Category: FIFO

Back Home to Brisbane

Brisbane
Home is Brisbane

Having spent so much time working in different parts of the world sometimes you forget where home really is. Moreover, I have met many ex-pats who may have many assets but have no base – no real home. It is taken me a long time to come to the conclusion that not only is my home in Brisbane but so is my heart.

I have lived in Brisbane since 1989 but have spent more than half of that time either working overseas or in various far flung construction sites in every state of Australia. Coal mines, iron ore processing, commercial building, water treatment plants, meat works, high rise etc etc. Now I just want to live here, no more FIFO, no more cheap motels, airport lounges nor hire 4WDs. OK the construction industry here is on the slide, the boom years are over and over the next twelve months there will be even more builders going to the wall or sacking staff.

Recently I have been asked to head back to Perth, I have been approached to return to Qatar to build football stadia for the World Cup. But I declined, they can keep their money I simply want to sleep in my own bed each night.

Who would want to live anywhere else?

by Gerry Keating

http://gkeating.com

The jungle is dense and the river is deep

This little gem of advice was given to me some years back up in the farthest reaches of Kalimantan (Borneo as we used to call it). I was PM on my first resources project, building new infrastructure on a brand new open cut coal mine.

The team consisted of me,  my resident engineer, a contracts manager and 750 locals. The project included all buildings, plant maintenance facilities, barge loading, purchase of all mine plant, and a 45 Klm haul road. Total value about $US100m. All carried out through virgin rain forest with the only access by sea or helicopter. That was the construction side, but the other part of the project was to set up a cost structure for getting the coal out of the ground, taking it to the river, loading barges and delivering it to coal ships moored in deep water. A cost structure that would accurately manage costs and report/forecast on the profitability of the business.

The mine was Indonesian owned and the owners had a very simple philosophy. They knew how much they could sell a tonne of coal for, so they simply wanted to know the cost of getting it out of the ground and delivered to their clients’ ships.

The way it had been set up was haphazard with all subcontractors charging on a cost plus basis. One of my tasks was simply to stop this and get everyone working on fixed price lump sum term contracts. Maybe easy to do in sunny Brisbane but a bit more challenging in deepest Kalimantan. So I set about the task by working out what it was costing, the average selling price of coal project over the next three years, discounted cash flows, capital investment, the normal run of the mill spreadsheet heaven.

I called a meeting of about 100 subcontractors, all locals. They turned up in pretty much the same uniform of shorts, ripped off tee shirts, and many with ubiquitous parangs (you call that a knife, a parang is a big bloody knife). So with my interpreter I commence my spiel, being ultra careful not to point, raise my feet to expose the soles etc etc. After about twenty minutes of extolling the virtues of the certainties of fixed price arrangements, the win win relationship plus all sorts of similar management speak, a small figure at the back stood up. Not only did the audience go quite, my Indonesian interpreter went visibly pail. The interlocutor spoke firmly for ten seconds and the room if it were possible went even quieter. My interpreter was reluctant to speak but after physically prodding him for the translation, he whispered to me, a feat in itself as I was two foot taller than him, that the firm spoken speaker had said, “The rivers are deep and the jungle is dense”.

I was baffled and asked him what does he mean. My diminutive friend responded in his best interpretation of my scouse accent, “Er keep this up mate and you won’t be going home in a box ‘cos they won’t find yer body pal”

I ditched fixed price negotiations immediately and from that point on we were all friends. The infrastructure was completed, the price of coal to China went up, the subbies made money, the client smiled (or was it wind) and I flew home a year later business class.

Rostered Day Off spent with James Joyce

As I am on a rostered day off in the morning, my thoughts turn away from construction to one of my other passions – Irish literature. The following is also on one of my other blogs which I do not publicise here as we all need some privacy.

When I was six years old I was on holiday in Ireland with my mother. An Irish lady born in beautiful Carlingford county Louth. Although she left school at fourteen she had a passion for literature especially Irish novelists. She was an out an out Feanian and her priorities were country, Catholicism and family in that order. It was she who introduced me to the magical world of irish writers. That magic started on a beautiful summer’s day with a visit to the grave of William Butler Yates at Drumcliff County Sligo. Much to my surprise my mother knelt down and then yanked me down too, and said a silent prayer not just for the great man but for Ireland and its people. (so I learned much later).

As I got older I would borrow my mother’s books and devour them: Yeats, Swift, Pearse, O Riordan, Wilde, Sterne, Goldsmith. But there was one missing – the towering presence of James Aloysius Joyce. And why? Because some of his work had been banned by the catholic church. Of course as teenager anything banned meant I had to have it. It was the late sixties and everything that the establishment did not want us to have, we made sure we had it. No matter if it were books, drinks, acid, music etc. Thus my life-long love affair with Joyce began. As we approach Bloomsday and remember the characters of Ulysses going about their day on 16th June 1904, those early memories of my mother, Ireland, long summers and happy days return. A long way from the Pilbara in Western Australia where I now earn my keep.

So for those who follow this blog a little bit of the magic of Yeats followed my the magnificence of Joyce

The last three lines of one of Yeats’ poems are written on his grave stone

Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

 And my choice from Joyce’s Ulysses has to be the following two passages from the episode Cyclops:

 After the citizen spots this person at the bar, the person is described:

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus). The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and tremble.

And later the best description of Guinness ever:

Terence O’Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

Mentors

We all have them, but we mostly don’t recognize them. They may be family members, managers in the workplace or the old guy you thought was a fool but in hindsight proved to be a pretty wise old bird.

