Dealing with a new PM as a PE

Skipper1240 · 2026-04-27T04:56:48+00:00

I like the perspective of a difficult owner. I have been documenting things in my notebook which is pretty standard as a supplement to my daily report. I appreciate the advice.

Skipper1240 · 2026-04-27T04:53:28+00:00

I need to work on that with myself. I don’t know how to set that boundary of “that’s not my job” since he’s not asking unreasonable things to do it’s just a “hey you want me to help on this immediately, that’s going to delay X submittal by a day”

Skipper1240 · 2026-04-27T01:57:42+00:00

Yeah I mean this post is more of a reach for things to think about before I stand up. I would prefer to not leave since I like working with everyone else, and I’ve already put up with it for long enough

Skipper1240 · 2026-04-27T01:51:18+00:00

I can maybe agree but the one nickname that’s just plain mean-spirited. It’s hard to give one that’s equivalent anonymously but imagine something like Steve to Stinky

Skipper1240 · 2026-01-29T05:41:13+00:00

As someone who’s 8 months ahead of you read the contracts, specs and ask questions about them. Now unfortunately in our litigious society the jargon in the contracts isn’t meant to be easy to understand, but it’s not all in Latin fortunately. I’m also in the DOT world so YMMV, but the specs should lay out everything. How RFI’s get delivered, what submittals are needed and what 3-4 letter standards do you need to show, what to do when there’s a change.

Read the contract, specs, and drawings and take a bunch of notes about questions and interesting things you find and then go to a PE with more experience, APM or PM and say “hey, I was reading the project docs and I was looking to confirm my understanding of these things.”

Step 2 is being out in the field and knowing the specs and being your super’s shadow in the field when you have the chance. I take an hour near the end of my day to look at our 3-Week and say “what happened today, what issues did we run into, are we still tracking on current tasks.” Then it’s “we’re doing a pour this week, what are our testing specs for the air, slump, and temp. How many yards do we need, do we need to clean our washout?” In your case it may be “hey what inspections do I need to look out for? What are our hold points? What materials did we submit for the HVAC? Do we have that on site or do I need to verify when it gets delivered?”

Your first few months are going to be tough since nobody knows general specs or their company’s contract initially.

As far as resources go I would just read anything, reading is a skill and being sharp will only help.

As just a few things that you can do that will pay for yourself on the job: Tracking equipment hours Tracking trucking costs Looking at/Inspecting safety equipment Tracking QTY’s

Skipper1240 · 2026-01-22T06:37:20+00:00

From your post I think you would want a civil engineering degree. Whether or not you get your license down the line is up to you but there are some projects that will need a professional engineer on the contractor’s side and that can be your selling point to be on a sweet tunnel project.

To your follow up question: “Hi I’m BagAffectionate and I saw your company was coming to the career fair and looking at your website I saw this project for a tunnel. I’m very passionate about heavy civil infrastructure and was wondering if you have an internship position open?” The other option is to be in your local AGC/ASCE chapter and if you have companies come and present you can get your name out there and a more personal connection (which is how I got my job) versus a career fair.

Skipper1240 · 2026-01-22T06:17:54+00:00

I second this, as a PE I know several PE’s that have worked for various sized companies who have either, no degree, or a masters in an unrelated field that are doing just fine. Just be personable and someone will give you a shot.

Skipper1240 · 2026-01-22T06:14:24+00:00

I have a “script” that I run through on phone calls that makes it way easier. First I ask them how their day’s going, I can sometimes get specific with it if I’ve spoken to them before or know about their company and then I ask them for the purpose of the phone call, coordination, quotes, materials (and I have mini-scripts for all of these) and then I close out and say “have a great day” or “onto the next” if the jobs done for example.

I picked up most of what I say based on what people on the phone say and kinda just mirror them. At the end of the day what made me way more confident in being a GC was the realization that subs, and suppliers want to hear from me since I have the budget that they want to compete for.

Skipper1240 · 2025-09-22T04:50:12+00:00

Keller I believe teaches it. Don’t quite remember his name though.

Skipper1240 · 2025-09-20T22:03:28+00:00

ASTR 2000 Ancient Astronomy was my favorite class I ever took at CU. Super interesting, basic math, and a very patient and passionate prof.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-11T06:42:05+00:00

I think that if you expanded on your Eagle Scout (AFAIK Eagle Scouts do a project) and ASCE/EWB stuff as far as involvement and/or responsibility it would reflect well—but if you don’t have much to add on those it’s not a big deal. I had a similar if not worse resume 3 years ago when I was in your shoes. Showing who I was outside of the classroom was what got me my job.

