Chapter 42 — Quiz

B. A field engineer learns in a day whether the RFI was good; a project manager learns in six months whether the buyout was good; an operations executive learns in three years whether the market read was good. Hours often go down at the top, technical depth frequently goes down, and team size is a symptom rather than the cause. The lengthening feedback interval is why some excellent people are genuinely unsuited to two rungs up — and stopping is a legitimate choice, not a failure (§42.1.1).

B. Bonding capacity governs how much work you can be awarded; superintendents govern how much you can actually build, and a general superintendent takes fifteen to twenty years to make and cannot be bought in a quarter. The second half of the argument is arithmetic: on Northgate the direct cost of work was $40,000,000 against a $1,804,800 fee, so a two percent field production improvement moves $800,000 — more than forty percent of the entire fee (§42.1.2).

C. Everything else is worthless if the person's word does not carry a date. The most common single reason a promising person stalls is not incompetence; it is that three separate people have privately decided they have to check behind them (§42.3).

B. The sin is not the miss, it is the lateness of the disclosure — because by month fourteen the company has already reported a number to a surety and a bank on the strength of your earlier forecast, and the conversation becomes about your credibility rather than about the money. "I can manage a bad number. I cannot manage a surprise" (§42.3).

C. The PE license permits sealing engineering documents; a contractor's or trade license is required in most jurisdictions to hold a construction contract. Everything else on the list is a market signal — valuable, sometimes scored in a public solicitation, but not legally required. Licensing is a state matter and requirements vary enormously (§42.5.1, §42.5.3).

B. They are OSHA Outreach Training Program courses delivered by authorized trainers, frequently required contractually for site access and required by law for certain work in some jurisdictions. Get the 30 early. Listing "OSHA 30" as a career achievement is a tell that you are new; not having it is a bigger one (§42.5.1).

B. The pool typically comes off gross profit above the buyout target — not the estimate — and is gated on some combination of safety, schedule, closeout completion, and client satisfaction. Miss a gate and the pool shrinks or disappears regardless of margin. Structures vary; that is the common shape (§42.4.2).

B. Bonus targets are marketing; bonus history is data. Two related questions run close behind: which project you would be assigned to, and who you would report to — both of which shape your next three years more than the base does (§42.4.5).

C. Promises do not compound and the person who made it may not be there in two years. Base compounds — future raises, future offers, and often your bonus target are computed from it. Negotiate the verifiable components, and ask for the review criteria in writing, which good companies provide without flinching (§42.4.6).

B. To earn $48,000 you had to fund $115,200 — roughly a quarter of the contract value and two and a half times the profit — out of cash you already had, for six months, before the job proved anything. That is a good job drawn correctly, which is the whole lesson (§42.6.8).

C. Growth consumes cash faster than it produces it, dilutes supervision, outruns the systems, and stretches the bonding ratios. It looks identical at $480,000 and at $48,000,000, and it kills more contractors than downturns do (Chapter 2, Chapter 34, §42.6.8).

B. Revenue-generating activity, finishing and collecting on existing backlog, and being movable to any job without a transition cost. Flexibility about assignment and geography is the cheapest thing you can offer and the most valuable thing a staffing decision needs (§42.7).

False. A general superintendent is frequently among the most valuable and best-compensated people in a construction company, because field leadership is the constraint on how much work the company can build and value concentrates at the constraint (§42.1.2).

False at three years — the binding constraint is demonstrated scope, not credentials, and buyout teaches scope-gap analysis, subcontract terms, and commercial judgment. It becomes True-ish if they intend to move owner-side, to an agency, or out of construction, where the PMP's portability matters (§42.5.3).

False, and the correlation runs backward at the top of the ladder — chronic seventy-hour weeks frequently indicate an inability to delegate, plan, or say no, which are exactly the three skills the next rung requires (§42.3).

False. Enforceability varies enormously by state, some jurisdictions restrict or void them outright, and the law in this area has been actively changing. Take the specific document to an employment attorney in your own state; do not accept anybody's confident summary, including this book's (§42.4.6).

False, mostly. A surety underwrites capital, capacity, and character and wants financial statements, working capital, net worth, a completed-work record, and a general indemnity agreement that commonly reaches personal assets. A new firm has no history and frequently has no program at all at first; small and emerging contractor programs exist and help, but the practical consequence stands — your first jobs are the ones that do not require a bond (§42.6.8).

False. They belong to your employer. What you may take is your own summary — project name, size, type, delivery method, your role, dates, and outcomes — which is why §42.9.1 tells you to write that page while the job is finishing rather than raiding a server later.

Crossing over is borrowing capability from the other ladder rather than switching to it. The superintendent who learns the money must learn to read a cost report and a cost-to-complete forecast, what a subcontract obligates and excludes, and what a change costs beyond the direct work — which makes him the only person who can say "that sequence will cost you $180,000" and be believed by both audiences. The project manager who earns field credibility must be on the deck before the pour, know what a crew of six actually does in a day, and never commit a date the superintendent has not agreed to. Margo's unwritten test: does this person's presence make the work easier or harder? (§42.1.3)

Becoming so uniquely good at something narrow that the company cannot afford to move you — valued and stuck, which are not opposites. Defenses: make yourself replaceable on purpose (train a successor and say so out loud); keep one foot in the general work (run a small job, sit on a pursuit team, take an interim assignment); and ask the direct question in your review — "What would I have to demonstrate in the next two years to be considered for X?" Two vague answers in a row is your answer (§42.2).

Because the industry is extremely fragmented — hundreds of thousands of firms, most of them small, with hiring and subcontracting done substantially by word of mouth — so the local association chapter is closer to the actual market than a job board is. The advice is narrower than "join things": join one, locally, and actually do something in it — a committee, the student competition, the same monthly meeting for two years — so that four dozen people in your market know what you are like when nothing is at stake (§42.9.3).

The two gates are forecasting and the commercial conversation — exactly Dani's two, and exactly the §42.1.4 gates from APM to PM. Nothing else goes in the plan; a plan with seven priorities has none.

Closing gap one: ask in writing to own the cost-to-complete on three cost codes, with the project accountant reviewing your arithmetic and your PM reviewing your judgment, and be in the room monthly while the forecast is challenged. Sit through a full bid day with the chief estimator.

Closing gap two: price and negotiate four change orders start to finish, with your PM present for the first and absent by the fourth; deliver bad news to the owner's representative yourself at least twice, early and with options.

The assignment matters more than either: ask for a smaller job with complete scope rather than a bigger job with a narrow one — less protection, whole picture. That is why Dani went to a $28.4M job instead of a $60M one.

The credential: decline it, for now, or take something cheap and immediately useful. Nothing on the §42.5 list closes either gap, and the company's money is better spent sending you to a bid day and a negotiation. If you might move owner-side later, bank the offer and revisit at year five. Say that out loud to your manager — it demonstrates exactly the commercial judgment you are trying to prove you have.

And three relationships: the chief estimator, one subcontractor project manager who will tell you the truth about how you behave, and the executive who staffs jobs — asked once a year, in the same words: what would I have to demonstrate to be considered for the next role?