I am so royally pissed right now

I work in such a crooked industry that sometimes it makes me want to scream.  I found out about both of these today. 
1.     A couple of weeks ago we closed a job that we knew we were low on, and then out comes a Post Tender Adendum that revised some of the fixtures required, added a couple of exhaust fans and up-sized the breakers and conduit and wire to a couple of roof top units.  I had a quick scan and off the top of my head I said it wouldn't be more than 5 grand.  After I had revised my bill of material and sent it out I did the rest of the take-off for the addendum and came up with $1,500 in 'B' materials, all I had to do was wait for the quoted material to come in.  When it came in it added $1,000.  No big, we decided to stand pat.  What burns my brownies is that we knew that we were at X99,900 and the next guy was $10 grand higher.  I had thrown that $5 grand number out there not knowing what the lghting revisions would cost and when it closed again, guess what?  The other guy dropped his price to X03,900 figuring that we would up ours by 5.  What a crock!
2.     In December one of the local Walmarts put a renovation out to tender to turn it in to a Super Walmart.  We knew we were low on this one too, and were diligently following up with the general contractors that had tendered the job.  Today we found out that the general that got the job used someone else.  His excuse?  My number wasn't in until 14:27 and tenders must be in by 14:00 or you've just wasted a whole lot of your employer's money and a bunch of your own time.  BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!  I've never been late with a tender; not even once.  And I have the fax report to prove it.  Well, not quite.  The time stamp on our fax machine is 3/4 of an hour slow.  But, and there's a really big but here, if that's the case how come it never came up in the many conversations that we had had previously.  Or with any of the other general contractors that we had also quoted to and whose numbers just happened to be behind said contractor in the fax queue?

And people wonder why I drink (or don't drink more)!

Anyway, on to better things.  No, I haven't been ignoring you Gentle Reader, I've been just a little busy.  I've missed y'all.  I have been doing my daily drive-bys to see what you've been up to and have had a couple of thoughts on life (or the shortness of it) that haven't really been long enough to post about, so here goes the randomness.

     I think that electrical engineers get paid by the pound of paper that they put out.  I'm currently working on a renovation of a school that was built in the '60's with a couple of additions and renovations since then (I'm sure there's got to be some asbestos and lighting ballsts with PCBs in them around).  There are 52, count them, 52, electrical drawings!  This bear closes next Thursday, so I guess I'd better spur up my horse and get it done.

     We had an arctic front pull up and camp over us for 3 weeks, with daily highs of -16*C.  Currently we have a chinook situation going on that has been hanging around for a week or so with daily highs over 0 and for the last couple of days up to +11*!  Yippee!  While the arctic front was hanging around we ended up with more snow than I've seen since I've been home (10 years).  Now that we be chinooking, the meltdown has begun.  I got to listen to the snow melting off the roof all night; the warm wind was blowing and I got to hear every drop go down the drain spout and hit the extension that moves the water form the edge of the house out further into the yard.  Plink.  Plink, plink. Plink, plink, plink.  With no set pattern it made for very disjointed sleep.

With all of this snow that has apperared, we've had a few avalanches that have closed the Trans Canada Highway and others around the local area.  3 Albertans were killed in them, two of which were cross-country skiing and the other skiing in an in-bounds area of a ski resort.  Just goes to show you that when your number's up, it's up.

Another tragic accident that happened was just plain stupidity.  Picture this.  Transport truck north-bound, loaded logging truck south-bound and a mini van pulls out of a side road in front of the logging truck that is travelling at highway speed.  The logging truck struck the van, spun it around and into the path of the transport.  When are people going to learn that semis and trains don't stop on a dime?  Not only did the driver ruin his day along with his passengers' (all killed in the accident) but also both truck drivers'.  That's something that they'll never forget.

There's another one about a guy defending is property that I'll put up tomorrow (it's on my work compute) that makes me see red, but this will have to do for now.

Have a good one and know that I'm thinking of you,
Deb