Finding the truly remarkable at ISSA/Interclean 2011

When very large events take place, it is hard to see the overall impact and cull the essential lessons or observations. Communicating those observations is sometimes more difficult and I needed several days to process everything I saw, heard and experienced in Vegas at the ISSA/Interclean 2011 conference.

I am a man given to the remarkable, the most interesting, important or at minimal, the avant-garde. This is why when moving to the mid-west, hot dish seemed like what they feed prisoners to stay just this side of the Geneva Convention. I am not a meat and potatoes guy, I NEED spice. That is why I dumped my TV and can’t handle top 40 music or celebrity news. I am not just bored with the mundane but an avid hater of all that is average.

I attended the conference to find what I could see as the trends that now and into the future will shape our companies and careers in this industry. It was a hunt for the remarkable and I found it.

How a Harvard Professor Convinced Me to Become a Full Time Janitor

I started a list of all the people that either had started their careers or had worked as janitors in the past and it is a very impressive list. World leaders, politicians and familiar entertainers all once worked in our industry. I wanted to be one of them, someone just doing cleaning work temporarily until I launched into a career of money, glory, and success.

My first cleaning job was in college where I started by sweeping and mopping the street in front of several of Miami’s most prestigious hotels. I had to work my way up to be assigned to the inside, mop the lobbies, and vacuum those fabulous waterfront nightclubs.

I had a dreadful time in college because it was there that I fell in love with learning and confused that with college attendance. I changed majors after a couple of years but in the meantime picked up a wife, a mortgage, and car payments. I got it straightened out by understanding college was to make a living and learning was a solitary activity one undertakes for a lifetime and had nothing at all to do with so called institutions of higher learning.

Especially in the Janitorial Industry, Only Wet Babies Like Change

The saying goes, "the only sure thing is death and taxes." Those that come up with profound proverbs are never questioned or doubted. Except by a few folks like me who do a lot of doubting. They missed an important one, which is, the only thing that will remain constant is the fact that things WILL change.

No one LIKES change except a wet baby. So with change comes tears. For many of us, the older we get, the more we cry about things changing. We get comfortable with our familiar routines, our abundance, and our knowledge of how things work. Then someone comes along and changes things.

Our beloved building services industry is full of old crybabies. They were (and many still are) fat and happy but then one day someone said they had to buy a fax machine and that was only the beginning. The floodgates broke open and then came a tsunami. Cell phones, email, websites, and the absolute WORST, computers on EVERY one’s desk?