Message From the President: Like a dog on a nail

By Peter Hiebert, CTR
Once upon a time, a man moved into a new home. He liked his house and his neighbourhood, but there was one thing he could not understand—the dog in the next backyard kept howling, day in and day out. After a week of this non-stop noise, he rang his neighbour’s doorbell to see what was going on.

“Why does your dog keep howling?” he asked, exasperatedly.

“Oh, it’s because he’s sitting on a nail,” came the explanation.

“But then why doesn’t he just get up and move away from the nail then?” asked the bewildered man.

“Well,” the neighbour responded, “that’s because he does not find it quite painful enough yet.”

In the design/construction industry, we all have nails poking us—things we complain about day in and day out, but we do not do anything about them. Some of us have a couple of big nails jabbing us every once in a while, while others get several small nails poking repeatedly. Rather than take action, though, we tend to just sit and howl—simply because we do not find the pokes quite painful enough yet.

CSC might be able to help you with those irksome nails. Are you having trouble understanding construction documents? Need to better grasp the relationship between specifications and plans? Trying to figure out who all the players are and their roles in the project?

Maybe you are a specifier having trouble finding support documents, or a contract administrator always in a debate over conflicts between the plans and specs. You might be a technical representative struggling to know what you need to do to get your product in a project, or become a trusted advisor who collaborates honestly and ethically.

CSC can offer assistance. The association has the best network of certified and registered professionals in the industry. A professional with a CSC designation has gone through an education program that walks them through their roles in the industry, and we offer construction documents all in one central place—www.spex.ca.

Join CSC and take advantage of all the benefits it brings along with it. Just do not wait until the nails really hurt before you take action—because when that happens, it might be too late to do anything about it.

I am CSC.