How our Prehistoric Predecessors Learned to Bid and Estimate Janitorial Services

In prehistoric times, when janitors roamed the wilds, hunting and gathering clients and buildings, there was a method they used to bid and estimate new jobs.

These were very different days, long before cell phones, computers, high speed burnishers and internet connections. At night these savages did primitive dances with mops after commandeering office overhead radio systems. An unrelenting, primal beat of the Doors, Sly and The Family Stone and the Jefferson Airplane blared as they helped themselves to candy not meant for them, from receptionist’s desk top, glass containers which they enjoyed without remorse.

These were brutal and lawless days, eons before CIMS, the Cleaning Industry Management Standard, which codified how janitors were expected to behave and organize their tribes. The janitorial business was only rock and roll back then.


Public production rates did not exist but very large tribes knew and protected them as sacred secrets. Their high priests of sales committed them to memory.

What these savages, the leaders of small, local tribes did when they got a shot at bidding a building is they would go in and guess how long it would take to clean. Then they would clean it themselves and figure out if they were making money after the fact.

Now some were very crafty and knew once they had one, they could figure out how to price any other building of the same type. So they would figure out the fastest way to clean that one building.

Cleaning top to bottom, moving right to left, keeping tools as close as possible to them and most important saving steps in between tasks. Each time improving on the time they spent, keeping track of that time and improving it each time.

Then they found the size of the building, the area by measuring it. Measuring length and then multiplying by the width would give them the area in square feet.

Back at the cave with the information they had gathered, they now knew how much time it took to complete a set of tasks in a given amount of area (in square feet).

Then they would continue on their hunt but each time they became better and better at guessing what to bid and estimate by following the above method. Thought that this little history lesson would help you come up with your own sacred formula that you can use to grow your tribe.

Ed