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> It’s not just that we hire construction companies, we hire companies to manage the construction companies and then another company to manage the managers. Non
by ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> It’s not just that we hire construction companies, we hire companies to manage the construction companies and then another company to manage the managers. None of those people have an incentive structure that rewards building fast and on budget.
this is a giant issue in the angloshere
And noone own the outcome for quality of the result.
When an issue arises, before anything is foxed there are 15 years of lawsuits between these companies to figure out who's fault it is
In Britain, we had 100's of highroses built non-cpmpliant with fire safety, apparently the builder, the owner, the fire inspector and the local government are not responsible for compliance.
The leaseholder of the individual apar5ment has tonpay for fixing it.
Some people bought partial ownership, i.e. 25% of the apartment, the rest is owned by investors. Well, theybare responsible for 100% of the maintenance (this is a government scheme)
So some people have bought an asset for £40k and now much pay 100k to fix it. And they cant say no
- nmfisher 4y agoExactly the same thing happened in Australia. We lived in an apartment with flammable cladding in Melbourne that would have cost $50-100k to replace. Luckily we were just renting, so it wasn't our responsibility (we moved out shortly thereafter anyway). Having family members who worked inside government and having (briefly) done so myself, I completely agree with the grandparent. Government departments are basically just sprawling hierarchies of middle-management. Very few people who actually do things or take responsibility for anything. Those who want to are likely to get fed up and leave very quickly. It's all about contracting things out to the usual suspects of consulting firms, who inevitably are only interested in dragging things out for as long as possible and leeching as much money as they can. There was a recent report comparing metro construction in Italy with the USA that came to the same conclusion. They concluded that in-house expertise is by far the biggest factor in delivering large-scale projects on time and on budget.
- zo1 4y agoMy pet theory, not fully fleshed out yet, is that it's a consequence of "job creation" being a fundamental task of government. Or at least one we assign to it by virtue of constantly holding it accountable for "the unemployment rate" and other such statistics.
- HPsquared 4y agoI agree. I think there's also an analogy with the way software gets slower as hardware gets faster. That is, pointless bureaucracy and wasteful work grows as technology allows a smaller number of people to get the "real work" done. As long as the final result is acceptable (company doesn't go bankrupt / software slowness is tolerable), nothing is done about the waste. Edit: that includes overly complicated arrangements of sub-sub-sub-contractors with 5 layers of management, all passing messages around before the one guy with a hammer can actually do anything. Kind of like the modern web stack.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- HyperSane 4y agoBritain feels even more corrupt than the US.
- dazc 4y agoIn Britain you can be based in any other country and still get a fair hearing in the courts, even if you are claiming against a British business. I'm not aware of anywhere else in the World where this is the case.
- eru 4y ago> I'm not aware of anywhere else in the World where this is the case. Have you even looked? How about Singapore? Or even Switzerland or Germany?
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoyeah, that is a strange comment indeed. A fair justice system is foundamental to being called a free country
- MichaelZuo 4y agoIt's difficult to imagine anyone on HN, who's been around since 2014, and also not aware of the existence of Switzerland or Germany. So it does seem like mindless boasting.
- HyperSane 4y agoThe monarch is not even bound by any laws.