based on the bid process. Bid rates are determined based on direct labor and indirect labor expenses plus overhead - it is a formula that we plug everything into to determine our rates and fees. Mainly we go by industry standards. Our estimating is handled mainly by the principles- we estimate through the hours from our staff. We may use quotes from the subcontractors. The way that we determine actual cost is that we take the hours from different employees and bills that are from the subcontractors. We compare these to see where we fell on our budget. We always manage our budget by having a kickoff meeting to determine and understand the scope of work for a project. We follow up with progress meeting and evaluate the current hours being used against the estimated hours. We will also have meetings to discuss any unforseen work or conflicts that need to be discussed, and to see if any additional services need to be charged to the client. We closely monitor each project to ensure that we do not run over on our hours. We manage our budgets through weekly meetings with the staff, good communication, negotiating with the consultants, and management review. 

This week, I actually am able to get a picture of my person of the week! Her name is Ali, she is very sweet and she is our rep for carpet! 

Ali at Sunspot!

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