Cleaning Business Life

CBL Episode #78-The Wells Fargo Incident-What should happen if someone is found dead inside the Building your Company Cleans? Are your Clean Tech's prepared?

• Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco • Season 2024 • Episode 78

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Ever wondered how safety protocols can truly make a difference in the cleaning industry? In this episode of Cleaning Business Life, Jamie Runco from Above All Cleaning shares the innovative measures she’s put in place to safeguard her team. From leveraging the Life360 app and Jobber CRM for real-time tracking to ensuring efficient emergency signaling, Jamie reveals how these tools enhance both operational efficiency and employee safety. We also take a poignant look at a tragic incident in Tempe, where a woman was discovered deceased in her office cubicle after four days, emphasizing the dire need for effective communication and regular check-ins.

Moreover, we dive into the critical training needed for extreme situations, such as encountering crime scenes or dealing with workplace violence. I recount a harrowing personal experience of an attempted kidnapping, underscoring the indispensable role of having a well-defined Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and a detailed employee handbook. We further explore the unique challenges posed by power outages in regions with limited seasons, balancing the continuation of business operations with community sensitivities. Tune in for a wealth of insights and practical advice aimed at ensuring the well-being and preparedness of your cleaning staff.

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Speaker 1:

does it say recording in progress? Oh, does it not say it anymore?

Speaker 2:

say recording in progress did it say to you.

Speaker 1:

It said it earlier oh, my goodness, what happened to my thing? It was my problem. Hello everyone. My name is shannon miller and I am your host of cleaning business life, and today we are joined by jamie runco of above all cleaning in northern california, your host of Cleaning Business Life, and today we are joined by Jamie Runco of Above All Cleaning in Northern California. Yay, and I wanted to mention that we are still collecting stories for our Haunted House Cleaning. It's a series that we run. We read it last year in October and we'll be running it again this year.

Speaker 1:

If you have cleaned a house that has haunted, or you have seen a ghost in a house, or if you've had an entity walk through you, I want to hear your juicy tidbits on how long you went down. Please hit me up at cleaningbusinesslifeatgmailcom that's C-L-E-A-N-I-N-G-B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S I have to remember it's a ton and email me because I would love to connect and we can do a quick zoom and get your story and we'll just add it to the, the compiled pieces that we have to create a podcast full of ghost stories. I know you guys are out there, don't be shy. We don't have to see your photo necessarily on zoom, but I do have to use Zoom to get the audio because we don't use any podcasting software. That's on the schedule.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, they can choose to stop video if they want. You don't have to be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can put your profile photo up there. You don't have to have the video, it's totally OK. And then eventually, when I catch up to YouTube, or if the VA does it for me, then the video will come out on my YouTube channel. I just haven't had a chance to do a lot of that this year.

Speaker 1:

But what we're going to talk about today, and which I think is relevant and a little shocking and sad at the same time, is I'm sure you have all heard about the lady in Tempe which, if you guys recall, I'm in Northern Arizona, so this is not too far from where I'm at at a Wells Fargo bank who passed away in her office cubicle and no one found her for four whole days. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is there are safety protocols that need to happen with your cleaning techs to ensure that they are safe. Jamie, what are some of the things that you have done to ensure that your cleaning techs are safe? Thankfully, you haven't had to deal with a death being found, a body being found, not being walked in on as well.

Speaker 2:

So people definitely calling me and telling that a client has passed. But what we do and I have to make sure that this is legal in your state, it is in mine. I live in California, so I have my cleaning techs put Life360 on their phone. It's an app that I pay money for. They're in my circle and if they ever feel unsafe they just throw that. They always have that app up and ready to go just in case and all they have to do is shake the phone.

Speaker 1:

They just take it and shake the phone down below and you don't make them pay for it. This is something that you can't. No, this is something I pay for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, this is. I pay a lot of extra money just for their safety. Also, though, I do have Jobber, and it shows me where they are, and Jobber is the CRM that we use, and it pinpoints where they are, whose house they're at, how long they've been there and, um, sometimes I thought they'll call and, just, you know, do a check-in right.

