BE CERTAIN BEFORE CERTIFYING

摘要

The project must be coming to an end because you? the engineer? have just received a phone call from a subcontractor demanding approval of his final requisition. In fact, he wants to know what the hold up has been. After all, he faxed the document to the general contractor this morning, who in turn faxed it to the architect, and by his reckoning it's been on your desk for at least an hour. It doesn't make any difference that you can't distinguish between the 3's, 5's, 6's and 9's on a third-tier fax of a document in six-point type, because you haven't had a chance to look at it anyway. That's because the phone―with the subcontractor on the line―rang just as you walked in the door from a project meeting where the architect distributed affidavits from the local building department mandating that all involved designers sign and notarize the docu- ments or they won't issue a certificate of occupancy. You look down at your desk. Today's mail has already arrived. The first envelope is from a surety with yet another form for you to sign certifying that the j ob is complete and everything was installed per plans and specifications.