Today, I went into McD’s to get a breakfast sandwich. While walking in, there was a guy cleaning the glass.
No uniform of any sort, using an Ettore backflip, small square Ettore bucket, a cheap off brand pole, and cheapie MF towels bought from the big lumber box store.
Watched him clean. Mop up the window with his nasty looking mop, straight pull the top half, missing quite a few streaks on the seal sides of the windows. Then he’d mop the bottom, fan it off, missing more on the sides. The whole time he is squeegeeing, he is leaving a ton of lines. It’s obvious that rubber burned out in 2005, yet he’s still using it. He gets done, and tosses his WET microfiber cloth on the pole tip, smearing water and crap along the top. The he “details” the window by wiping off a few lines with his wet MF… Details the ledges with the same squeegee, knocking the water on the floor. At least he cleaned up that water, off the tile floor, with the same mop he’s mopping the windows with… Never rinses out his mop… Moves onto the other entry way.
When he’s done, I see him hand in his invoice.
From my own perspective, this guy did so many things wrong, it drove me nuts. I see this as mostly typical results from the competition in my area. Store fronts have streaks and the job is just done crappy. If I had an employee do that, I’d fire them on the spot. I believe when someone is paying you to do a job, you do it RIGHT, and pay attention to detail. NO sloppy, half assed work. This guy was leaving dirty water all over the windows, smearing mistakes with a wet microfiber, leaving lines with worn out rubber, and everything he used, looked NASTY. He didn’t even have a belt, just stuck his tools and towels in his pockets…
Then I looked at it from the customers point of view… Apparently, this is what they find “acceptable” for the work they are paying for. They are probably getting this work very cheap, and that’s all they care about, even if the work looks no better after, then it did before he started. Unfortuantely, he’s probably not making much money as a window cleaner, and he’s probably struggling (his own fault).
I guess I don’t understand the mentality of “oh well, screw it, it’s good enough”. Setting aside any OCD tendencies, that was just sloppy, shitty work. Neither party should have been happy with the results. But it seems both parties were?
I don’t say all this to make it a bashing session of the competition. He’s trying to make his way in this world, just like the rest of us. Good on him for working for his money, and not laying around expecting handouts. The point really is, is THIS what customers are expecting for their money?! Do they just want someone to “look” the part, and say they DID something about those dirty windows? Or do they actually want clean, detailed work? I know a lot of you guy do storefront and much of it. Do you see the same thing in the majority of storefronts? It’s overwhelmingly like this here. Sloppy work, little pay. I wouldn’t mind doing a few routes, but it seems no one wants to pay, and it seems like they are willing to accept sloppy work.
How would you guys overcome a situation like that? What would YOU do, to get the price you want, for superior quality work?
