Here at Combat Cleanerz, we like to plan. A lot.
We’ll plan and plan and strategize over a project or a new account and then, when we’re done planning, we’ll go back and plan some more. It is, however, the unexpected that upsets the apple cart.
A couple years back, we were hired to do a Post Construction Clean-Up for a new medical facility. Post Construction Clean-Ups are great jobs but if you’re the commercial cleaning contractor, you usually have a narrow window of time in which to get your work done. You’re typically the last contractor on the site. For this job, we had a Saturday-Sunday window. The client was moving in bright and early on Monday morning and we had to be out of their way. The biggest part of the job was stripping and refinishing about 15,000 sf of colorful VCT but since we were armed with our Tennant Auto Scrubber, we knew we’d blow through that floor and that it would look magnificent when we were done.
So we started working on Saturday morning all happy and content with our planning and preparation. It was a beautiful end of winter day in Northeast, PA. We were in Pittston which is a very historic town halfway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. We were sweeping and vacuuming and cleaning up a storm. All systems were go. About halfway through the day, I realized that we could start the floor.
“Awesome,” I said to myself. “We’re gonna get this job done early.”
I turned on the Tennant machine and began scrubbing the floor. The machine is a beauty. Low maintenance, very reliable and it rips the finish and dirt right off the floor without using any chemicals. After an hour or so, however, I took a walk back over the finished sections and saw unsightly white streaks everywhere. These streaks were alarming but not deal breaking. I adjusted the squeegee and the water flow and ran the machine back over the floor but now the streaks looked worse. I scratched my head. It was pushing 2:30 and the clock was ticking. That 15,000 sf of colorful VCT started to look a lot bigger.
I will admit that I started to panic a little bit. I had not planned for any equipment malfunction. By 3:30, I was sweating bullets. Would we get this done in time? I pictured myself lying prostrate on the floor on Monday morning, a defeated cleaner. The move-in crew would just kick my near lifeless body out of the way as they unloaded their furniture and equipment. At one point, I had decided to go grab another autoscrubber from one of our buildings about 30 minutes away. I was on my way out to the van when it hit me – look online and trouble shoot the machine. Within minutes, I was watching a YouTube video that explained what was wrong with the machine and how to fix it.
My pulse returned to normal. My heart slowed down. I quickly implemented the fix and we got that job done by 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. And that floor did look magnificent.