been amazed at what some expect from a janitor — in both good and bad ways. Itʼs what makes job descriptions, contracts and bids both necessary and sublimely irrational. Cleaning task or maintenance task? Melissa Jent 6/5/2009 The one that gets me is they want us to change burnt out light bulbs that require a 20-foot ladder in order to get to them. How is this relevant to cleaning? That, to me, would be maintenance work. No, we do not do dishes — at all — we donʼt even suggest it for the reason stated: You get there and there are a sink full of dishes from the luncheon they just had that have sat there all day and night. Nobody bothered to rinse off the food so now you have to chisel it off. Really, as a person, would you want someone that just cleaned the toilets to clean your coffee cup? Melissa Jent 4/8/2009 Ok, now Iʼm curi-ous. How do you charge monthly for light bulbs to be changed or dishes to be washed? There is no way of knowing how many lights are going to be burned out or how many dishes they are going to leave. If they expect you to do the dishes, they will go overboard more and more every day with what they leave. When you start out, you find a few cups in the sink. Then word gets around that you are doing it and the next thing you know, the whole office is putting their dirty cups, plates and silverware in the sink until you find yourself spending an hour or more doing them. I never agree to doing dishes. Iʼve been there and made that mistake once and will never do it again. We clean the coffee makers and dump the [grinds], but we do not clean the coffee pots. CM Get involved CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management Online ™ viewers as well as CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® magazine readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor on topics of interest to the professional cleaning and maintenance industry. Send letters to the editor to [email protected]. John Markey 6/8/2009 We sell the service; if the client wants to pay for it, weʼll do it. Hand dishwashing, cleaning the coffee machine, loading a dishwasher, changing light bulbs, whatever … we will include it in our service agreement and charge for it. We also will write-up associates that reg-ularly do more cleaning than we have in our service agreement. Why? Exactly for the reason given above: Once the client becomes accustom to an “extra” they then come to expect it. And when the regular cleaner is out sick, on vacation or leaves our company, then the client is unhappy. Weʼve lost a client because of that exact reason. www.cmmonline.com 7
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