My company started out small, but as we became successful, we had to find a larger space. Recently, we moved into a space that can handle 50 employees with cubicles, private offices, a conference area, a breakroom, and much more. It felt great to have this kind of growth, but I hadn’t been anticipating some of the other responsibilities that came with it.
The most significant responsibility I hadn’t anticipated was keeping the floors clean.
When I started looking around for an office space for lease, I didn’t think twice about being responsible for keeping the floors clean. When I contacted the landlord, I discovered I was responsible for vacuuming the floor surface and cleaning the windows on the inside.
It was a bit of a surprise, but one I thought wasn’t going to be a major concern.
One morning I simply packed up my home vacuum cleaner and brought it to the office. I had one of our interns begin vacuuming early in the morning. Before most people arrived, this in turn moves from the entry, around some of the cubicles, and would be doing the personal offices last. However, he didn’t get more than halfway through before the vacuum cleaner broke down.
It seemed to be doing a decent job for a while, but every so often I would hear the familiar cling or clang of something heavy being sucked into the beater bar and, if the suction wasn’t strong enough, the intern would bend down and pick it up.
What we discovered, upon closer inspection, was a lot of damage to the vacuum cleaner itself. I also started noticing staples, paperclips, and other items that hadn’t been picked up. I learned a valuable lesson.
When taking care of a commercial facility, it’s absolutely crucial to have the right equipment. A residential vacuum cleaner might be okay for home environments, but with so many objects and items that constantly get dropped, especially around desks, it wasn’t strong enough to do the right job for this commercial space.