my take on construction management

It's been long enough since I spent a rather uneventful summer working as an intern for one of the largest general contractors. Long enough that I don't any more feel guilty about the lost time and forgone opportunities. A recent startup, glassdoor.com, now provides the means to reflect on my experience interning for the general contractor and share it with others. I'm reposting my entry here in the belief that the company in question is representative of the field overall and that there are ambitious engineering students out there who might benefit from hearing someone else's perspective. With this said, I can of course only speak for myself as an intern.

Why would an ambitious engineering student consider working in construction management? I was early in my civil engineering program interested in all forms of built environment. I accepted the internship offer thinking that to learn the ropes I have to get direct and unmediated exposure to the nitty-gritty of construction. I still believe the best way to test your interest is to dive head first and sweat it out. Take some vocational school classes in building construction, help your neighbor with the addition he's planning, better yet take a few years off from school and enroll in a union apprenticeship. You'd be naive to fear you'll get behind your peers. Just think of all those who spend years volunteering for AmeriCorps or Peace Corps. Construction management is a different beast though. There's certainly a management part to it, but there's darn little construction, much less engineering involved.

In fact, the one lasting benefit of the internship for me -- other than getting a reality check on what construction management is all about -- was that the company encouraged its office employees (project engineers, estimators, interns) to walk the job-site frequently and not just on their own time. It's a telling fact though that many of those I shared my trailer with would never even venture into the construction zone finding more comfort in hopping from one meeting to another and rehashing subcontracts. Ok... walk the site you may, but be content with being a sidewalk superintendent. In other words, don't expect much if any mentorship from field staff. In all fairness, the senior project engineers and managers may be totally willing to give you tips. Unfortunately, they are generally the least informed about the nuts and bolts of the construction process. The surprising and unfortunate fact is that there seems to be a complete disconnect between the field staff (superintendents etc.) and the management ranks -- the former have no incentive to mentor the latter who essentially serve as factotums for office chores. Ironically, even monthly company PE training sessions on technical matters of construction (waterproofing etc.) were conducted by project engineers and managers who seemed to just regurgitate something they merely learned by rote. Consequently, if you came for a promised hands-on problem-solving experience, you'll find the whole management enterprise sort of devoid of purpose other than making money and relieving one's company of all responsibility.

Working for the general contractor in any project management capacity is nothing less than indentured servitude. You're given ample food, drink, a generous monetary compensation (but less than minimal office space). In return, you'll give up all your waking hours and convert to cubicle dronehood, a variety of the cult aka corporate culture, which is admittedly not specific to the construction management industry. My impression of long-time career potential at the company is quite pessimistic. I found very little trust among employees. With the exception of a newly hired Project Engineer, I couldn't get any other of my colleagues to talk to me candidly about their experience. Turnover was comparable to that at a fast-food chain. Among the people I worked with, one of my immediate superiors left during my summer stint, two others left soon after the end of my internship. It's a far cry from brainstorming gnarly problems in tightly knit groups that you're used to as an engineering student. Incidentally, from my interaction with field employees (tradesmen, superintendents), they appeared quite pleased with their work and compensation as I most likely would've been in their position.

As an intern, you'd be a low man on the totem pole anywhere, nothing wrong about it. But there's something fundamentally amiss about your role at a construction management company. You will be looked down upon as a pesky nuisance by everyone -- and rightly so -- from subcontractors whom it is your task to prevent from communicating directly with architects/engineers to the company's own concrete workers who will think of you as an idle onlooker pestering them with the "not even wrong" sort of questions. You will understand nothing about what went into the design and little about what went into its construction (other than learn about an occasional conflict that you happened to submit an RFI on or happened to hear about at a coordination meeting).

I decided to post this as a warning to analytically or design oriented civil, structural, or mechanical engineering students who might unwittingly succumb to the illusion that there's something "hands-on" about construction management. In all honesty, your position vis-a-vis construction will be that of an event planner's assistant's aide in relation to active participants at a wedding she's helping to book. It's true, some construction management companies have a "field engineer" type of position leading to superintendent in the long run, but I'd be suspicious of any promise of a smooth and proven track. If you were brought up to take pride in your professional skillset and aren't quick to give up your privilege to tinker and invent, you'd better look elsewhere. Caveat emptor.