The Janitors' Closet

Imagine - a whole country running out of toilet paper.

Even now and then - not very often, for we're pretty darn careful not to - we run a client out of one of the true foundations of modern life: toilet paper.  And when we do, we send a customer service rep hustling out to fix the problem.  And then get out the "motivational two-by-four".

But that's just a single client, easily covered by keeping a case or two in reserve in my basement; further, my paper supplier delivers within 24 hours.

Think of an entire mid-sized country on the verge of running out.

From CNN: "To avoid getting caught with their pants down, Venezuelan officials say they will confront a toilet paper shortage by importing 50 million rolls to meet demand."  Can't cover that with a couple of cases in the basement, and the supplier might be hard pressed to deliver enough within 24 hours.

Two somewhat different stories on the origin of the crisis.  Government claims that the media (that would be the Venezuelan media that is largely government controlled) has panicked the population into hoarding, and buying out store stock, in anticipation of a shortage; also that supply firms are holding product back in anticipation of higher prices during such a shortage.  Or:

"But businesses and the political opposition say government policies, including price controls on basic goods and tight restrictions on foreign currency, are to blame. The regulation discourage production, and many producers can't break even with the price controls, they say."

Brings to mind our gas lines back in the 1970's, caused in part by price controls on the piping used in oil wells, which kept American production down.

The article concludes, "Other hygiene products, such as tooth paste and soap, might also be imported in bulk to meet demand..."

So we might see more on the subject.  Imagine with me a mid-sized country with no TP, but also with no soap.

Related articles

Venezuelan Toilet Paper Shortage Causing Long Lines

Venezuela up the creek as entire country runs out of TOILET PAPER

Handbags: more germs than toilet seats

‘Handbags come into regular contact with our hands and a variety of surfaces, so the risk of transferring different germs onto them is very high, especially as bags are rarely cleaned', according to Peter Barratt, Technical Manager at Initial Hygiene, in an article in Mail Online, from the London Daily Mail. ‘Once these germs are on the bags, they can easily be transferred via hands onto other surfaces. Regular hand sanitisation is essential to prevent the presence of bacteria in the first place and thorough cleaning of bags is recommended to prevent the build-up of contamination.’

Seems the prime culprit is the bottle of hand cream, followed by lipstick and mascara.  Regular hand cleaning, as well as handbag cleaning, is suggested.

A logical follow-on to these findings would involve touchpoint sanitation, especially desktops, but also door jambs, push bars, phone hand sets, and so on.

I wrote a bit, months ago, on womens' desks harboring more germs than mens' desks because gals tend to put their handbags down on the floor in restroom stalls; the restroom floors get a good dose of critters via a mist created whenever the toilet is flushed.  The bag picks up whatever is on the floor, and is then set on the desk.  But I'd only addressed the handbag exterior; this is the first I've seen on interiors.

Bear this in mind when, on the police shows, the arresting officer or investigator paws through the suspect's handbag.

Caught by the new security camera

Another article on theft by the janitor, this time $2200.00 in cash out of the school office safe.  Administrators had noticed cash missing, and installed the camera - which produced!

"Officer Randy Vaughn of the St. Louis County Police Department said, 'It’s a well-known event throughout this country. You have to be careful when you bring people in, and you have to take steps to safeguard things that are important to your district, in this case.'

"The Hazelwood School District refused to make a comment regarding personnel matters."

Notice that the school district refuses to comment on personnel matters.  I assume that includes commenting on what sort of personnel screening and backgrounding they do prior to hire.  I've seen quite a few such reports over the years, and I do not recall ever seeing any indication of any pre-employment screening. 

You can do court record checks, civil and criminal.  You can access various national offender databases.  You can use personality profile exams.  You can interview past employers, or clients.  We do all that, and notice that it helps.

The article also mentions "They say he claimed to have found some keys and then used them individually and found the one that unlocked the safe."  The keys that were available to be "found" would doubtless be in addition to those keys, and perhaps alarm codes, he was issued in conjunction with the job.

I kinda figure that one ought be careful with keys, and whomyou give them to, and where you leave them, unsecured. 

Just when some folks have finally gotten familiar with MSDS books...

Starting in December, the industry (or, I should say, all industry) is to phase in significant changes to workplace hazard communication and training.

To simplify training and the flow of information internationally, America will adopt new Hazard Communication Standards based on the European Global Harmonization Systems.  This will involve:

"...changing Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) over to Safety Data Sheets (SDS), and a new labeling requirement. There are several key dates to phase in due to HAZCOM 2012...the hazard rating number system has been reversed...new pictograms...how to categorize the hazard class associated with chemicals."

Building Service Contractors Association International is offering a seminar on the changes, at $29.00 to BSCAI members and $99.00 to the rest of you.  Good thing I can pocket those savings; calculating how much it's gonna cost me to print new MSDS (or whatever) books for LOTS of janitor closets.

...but he donated half of it back...

