It's not JUST the Devil in the Details

The details matter. They matter on a grander scale then we can imagine. Sometimes those details matter to those who we do not expect them to matter too.

I just read a story of Steve Job’s concern over a small detail. I will let you read that story here yourself:  Steve Jobs and the Google Logo Ambulance. The story immediately brought to mind a man who worked for me as a day porter in the headquarters of a large company. His name also was Steve.

This week I followed a conversation about the frustration of finding and keeping good help. I was in the business long enough to fix that problem for good and never had to advertise as all my competitors did.

My Steve was no genius and was in fact developmentally disabled. Steve took his job very seriously. Though he was finished with work at 4pm, one night I get a call from Steve at 11pm.

Steve was bothered about a spot on a faucet that he was not able to remove in a men’s room on the second floor. He could NOT rest and called me to tell me he was working on it but it really was bothering him.

One Janitor’s Journey Into Quality Cleaning

I signed one of those dream cleaning contracts in 1983 that janitors lust over in their most secret day dreams. No one outside of our business could possibly understand that the sight of a giant new office building turns the most genteel janitorial professional into a drooling, heavy breathing, rain-coat-clad pervert, willing to risk life, liberty, and reputation for the cleaning contract on beautiful office buildings like these.

Three brand new class “A” office buildings, 250,000 square feet each, built and expertly managed by one of the nation’s most prestigious commercial real estate companies. A top-notch client that would provide me a one of the best references I could ever have.

I was definitely at the very top of my craft. No more once-a-week beauty parlors for me. I was now in the big leagues. From now on, any actual physical cleaning I would have to do would be with me dressed in a crisp white shirt and tie. I was now the “executive” janitor leading a sizable group of zone cleaners, restroom cleaners, utility specialists, and supervisors.

Like most of us, I never paid much attention to who the tenants of the building were beyond their suite numbers. So after that first grueling night of the start-up, with feet still sore from walking every inch of all three buildings at least twice, I arrive at the property manager’s office bright and early at 8 am to bask in the glow of a job well done (at least, that’s what I had anticipated).