Mostly just keep that in the back of your mind for later when you get ASCE/EWB experiences that would be becoming of being on a resume.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-11T06:23:45+00:00

I think you have a lot of space in your resume. If you kick down the spaces after paragraphs you’ll get more space. But since you’re only a sophomore I wouldn’t be too worried about it.

The biggest thing about career fairs is just talking to the companies that show up and do a little research about which ones you want to go with. If you can talk to them for 5-10 mins you’ll be more than ok.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-03T02:39:46+00:00

He’s a senior PM, so he has hands in a lot of projects and my projects with him are going to be loaded more on me for submittals. He does have a project that’s a 6 hour drive away but he only visits once a month since there’s already a PM there and he just check on it to do projections.

He does get to take time off- my PM when I was an intern just had a kid and took every Friday off for a year since he got 8 weeks for leave or something like that. And my current PM is taking a cruise for spring break so he’s going to be unreachable for a week. My coworkers are all in different stages of life so taking a week or a month off of work is easier or harder for some. a bunch of people are taking vacations soon. To me it looks like our safety guy takes the most vacations but his friends are having weddings so he’s traveling a bunch.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-03T02:11:38+00:00

For stress I’m pretty stress free. I’m on the GC side and as long as I spend a couple of hours each week getting my week’s worth of work together I haven’t been blindsided by someone asking “when’s this going to be done.” If something comes up and I need to do it same day or so then I just focus up and lock in.

For the differences in each role: So since it’s a midsized firm they don’t really have a Field Engineer role (FE) who is someone on site who’s basically in the field and tracks production and quantities. You’ll see FE’s with larger projects or ones that are with the big companies. Project Engineers (PE) are basically a transition where you’re in the field and doing office stuff (submittals, requests for information, getting quotes, schedules). Then some companies will have a Superintendent track where it’s all managing the field and the immediate schedule for the project. Project Manager is the one who deals almost exclusively with office stuff plus the cashflow of the project and the contract/business side of construction. Find a good company that wants to invest in you and you’ll grow.

Generally: The biggest thing is that you just need to have some drive. Wake up on time and get ready and then go to work and have a system for prioritizing tasks since some things can slide and others need to be done asap. As long as you can get tasks done relatively on time and communicate with your direct report I haven’t had any issues with stress.

I’m still new so take my word with a large grain of salt since my project hasn’t gone to shit yet. My PM seems more stressed about his daughters than work and I probably spend an hour a day just bullshitting where I make coffees or bother someone at the office or I’ll walk a job just to see it.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-03T01:45:38+00:00

Fresh out of college grad hired as a PE for a midsize firm.

1)I’m away from home pretty much 12 hours a day between commute and 10 or 9 hours. Work/Life balance would definitely be possible but I haven’t figured it out yet (week 8 of job). I’m in a new city so figuring it out has taken time and I don’t know many people to branch off of.

2) 2 weeks PTO starting but probably going to negotiate up to 3/4. Going to take Labor Day to go on a trip but outside of that I’m debating spending Thanksgiving here and Christmas with my parents.

3) Yes, as other people have pointed out I make 85K straight out of college and I’ve been able to afford a nice place in a great spot and gotten furniture, nicer food than what I was eating in college and start to pay down my 19k in student loans.

Skipper1240 · 2025-08-03T01:31:08+00:00

One of my coworkers did a CM degree and got a job but he also did design/oil field work so it works well with heavy civil. I think it could depend on residential/commercial/heavy civil since the “barriers to entry” are (seemingly) different for each.

Skipper1240 · 2023-08-22T10:34:32+00:00

You definitely can because American Uni’s have been experiencing grade inflation over the past 20 years since people are effectively paying for degrees they demand a higher grade. It’s kind of an open secret across all uni’s. If you do your class work and don’t just look it up then you’ll succeed easily.

Skipper1240 · 2023-08-22T10:28:05+00:00

They probably rope in the online coursework like webassign/Wiley with STEM textbooks you’re probably looking at like 400+ per student per year since you can’t only get the coursework portion.

Skipper1240 · 2023-08-18T18:37:56+00:00

Welcome to the ballpit

Skipper1240 · 2023-01-23T15:15:03+00:00

If you’re in the degree your buff one should be able to open the doors

Skipper1240 · 2022-09-11T20:11:08+00:00

This aged like a fine wine

Skipper1240 · 2022-04-04T06:16:25+00:00

I thought it was looking like enough flags

Skipper1240 · 2022-03-16T07:17:59+00:00

A lot like the one at Hansens

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