Curious article out of the Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette, regarding a church custodian stealing from the collection plate, but "half of which he said he put back in the collection plate because it 'made him feel good about himself,' according to court documents."

Once you get past the "stealing, so you can donate" part, you wonder if the church did any screening for the position.  Not uncommonly, churches will give work around the church, like cleaning, to a "down on his luck" parishioner, or a friend or relative.  Commendable motivation, but a questionable business practice.

In contrast, because we assume a certain responsibility for our clients' facilities and possessions, we screen our folks: statewide court records, civil and criminal, down to justice court level; nationwide felony and sex offender databases; driving records; identify and Social Security number confirmation.  And we're darned aggressive about insuring that no one we've not screened gets access to a client's facility, or keys (and we make the keys difficult to duplicate).

All this is in marked contrast to methods used by "ma & pa" services, most franchise janitorial operations, and a lot of firms who use "friends" or family to do the janitorial, often "off the books".  We don't claim to eliminate all security issues, but we do quite a good job limiting them.

Fight the flu

Ran across a good summary from Diversey on how to protect from the flu, in Building Services Management's e-newsletter.

"People already infected with influenza can transmit the disease to others starting a day before the infected person shows symptoms and continuing for approximately 7 days after they show symptoms. Influenza viruses are spread through droplets that carry the virus as a result of a cough or sneeze. The virus can live on surfaces for up to several days. A single sneeze can release 40,000 droplets, which can travel through the air and be inhaled or swallowed by others. Droplets can also settle on surfaces, where people can pick the virus up on their hands and by touching their mouth, nose, or eyes, become infected."

I particularly appreciate the stress placed in the above on the virus being able to live on surfaces for several days.  Many janitorial firms stress restroom disinfection (or at least "cleaning"); somewhat fewer use effective procedures, and chemicals, to sanitize "touchpoints", the door jambs, light switches and phone hand sets that folks touch all day long.  And an office full of people, some contagious, is a good place to get sick:

"If you get influenza, your doctor may prescribe antiviral drugs to reduce the severity of your illness. Commonly touched surfaces (door handles, light switches, elevator buttons, keyboards, phone, etc.) should be disinfected regularly or when visibly soiled."  Comes close to taking the words out of my operations manual.  We sanitize touchpoints always, but really stress them during flu season. 

The summary also stresses Alpha HP, the hydrogen peroxide solution we use, together with microfiber wipes, on touchpoints, and Virex 256, our disinfectant of choice for restrooms and lunchrooms.  Finally, to cover all bases, it repeats what Mom used to stress:

"Get plenty of sleep, eat healthy, be physically active, manage stress, and drink plenty of fluids."  Chicken soup, as well.  And I like a good murder mystery.

Related articles

A "fitter" swine flu virus

Cleaning to prevent whooping cough

So now law school is cheaper....

Having trouble getting my head around this one.  Down the road in Tucson, the University of Arizona has announced a tuition cut for students in its law school; this less than a week after the U of A and Arizona State University (my alma mater) announced tuition hikes for everyone else.

The stated reason is a marked drop in law school registrations at the U of A.  The reason for the drop in registrations is the high unemployment rate among their recent grads (11% and counting).  As a rule, high unemployment in a given skill category would seem to indicate the existence of more folks looking for jobs in that category than there are jobs available.  The market signals an excess of job seekers by either lowering pay for those jobs, or hiring fewer of them.  As pay decreases, or jobs cannot be found, fewer folks go into that line of work.  It's called "supply and demand".

How will the tuition cut be paid for?  "...UA will be able to reduce tuition by bringing in new revenue through proposed master's programs for non-legal majors. Some existing programs also will be expanded to more students, including a juris doctorate for attorneys from outside the United States."  On the other hand, pretty much all public university education around here is paid for by a mix of tuition and state subsidies.  So additional students, or programs, cost more than they bring in via tuition.

Nothing mentioned in the article about cost cutting at the law school, so as to be able to offset the lower tuition, so we can assume that the lower tution income to the school will need to be offset by raising the amount the state kicks in.  That would be my tax dollars.  Or, perhaps, a part of the tuition increase to everyone else is earmarked to subsidize the law students.

Surely, society would not want to risk a shortage of lawyers.

Not enough store stockers?

Caught a Bloomberg article on Wal-mart customers complaining about items not being available, due to too-slow stocking of store shelves.  Wal-mart employment is down, during the recent recession (and "recovery") even though number of stores is up.

An area the article does not explore is whether Wal-mart is experiencing problems finding folks to hire.  We keep seeing figures about large number of unemployed folks, all of whom really want to find a job.
While unemployment is slowly falling, most if not all of that drop in unemployment is due to people leaving the labor force.  The labor force participation rate is down about three points, from 66% (and a fraction) to 63%, since the start of the downturn.  The fall in unemployment pretty much matches the number of workers who have decided to no longer be workers.