Speaker 1:

So and that should be required, especially when they're on longer jobs and for the um tracker that's inber, is that an additional charge on your CRM?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I use the top tier. It's just beneficial for me. There is a middle of the road tier. I always suggest to you go with the minimum. First, make sure that you like it, learn job, make sure that you're you, you like it, learn jobber. And then you just kind of grow. I think it's called the connect. And then there's the grow plan. Um, so, uh, you can have up to on the middle of the road one. You can have up to, uh, three techs or five techs. On my plan that I'm on, I can have up to 15. And it just has a lot of features. On there we can and this is on any plan you can leave notes for each other. You know, hey, susan, over here, dog got out. Or you know, just we, a lot of communication is there. You can also choose or not, choose to put that onto your not invoicing, but allow your client to be able to see this Right.

Speaker 1:

So it's helpful to have notes. And what the sad reality is is this poor employee, who was a 60 year old woman who's unnamed, I believe. She doesn't have a name yet. It's been a couple of days. They're doing an autopsy on this individual, but there wasn't any safety protocols and it sounds like they are working some sort of hybrid business model where some of the employees come in one week and the other set of employees come in another week and there isn't any cross-reference protocol. That happens, and I tried to dig around to see if it was the cleaners who found the individual or if it was an actual another co-worker. Um, I don't like it was a security. Yeah, it's still. It's really. It was really kind of a sad thing.

Speaker 1:

So, um, when you have bodies in buildings, there needs to be a safety protocol, and I know we discussed in the sop class that we are going through about death of a client and what to do. But this is a totally different element. This is a death of a client, indirectly, so it's. You're cleaning for the building, but yet there's an employee who has passed away. So what would you do? What would be the first thing that would come to mind? So you need to institute some sort of protocol, especially if you're doing large buildings and you're in there with maybe another crew member, maybe you're in the building by yourself to make sure that you're safe, and that. What to do? What would you do if you came across this poor person who had passed away at their desk?

Speaker 1:

And we know because we were talking about this before we came on air that if you've ever dealt with a body, a person who's passed, the decomposition happens pretty fast, even with air conditioning. Your body, nature takes its course and your body starts to decompose and there's a smell that comes along with it and there's liquids, bodily liquids, there's, you know, fecal matter, there's all kinds of things because your body is decomposing. So there's, there's that element. And then there could be aftercare. Maybe the cleaning tech is traumatized, but with this all I mean anybody who saw a dead body, I would imagine, would be traumatized. So there's that too. So there's the three elements of what you should do. So what do you think that someone should do if they were in a building by themselves and they came across a dead body? What would be the first thing that you did?

Speaker 2:

Call 911. Right, and then your next phone call would be to me, right, and then I would get a hold of Because we do banks and we do banks, yeah, and so we would. I would get a hold of the proper people my people, that and then they take it from there. You know people, uh, is my point of contact right? And um, definitely call 9-1-1. Or if you're doing um life 360, shake that phone. Um, you know, yeah, you have to have, you have to have these procedures and you have to to let your techs know if this happens. This is the steps that you need to take in order to get safety?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely the body. You don't want them touching fluids. I mean, a whole biohazard team has to come in there and decontaminate everything.

Speaker 1:

It's a super special, clean, very expensive, I mean like thousands. So you, there has to be a protocol in place, and we were discussing this and the standard operating procedure course, and we were talking about death of the clients and how I shared in the 90s. I worked at the MGM restaurant, restaurant, restaurant and casino right there on the corner on Las Vegas Boulevard, and I was the second person to walk in on a crime scene. Now, this person didn't just pass away, this person was murdered. Just pass away, this person was murdered. So you can imagine how horrific it was for the person in front of me who ended up passing out after she witnessed this crime scene.

Speaker 1:

And I had to block everybody else who was following me because I didn't have my keys. I wasn't a full time. You were running a team, right, shannon? Yeah, I was running a team. I was in management. I didn't have my keys that day because it wasn't my responsibility to be on management that day, and that became a change too. I always had to carry my keys after, so I had to block everyone else from coming in, and then I had to notify security, and then I had to notify upper management and upper management and I got in a huge argument over the fact that they wanted to keep the restaurant open because of contractual obligations. And I'm like no, and we, we literally got in a shouting match um over the fact that I wanted to shut the restaurant down so that the police could come in and do a whole workup of an investigation. And I'm not to laugh. This isn't a laugh, but it's just. It's ridiculous. It was handled poorly.

