The last post, the ride-along without the ride, was about watching a new hire live from wherever you are. Most days I cannot. The inspection is at ten and I am in a meeting, or on a job, or on a plane. So the version of this I actually do most is the second one from the pillar: coaching from the recording, that evening, from a hotel room.
Wednesday, 9:15 at night. Two inspectors ran five jobs today. The recordings landed in the company dashboard on their own when each walk went live, along with the stills and any frames a viewer flagged. I have a laptop on the hotel desk, a bad sandwich, and about fifteen minutes before I stop being useful.
Fifteen minutes, not five recordings
The mistake I made the first month was opening everything. Five recordings, a half hour each, with the good intention of watching them all. By the second week I was skipping through them at double speed, and by the third I had stopped opening them and felt bad about it. Which was worse than not starting, because the crew had been told the recordings got reviewed and could tell they were not.
So: one recording a night. Two if one was short. I pick the newer inspector's more often, and I pick the job where I know a decision was riding on the finding. Then I watch four parts of it and skip the rest.
The first two minutes. Did they set the walk up for whoever was watching. Where they are starting, which way they are going, how long. If the setup is there, the homeowner was oriented for the whole walk. If it is not, nothing after it landed as well as it could have.
The transitions. Skip to each point where they moved to a new slope or a new part of the building. Did they say so. "Coming around to the west side now, this is the slope over the kitchen." An inspector with an order in their head says it out loud without thinking. One without an order goes quiet at the transitions, and that silence is what I am looking for.
The one finding. Every walk has one thing that mattered most. Find it, watch it in full. Did they name the location, name the thing, say the size, say what is normal about it and what is not. Did they look at it from more than one side. Did they take a still.
The close. Last minute. Did the homeowner hear what happens next, or did the recording end at the ladder.
That is the review. Twelve to fifteen minutes, and I have a better read on the walk than I ever got from the write-up.
The note: timestamp, what was said, what to say instead
The note is the whole point, and a bad note wastes the review. The format that works for me is three parts and it fits in a text message.
The timestamp, so they can find it themselves. What they actually said, quoted, so it is not my memory against theirs. What to say instead, so it is a correction and not a complaint.
"7:40, you said 'this one's a little rough.' Say what it is first: 'this is the pipe boot, the rubber is cracked at the base.' Then whether it matters."
One note per recording. Maybe two. If I found six, I pick the one that will fix the most walks and I hold the rest. A list of six is a performance review, and nobody learns from those. One note with a timestamp is something they can open on their own phone in the truck tomorrow and watch themselves say.
And say what was good, with a timestamp too. "4:10, the way you set up the north slope was exactly right." That is not softening. It tells them which habit to keep, which is half of coaching.
Then a call, five minutes, the next morning. Not a text thread. The recording lands with the company, but the training happens in the conversation about it, and the pillar was blunt about that for a reason.
Say it before the first recording exists
This is the part that decides whether any of the above works. Tell the crew, before anybody is recorded, three things: the recordings get reviewed, who reviews them, and what for.
Mine goes like this, said in person at the yard, not in an email. "Every inspection records automatically, and it goes to the company dashboard, not your phone. I watch about one a night, usually the newer guys' jobs. I am looking at two things: how you narrate, and what you walk past. Those are the two things I used to correct from the bottom of the ladder, and I cannot stand at the ladder any more. If I see something, you will get one note with a timestamp and a call. If you want to watch your own, you can."
That is coaching. The identical review, done quietly and mentioned for the first time when somebody is being written up, is surveillance, and the crew will be right to call it that. The recording was already going to exist as the company's record of the job. The only thing that changes it from a record into a training tool is that the people in it know what it is for. Reviewing crew inspections without stalling jobs makes a similar point about review when you are on site; from a distance it matters more, because nobody can read your face.
What the recording does not tell you
It does not tell you what they were thinking. An inspector who went quiet on the west slope may have been working something out. Ask before you correct.
It does not show what the camera was not pointed at, and it is not a substitute for standing on the roof with them the first week. It shows you the walk. The pillar covers the limits properly, and the first one holds here too: if what you are seeing is somebody who needs redirecting mid-roof, they are not ready for distance, and a recording will not fix that.
Recordings are private, reached through short-lived signed links, and kept for a period that depends on the plan. That matters here because a coaching note that references minute seven of a recording is only useful while the recording exists. The security page has who can open what.
Next in this cluster is what to do when the review keeps turning up the same small thing: the skipped slope, the penetration not named, and how to raise it once before it becomes the way they work.
InspectStream records what an inspector observed. It is not a public adjusting service and does not prepare, negotiate, or advise on insurance claims.