Further, if there were many more folks aggressively looking for jobs than there arejobs, we would see salaries falling, as people "bid down" wages.  Not happening.  In my own little slice of Heaven, I see no more people looking for work than usual, and no more than usual wage competition.  I do, however, see the occasional individual asking me to take down his name, as having applied for a job - though he doesn't want to be hired.

In The Redistribution Recession, Casey Mulligan quantifies what many of us have suspected: the recent expanding of benefits to the unemployed (both government programs like 96 weeks of unemployment insurance, expanded food stamp availability, rent assistance; and private "benefits" like easier debt and mortgage forgiveness if one has no job) has created a large group of people who find it possible to live passably while not working.  With a significant reduction in the number of our people who work, but no reduction in the number of people who consume, we're looking at a much less productive economy, and a poorer life for us all.  Which will continue until we've the political and societal will to end those benefits.  And the longer we wait, the less fit those folks will be for productive work.

An old curse runs, "May you live in interesting times".

 

Cleaning to prevent whooping cough

America has recently seen a resurgence of whooping cough (pertussis), a scourge of western societies until the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) vaccine was developed.  A good Cleanlink article by Kassendra Kania, emphasis thorough touch-point disinfection:

"To kill whooping cough bacteria as well as cold and flu viruses, BSCs should use an EPA-registered, hospital-grade disinfectant with a kill claim for influenza A and B. Cleaning protocols for preventing the spread of whooping cough will be the same as those used during cold and flu season.  “You need to spray the surface and thoroughly wet it. If it starts to dry out in 10 minutes, you should respray it,” says John Thomas, sales manager and healthcare specialist for Philip Rosenau Co., Warminster, Pa."

We've used a Diversey hospital grade, quaternary ammonia based disinfectant for years, in restrooms, lunchrooms, and medical facilities generally; we've trained our folks on proper dwell time.  We also take to heart the article's emphasis on soil removal; you don't want to give the critters a place to hide.  We first use a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner/sanitizer, on a disposable wipe, to clean surfaces and limit cross-contamination, thus getting a fair pathogen kill along with soil removal, prior to disinfection.  We figure the disinfectant finishes the job.

The article also mentions proper A/C filters, to limit airborne pathogens.  We add to that HEPA filtration on our vacuums (we vacuum both carpet and tile) for the same reason: catch the germs before they get airborne, and inhaled.

Should you follow the media, however, the primary reason for the current resurgence of whooping cough, and a number of other communicable diseases thought only a few years ago to be irradicated in modern societies, is what I'd term superstitious parents refusing to vaccinate their children.  For all of the media hoopla about the dangers of various vaccines (autism is the most common claim), there is no scientifice evidence for any such danger.  In many of our more affluent communities (think Marin County, California), vaccination rates have fallen below the 90 to 95% threshold needed to maintain "herd immunity".

Curiously, the major outbreak in Arizona of late has been in Colorado City, a tiny farming community along the Utah border in the Arizona Strip, the inaccessible territory north and west of the Colorado River and its Grand Caynon.  (Some areas you cannot get to from the rest of Arizona.  My first non-dishwasher job was for the Photogrammetry and Mapping Division of the Arizona Highway Department; we were plotting a 20 mile stretch of four lane highway across the corner of Arizona between LA and Las Vegas.  We had to send our results to the Arizona Highway Department at an address in Utah.)

Colorado City used to be called Short Creek.  It was (and still is) the habitation of a fundamentalist offshoot of the LDS Church, practicing polygamy.  Back in the '50s, Arizona Governor Howard Pyle led a DPS raid into the area; convicted a bunch of husbands of having more than the usual number of wives, and re-distributed scores of children to more "main stream" families in the Mesa area.  The convictions were eventually overturned; husbands, children and wives (multiple) were reunited, mostly.  The state has been a bit hands-off ever since.

But - to get back to vaccinations.  The recent outbreaks in Colorado City (assumed to be due to aversion to vaccinations) are in a community at the other end of several spectrums from mostly politically liberal, northern California communities.  Fascinating how irrational, superstitious behavior lurks on both fringes.

Do not unplug....

So I'm at a party the other evening, and the conversation turns to - I've no recollection of exactly why - cryogenics.

I rarely have such an opportunity to slip into a conversation a description of a 1990's FarSide cartoon that I've framed and put on the wall of my office.  It depicts a fellow departing the offices of "Frozen Friends Cryogenic Enterprises".  There is a display case of clients against the wall, upon which is posted "WARNING - MAINTAIN minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit".  The fellow leaving the building carries a mop bucket, and sports a company shirt emblazoned "Bob's Janitorial Services".  With his shuffling gate, he's inadvertently caught the electric cord leading to the freezer, and pulled it out of the wall outlet.

Quite evocative, I thought.

While we don't clean any cryogenics facilities (though I understand there is one up the road near the Scottsdale Airport), we do train our folks to avoid unplugging anything: find an unused plug for that vacuum.  While losing the data on your unplugged computer may not be as colorful as loosing the data stored in Uncle Harry's noggin, it can inconvenience.