Comment Your boss knows two things about construction (Score 1) 716
Jack, and shit. As someone who worked in construction for 10 years and now has 3 years experience as a software developer, allow me to present a rebuttal:
The bricklayer is an independent contractor who signed a contract to deliver a finished wall on a certain date for a certain price. How much or how little time it takes him to complete the job is his own business. He gets paid the same amount regardless. Whether he's super awesome and completes the wall in half the time, or he's a screw-up who ends up putting in 80 hour weeks tearing down sections and rebuilding them, he gets paid the same.
That contract was created in the context of a STRICT waterfall development model. The dimensions, materials, and probably even the pattern the bricks are to be laid in have already been specified, in detail, by the architect/engineer. All the bricklayer has to do is lay bricks. He's not doing any design work. If there's a design flaw in the wall, that's not his fault, and fixing it will cost you extra. If the design changes after the contract was signed, that's probably also going to cost you extra. If modifications are made after the the bricklayer completed his work on a section of wall, any structural weaknesses introduced by those modification are not his fault and fixing them will cost you extra. You see where this is going, right?
In cases where the bricklayer is an hourly employee rather than an independent contractor, there is no way in hell he's fixing anything on his own time. You are paying for every minute he's working. Period. If you hired a screw-up bricklayer (probably the cheapest one you could find), you're eating those costs.