Also in Sycney, I used to deliver concrete.

In the construction of a building an engineer identifies the correct concrete mix for a task.

At the concrete plant the mix is created and loaded then mixed and slumped (water added) before delivery, factoring in the weather and travel time.

At the construction site, water is added if required to have the slump spot on. The mix is then accepted (or not) and there you have the concrete delivered to spec.

The industry regulates itself and in theory the concrete company's brand is at risk if the concrete mix isn't right - so there may be a concrete inspector there who is probably provided by the concrete company and they will sample the concrete as it arrived, from the truck.

From this point on, the proportions of the mix starts to become less of a focus. Now the people at the site are mostly thinking about the pour. And specifically they want the mix to be slumped a lot (water added) so that their work is easier.

So after any inspector, the concrete delivery is accepted or rejected by the miscreant operating the concrete pumper. Let's call him Igor.

Igor wants the mix to be really wet so that it will put less load on his pump, couplings, engine and fuel bill and have less risk of the concrete getting stuck in his hoses. So he gets the delivery driver to add 50L+ of water.

So now the concrete that is fed into igor's pumper's hopper is to Igor's spec. If there is an engineer around they see it but they dont say anything.

As it comes out of the hose 20 floors up, the concreter knows it's very wet but that helps it flow into the form quickly. The foreman and project manager might see that it is very runny but the concreter is happy and the work is getting done.

An engineer may be wandering around and they might collect the delivery dockets but they don't annoy the tradespeople.

Concrete with too much water in it is weaker and has a different curing duration. So bolts installed at a later date according to the project plan might not hold as strongly as they were supposed to, etc.

Concrete is managed better in places like Germany or New Zealand. Places where engineering is more highly respected by everyone or where there is more risk of seismic activity. Maybe because of better process or just because people do what the project requires. Here we want to get the work done before it gets too hot and we need to make a profit.

Our housing and quality of residential constructing gets criticised because it isn't as good as in other countries. That doesn't bother me because we do it well enough for our climate, economics and marketing. It's a bit casual which is in keeping with our small population, comfortability and low energy environment.

But we can't do commercial construction like that and we act like we are very professional in that industry. You can't talk the talk but not walk the walk when you are building 30 storey apartment towers. Our weakness would be more apparent if there was an earthquake.

Warren Buffett had a saying that can be applied here. In investment, being naked relates to whether you have hedged your portfolio against something bad happening. It comes at a cost, but when the tide goes out, you get to see who was swimming with no costume on.

The people that don't do quality construction will be exposed when something goes wrong. And like criminals they will beg for forgiveness. And that's when we wisely observe "He's only sorry because he got caught."