At the moment I am an out of work civil and building project manager.
When I am in work, that means that I build things. Some of the notable things I have built have been:
A 50km long sealed road on Groote Eylandt NT (you might want to Google that) - and yes, there was one road bike on the island - a HD that the owner rode 15km down a straight road to work and 15km back the same straight road home every day.
A float glass plant in Ingleburn, NSW (float glass is high quality architectural glass - what your windows are made from)
Different sorts of factories and warehouses
A brace of schools here in Adelaide, including two of the new Super Schools
Some nursing homes (hopefully I don't wind up in one any time soon)
Civil works (concrete and such) for a gas compressor plant expansion at Ballera Qld (you might want to Google that too) - gas compressors compress the gas (duh) extracted from the oil and gas wells so they can shove more gas down the pipeline to Moomba and then eventually to your house
Student accommodation for a university college
Curtain walls on high rise buildings (the curtain wall is the glass and aluminium windows on the outside of the building)
Retaining walls on some of the big highway upgrades in NSW and even around the Olympic stadium
All sorts of railway things, like new tracks, electrification (the wires that provide power to the trains), tunnel upgrades, stations, bridges and even a freight terminal that never operated
Upgraded a rail line for hauling coal out from Ohai to Invercargill NZ - famous for the world's fastest Indian (you might need to Google Ohain and Invercargill as well) - you might be surprised to know that there at least 3 "World's Fastest Indian"s in Invercargill and asking about the credentials for any of them can be dangerous to your health
As the project manager it is my job to plan the project, make sure that all the procurement gets done at the right price, deal with the client day-to-day, monitor the costs and program (timetable), prepare monthly reports for management, manage the design team, administer the head contract and the subcontracts with the suppliers, have fortnightly meetings with the client, prepare and submit claims requesting payment to the client, assess and approve invoices from the suppliers, make sure the work complies with the specification and then hand the completed project over to the client. And I have to make sure all this happens within the safety guidelines and to the required quality. On remote projects I also have to oversee the camp accommodation and meals and flights for everyone to get home and to work.
To help me with this, I might have administrators, project engineers, site supervisors, safety officers and foremen - depending on the project I could have as few a 2 or 3 staff up to 20 or more working directly for me.
Along the way I have had a bucket load of fun, seen some things that you wouldn't believe and met all sorts of politicians. From my experiences, politicians are overpaid, unless you think that vain bimbos are worth a lot of money.
Chatty
