For the last two days I have been cleaning a huge two floor sales office for a homebuilder in the Toronto area.
They are very nice, kind and reasonable people. I have cleaned their office partition glass, the inside exterior glass, and today I cleaned the door.
After I cleaned the boardroom many scratches were found on side of the panel of partition glass in the boardroom. The coowner discovered that and she asked me if I did anything to cause it and I said no. Thinking it was an isolated incident I continued cleaning the glass. (Stupid me). I cleaned all the partition glass for the offices on the second floor and all the inside exterior glass on that floor as well. After that, I went downstairs and cleaned the glass around the door. After I cleaned the outside of the door removing stickers with a new ettore razonr (not that that matters), I discovered many long scratches. The scratches were all on the outside of the door. The other door which I hadn’t yet cleaned had no scratches.
I decided to tell the coowner, I quickly educated her about fabricating debris (I don’t know a lot about it, since before this I only did construction clean occasionally and was negligent in reading a lot about it. I did learn some stuff on World with detached interest.) I explained that when glass is created some glass makers don’t clean their rollers properly and debris gets on the glass, and then when we clean it, the razor dislodges the debris and drags it across the glass causing it to scratch. I was clear that it’s not the razor at fault which is an industry standard for window cleaners, and janitors and other professions, and many glass is cleaned with razors without incident. I realize after checking out Dan’s site that my explanation isn’t completely correct. But I told her what I know.
Of course, I erred in not educating the customer first before commencing work, and not getting a waiver signed. This was a job I subcontracting from a small janitorial company, who the owner is a very good, reasonable, and good guy who backs you up.
We together looked at all the other glass I cleaned and found many scratches. Again I should have looked closer when cleaning and stopped after the first scratched glass.
Interestingly the glass came from at least 4 different manufacturerers, so It looks like my story is not plausible from the viewpoint of the customer based on the law of probability. Of course, it may be possible that many glass manufacturers are negligent, or perhaps they manufacture glass under different names.
She was very calm, and wasn’t combative, she just wants a solution to the problem.
She called another guy, perhaps another coowner, or her brother, I forgot. And he too was calm and listened to my explanation. He too found it unplausible that so many different manufacturers could make bad glass.
They are going to call a glass bufferer who they think might get the scratches out. Some are quite deep though. I wonder though, if that might cause the glass to get more scratched.
They are willing to ignore most of the scratched glass, and just want the boardroom partition glass replaced and the door glass replaced.
Oddly, they wanted me to clean the rest of the windows without a razor because they were under time constraints because they want to install blinds and tint on the first floor exterior glass.
I said that I was able to do that, but would rather not since they would not be happy with the results. I explained that there is no chemical to repalce scraping, and if there was it would be cost prohibitive because it would take a long time to clean. If I tried to clean the glass without a razor they would be unhappy, because the silicone, and other debris would stay on the glass.
She finally said to leave it a few days.
I encouraged her to keep in touch with me. I felt like leaving but thought better. I want to work through the problem with her. I didn’t admit responsibility and highlighted my diligence in stopping work at once and showing her the problem.
She is going to speak to the glass people but thinks that they will blame the window cleaner. She thinks perhaps that my insurance will pay for the replacement of the glass. I hope my insurance company doesn’t deny me. BTW I’m with Royal and Sun Alliance.
These people are very good, and don’t seem out for blood, they just want to fix the problem, they are also very stressed and anxious from other problems.
The janitorial company owner, backed me up to the coowner. And he said that I was a good guy, professional and meticulous and the last construction job had not one scratch.
The janitor owner and I will work to educate clients from now on, and implement scratch waivers.
I’m going to read more on http://stoppedscratchedglass.com and I will probably buy his videos and implement his strategies. As well I will provide an information package to new clients and explain as best as I can.
I did apologize about the situation and I did empathize with the coowner and said if I was in her shoes I would be upset, stressed, and anxious. I’m trying to be helpful, compassionate and trying to educate the customer as best I can.
Thanks for listening. Any suggestions would be helpful. If you have any private info, PM me or email me at [email protected]