Speaker 1:

But it's just, it's ridiculous. It was handled poorly and um, we got. I, I I'm like, I told all the servers there was 50 of them. I'm like, go out to your tables, tell them that they got a comped meal and they need to leave right now. Please do not tell them what has transpired. And um, thank them for coming. That's all I said and I got. They tried to pull me in and um terminate me for this act and I had to lawyer up and then they left me alone after that. But it wasn't.

Speaker 2:

You know, it was you know when you're in corporate, the relationship is soured now, I guess.

Speaker 1:

And it was. It was really kind of a sad situation. This poor girl took on this cash, the lead cashier position at night to earn a 50 cents more per hour. I mean they never came out and consoled the parents. I went to the funeral. They never did anything. People oriented, they just. It was just like they were mad because they had to eat business. They were mad because they were inconvenienced. They were mad over this and I'm just like dude. Someone died in here Right and here, in a little bit of a ghost story we'll tie this in is the little area where the office was.

Speaker 1:

They ended up having to tear out the whole office Because in that part of the casino, even though all casinos run on extra generators, they could not get power to that space where the office was. They actually had to call in a priest. I got totally goosebumps calling a priest and they had to do a blessing on multiple times before it finally was okay. And then they made it an employee seating area and no one would go in there. So, no matter how many times they brought the generators, that one area where her office was, where she was, her life was taken. They couldn't get electricity to work and it took six months for them to finally get the electricity to work. And even then, nobody, nobody would go in there, because we all knew she had passed away in there and the people who had been there long murdered, right, murdered. So, um there's.

Speaker 1:

Did they ever define the person that did this? They did, he was, um, uh, he was an individual who had worked for the mgm and if you've ever been in a casino, it's like a little city. Down below there's post office, doctors, whatever, down there. Right, they're supposed to pull your pass, right. I don't know how it's done now.

Speaker 1:

I haven't worked in Vegas in many years. My adult child is 30. So it's been a long time since I've lived in Vegas, but you used to have key passes that you had to scan when you went in. I'm sure it's way different now. You probably have an app or whatever, but they didn't pull his access. So he accessed the building, knew that we had deposits on certain days because he had worked in the restaurant and she, um, he wanted the ten thousand dollars cash and all of the paychecks, so she literally died over 10 grand. And they found him at another local casino down on the strip and he was gambling away. And what had happened? They found out he he had owed the mafia money. He had a gambling debt and he was trying to compensate for that. He had blood all over him and he's gambling at the tables.

Speaker 2:

I just want to show you that that is an addiction too, right, totally. Wow, it was this whole thing of what happened.

Speaker 1:

So the reason why I want to talk about what has happened to this poor lady, um, that there needs to be a protocol in place so that if you are cleaning a building by yourself or you're working as a team, they know what to do. God forbid something awful like this happen, whether it's just a simple passing or you walk in on a murder scene. That is just horrific. I never, ever want anyone to have to experience that, but they, they have to know what to do and there should be some sort of safety training, like calling 911, calling me, then you, then you would notify the building owner, whoever's in charge, whoever the building super is or however the dynamics of that works, cause every building is a little bit different. And then then then the protocol steps in place. Like with the MGM, they didn't have a a protocol, no one had ever been murdered there and they were just like we're going to keep the restaurant open and I'm like no, no, you're not not today, not on my watch, partner.

Speaker 2:

Whenever you do this, shannon, once you get that all together, this shit, and you get a little bit more organized and together, this probably should go in your standard operating procedures, which is an SOP, and you need to probably start making an employee handbook and this is basically you're telling them exactly, step by step, what you as a company expect. What you as a company expect, I expect you to download and get Life360. Right, and not because I'm trying to snoop on you, it's, above all, cleaning services, it's for your guys' protection only and for stuff like this right here. So you put it in your standard operating procedures and there's gotta be. Sometimes people just need to need to know, step-by-step, exactly how to do something.