The resources sector has many such people who on the face of it seem world easy, weather-beaten and basically the classic “grumpy old man”. But these are the backbone of the industry. They never read motivational, or self-help books by American Harvard gurus. They have, unwittingly mentored many, many people. often withe either party being totally unaware of what was going on. take the young know it all project manager, two years out of university whose biggest site he has seen is probably his girlfriend’s bare arse. he has no idea about what really happens on site, yet he is a wizard with Primavera, has multiple dashboards on his desktop and can wax lyrically about hours to go, month end forecasting, bloody KPIs, etc, etc. yet has no idea how to manage and pull down and re-assemble a stacker reclaimer or a dragline. Without knowing it his mentors are the people who report to him. Yet often the people with the real knowledge, the backbone of the industry, go un-noticed and not recognised. Sent out to grass whilst the young punk climbs the slippery pole called the corporate ladder.

Long live the grumpy old guy. Hope you read this Dante – I am referring to you, you grumpy old bastard.

Fools aka Pratts

Why do we put up with fools?

Well the first step is to define a fool. Yes we have all met them, worked with them and sometimes we have all been one. If you know you have acted like a fool that’s a start but a lot of people really don’t know when they are being a complete 22 carat unmitigated pratt.

So consider the workplace pratt. The most well known to all of us is Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the bumbling, self deluded manager in the UK tv show “The Office”. Who has never compared their boss to Ricky’s tv character, but the really serious issue is when you have this sort of Pratt who reports to you Well the first step is to define a fool. Yes we have all met them, worked with them and sometimes we have all been one. If you know you have acted like a fool that’s a start but a lot of people really don’t know when they are being a complete 22 carat unmitigated pratt.

So consider the workplace pratt. The most well known to all of us is Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the bumbling, self deluded manager in the UK tv show “The Office”. Who has never compared their boss to Ricky’s tv character, but the really serious issue is when you have this sort of Pratt who reports to you.

Well the first step is to define a fool. Yes we have all met them, worked with them and sometimes we have all been one. If you know you have acted like a fool that’s a start but a lot of people really don’t know when they are being a complete 22 carat unmitigated pratt.

So consider the workplace pratt. The most well known to all of us is Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the bumbling, self deluded manager in the UK tv show “The Office”. Who has never compared their boss to Ricky’s tv character, but the really serious issue is when you have this sort of Pratt who reports to you. Often they believe they are doing a great job, work under the misapprehension that their staff see them as born leaders and their boss thinks they are indispensable.

Bearing this in mind my thoughts went to an incident a few years back when I was Project Manager building a new municipal sewage treatment plant in Mumbai, India. We were working for a large civils company and the client was the equivalent of the local city council. I shall leave the whole Mumbai experience to a separate blog. The team consisted of me, two superintendents, six (yes six) QA inspectors, a project controller, numerous administrators and a dozen drivers, plus various assorted foremen. Everyone accept for me and one of the superintendents were local Indians. The superintendent in question was British and still though of India as the last refuge of the British Empire. I used to get the constant carping of “they do to do it like this in the UK” or “since we gave
them independence the place has gone to the dogs” Curious racist and xenophobic comments considering the basket case that the UK had become. But I digress.

This superintendent was technically very good, a hard worker, honest and loyal. But he was hopeless at managing people and even worse at managing upwards ie to me. In his eyes he was never wrong. The spec was wrong, the drawings were wrong, the consultants were d###heads and the client was off his trolley. All incorrect but not in his mind. This caused unbelievable tension and anyone who has worked in places like India know this attitude leads not to confrontation but to confusion and communication breakdown. I tried everything, the arm around the shoulder, the quiet word, even the threat of a one way ticket.

In the end he had to be convinced that he had to go. But the twist is, and the managing of the situation was, for him to convince himself he had to.

Well he’d did and went!

The Dog and the Tail

There is an old expression: something about the tail wagging the dog, the gist being the person who should be in control is in fact controlled by those he should be controlling. Apologies for the tautology but you get my drift.

The traditional project had a PM at the top of the pyramid and the next level would be site manager, project planner and contract administrator. the next level foremen, supervisers etc. Everyone new their role. The PM reported to the Building/ Construction/ Operations manager and they in turn reported to the Rgional/General Manager. Life was simple, comunication flowed up and down the organisation and everyone new their career path, what they were responsible for, and who they were responsible to.

Times have changed. In a world where the most junior cadet can email the client’s managing director and the first thing the PM knows about it is when the sh*t hits the fan, control of communication has become like knitting fog. OK we have Acconex (but don’t get me started) and other project controls, now that term did not exist a few years ago in Australia. Have you ever heard such American nonesonse “Project Controls Manager”. There is only one person in control – the PM, not some glorified QS.

Anyway I digress.

Back to the tail and the dog. Because the construction industry, in particular within the resources sector, is booming, we have had to hire people who if times were tough we simply would not entertain them. People who were supervising the construction of timber framed housing are now erecting structural steel, not on a domestic sub-division but inside a complex, dangerous production facility. Putting it simply – different rules, procedures, practices and trades. So these inexperienced “newbies” start to rely on advice not from the people they report to as that would show their shortcomings, but they ask the workforce. Before long the guys on the tools are asking for scale rules, contacting suppliers, organising deliveries and bacically running the job themselves. The canny PM spots this early and sorts it out, but if there is a long workforce it can go un-noticed until either someone gets hurt or the jungle grapevine tips him off.

Do you blame the person that hired these people? Normally you would say yes, but when you cannot get anyone who wants to be a supervisor and earn $50K pa less than those he supervisors, you eventually hire someone, anyone.