First look at "new" template...

Monday came and files were posted to their FTP site a few minutes before noon with the "I don't know what happened on the FTP site" comment.

I haven't had the opportunity to look at the "new" file that was updated for a few days - sometimes production gets in the way. Go figure.

Well, the first thing I looked at to check how different this file was from the last was the logo in our titleblocks. And that's where I stopped looking - for now. I've been told (by the Specialist & the Apprentice) that it was going to be converted to an image. I'm not sure exactly what difference that will make, but that's why we hired these guys. Anyway, the logo hasn't been changed from any of the other templates I have received from them. So I stopped looking at the new template.

Another email came in the afternoon explaining how he fixed the column footing schedule so that it didn't include the wall footings (oops) any longer. Not quite understanding what he said about what he "fixed", it didn't mean much. If we could learn what we needed to know from the manuals without being shown examples, we wouldn't have needed this whole process. Without him showing me what he did, it is useless because not much was even mentioned in the classroom about schedules - how they work, or a working example.

Which gets me back to "Why wasn't the content created before training?" If it was, like it was supposed to be, we could have fine-tuned the initial mistake inside (or after) class and my crew would know what to expect and how it works.

I really don't know how they ever expected to get content created without being on-site, asking questions, showing how things work. All they did was ask me to upload some files. Totally ineffective and inexcusable in my opinion. Whoever made that decision should not be making them.

Lesson to others: Do not agree to arbitrary content creation without you being there. In other words, do not agree them (whoever "them" happens to be) creating content on their own. Insist on them being on-site (yours or theirs), especially when the contract calls for it. Otherwise you'll do what we are doing and spend countless days trying to fix things before you can get down to business.

Shouldn't there have been some kind of checklist of what was to be created/done prior to commencement of training?

We are also being charged for one-half of a day of services for "Client Environment Prep." What that consisted of was mapping one drive letter and adding a folder to it - and that didn't even work correctly on some of the computers.

Also, shouldn't someone be assigned temporarily as our Project Manager when he goes on vacation?

The hole becomes deeper.

I'll post more once I have a chance to delve deeper into the "new template" in the next few days.