Speaker 1:

Well when something bad like this happens, you panic, you've got all of this stuff going on. Your emotions are like red alert, red alert, red alert. So it's hard. It's hard to think because you start to shake. All the adrenaline is going in your body. So you just need to have either a digital asset or a paper asset. Step one call me, step to call police or whatever, or basically it should be called police first, or 911. And then step two call me and then I will call. This is what will happen in case of an emergency with their, their bags or on their persons.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And as we become and even Jamie has had to have, she has to have training now, for workplace violence in the state of California is now required. So, unfortunately, for your own safety, you need to start thinking about these things and how you're going to protect your cleaning tax, because you never want to be like I was. When I had to have the conversation with this girl's parents and all I could do was give them a big hug and cry with them. They had lost their baby and it was just like and she wasn't, she was just a couple years younger than me I'm going to cry. There's a very human element. You cannot do this alone. You're cleaning tacks or your bread and butter, and you need to make sure that you're protecting them, but that you're not smothering them. But there should be some sort of safety protocols in place.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you of another episode of workplace violence that almost happened to me is when I worked for tgi fridays, I had an individual who was a host and I ended up terminating her. She just had a lot of stuff going on and, um, she proceeded. No, I'm sorry, I take that back. I didn't terminate her. She was written up for inappropriate behavior and, um, she was kept on and she went around to all the other servers and started to tell people what she was going to do with me, um, and when she was going to do it.

Speaker 1:

And it wasn't if it wasn't for the one employee who took action and said hey, I believe they're going to take action against Shannon, this person who showed me rope bags, tarps, knives, crazy stuff. You know, I think Shannon can actually be in danger, and I actually had to transfer over to another store while they investigated this whole thing and it came out that she was getting ready to kidnap me and she wanted to kill me because I wrote her up and I didn't like her. So you just never know what you are going to deal with when you're dealing with public, especially your own employees. I did nothing wrong. All I did was follow the protocol in my handbook. That said on page 30, you cannot do these things and you need to be held accountable for it. Remember, this is your signature when you were hired and it's.

Speaker 2:

It's unfortunate that we do have to put these things in place now, but that's a prime example right there of why we, why California even though it is one of the hardest states to run a legitimate business, it also has a lot of stuff in there that protects us as the business owner, but also protects my employees, right.

Speaker 2:

And this is the violence in the workplace protocol. I'm kind of thankful for it. So you know, because I just today watching the news there's another school shooting and it's just so there's protocol there. You know there's protocol how they handle it. Same thing that goes for us as business owners, cleaning business owners. You just never know if you're going to run into somebody that is just having an off day, a really bad day and I am thankful that her name was jackie.

Speaker 1:

She was a server who went to upper management and said I think that they're going to take actions. I've this woman is carrying around tarps and ropes and knives and she was getting ready to take action. I was just, I was mortified. I was like, oh my god, but yeah, I had my. This is when my adult children were little kids and I was like I could have been killed and kidnapped and killed you were just a step away, right?

Speaker 2:

yeah, you just never know.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, jackie, right um so and uh, and I feel for this woman's family. I'm hoping that they have come out and, you know, provided some sort of counseling for people who needed it, and I've. I'm hoping that this incident that has happened at the Wells Fargo down in Phoenix, um has now a protocol in place and I can only imagine maybe it was security, maybe it was the pork cleaner, we don't know Cause they haven't told us, but, um, it really there needs to be a protocol in place, especially if you have employees in buildings, and even if you're you're subbing it out. If that's your model, you still need to keep track of these guys, because stuff like this can go down and, like, what do you do when you find a body is? It's just like that, you just start to freak out and you don't mean to, but you really kicks right in and you need to do something to make sure that they're safe.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, right, I'm going to write that down to actually look into. If they do run into something there should be like do we provide, provide, uh, counseling, you know, will they need to have counseling afterwards?

Speaker 1:

I think that's something that should come with the territory I think in some instances depending on the actual police force and what their budget is.

Speaker 1:

I know that that's changed the dynamics over the last couple years years they provide grievance counselors to help you walk through whatever it is that you're going through at the moment, and I know there's a stigma to talking with people, but mental health is not something that's talked about a lot and it should be talked about more, and there is no shame in going to someone to have whatever it is that you're working on. Give yourself a big air hug because it really is important.

Speaker 2:

Mental health is so important. Well, we deal with it all the time, especially as cleaning business owners I do. I do take on big jobs for people that are going through mental health issues and I don't even know if they realize it. But yeah, we need, like Shannon said, we need protocol. Put this in your standard operating procedures, your employee manual, or even make a note of yours to yourself to just have something typed up that this you know, step one, step two, step three of what all those things should be. If you do happen to run into a situation like this, which is just beyond me as to why it was four days later, and I'm just wondering why a cleaning tech did they skip that office?

Speaker 1:

or I'm not sure what the protocol was for the building. It doesn't make. Usually when you're doing a large building that has locked offices you have the master key to unlock. Maybe they forgot their keys that time. Maybe they're rotating the building for price. Maybe they're doing half the building one time, the other half of the building. But there should be a report that's done with security. If you're having to get in and out that says Mrs Smith isn't checked out, we should probably go check on her.

Speaker 2:

I mean no one you know she was missing for four days. The doors that are locked in the banks that we do, I'm sure the CEO of the one bank, the corporate office that we do, that door is always locked and I know that person has been in there while we were working and never came out and said a peep right and um.

Speaker 1:

So I think that we're more human than that and I know sometimes they don't want to bother us and all that other stuff. Yeah, because you don't want to fraternize, I get that too. But for safety there should be some sort of protocol with Wells Fargo going forward that they have so situations like this. I mean it could have been longer. Can you imagine if it had been two weeks? The smell and you know all of the stuff that has to go on to get that cleaned up and ripped out and all the other stuff.

Speaker 2:

It's so unfortunate that we don't think of these things until after we go through the threshold of it actually happening, that's, whenever it's like, okay, let's put this policy in place. No, you want to be one step ahead of this game. So and that's what this is is it a little? Get these nice little nuggets from these podcasts that shannon um provides for all of us. There's always a bunch of juicy little nuggets in here, and this is a good one. Don't let this happen. Don't go through the threshold and be like, oh, I should have had that policy in place. Have these policies in place. Think outside of the box Anything that your mind can think of happening. Write it down, write a note to yourself.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. And then there's you know the weather. We're dealing with a lot of extreme weather recently. We have monsoons that roll through Northern Arizona quite a bit during the summer and sometimes the monsoons will throw out the electricity. Well, guess what? You can't clean without electricity. I can't tell you how many times I've had an irate customer going why can't you clean? I'm like we need to have electricity. I guess you still have to pay because we showed up. It's not my fault that your electricity went out. I'm really sorry, but that should be, should be. You know what should happen if the electricity is out or we've arrived and the electricity has already been out. We still charge them a show up fee. I give them a, you know, a consolation prize, like maybe a free oven cleaning, but they get like all upset over the fact that they're not a having their house clean or be, that they still have to pay. I'm like you. It's like blowing a doctor's appointment or a hair appointment. They're still expecting you to go and pay.

Speaker 2:

That's why you take those deposits Right, and I, we're, we're in Northern California, so we're. We don't have winters, we have what's two seasons. We have spring and the rainy season, and I will tell you that a lot of people here can afford to have generators and I'm sure all their neighbors are looking at them like are you serious? We're out without power and you're going to run your generator to allow these cleaning techs to come in and clean your house? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I just Is it crazy, but that's, and get on the schedule Right.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to touch on it because I felt it was important to her family. I know that they haven't come out and mentioned her name yet. I would imagine they're waiting to contact next of kin. If you have any questions, we'd love to hear them, and thank you so much for joining us today. On Cleaning Business Life my co-host, miss Jamie. We'll talk to you guys soon. Take care, thanks, bye.

People on this episode

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Jamie Runco

Host
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Shannon Miller

Host