Catharsis in a Cup

The breakroom smelled of coffee, but perhaps more was in the air. Mary Denney — a displaced mother and housewife returned to the workforce and on her rounds in 2004 as then-custodial supervisor for the firm that cleaned Weyerhaeuser’s Headquarters complex in Federal Way, Washington — found the diminutive, Hispanic custodian Sally arranging cups, cocoa, tea packets, stir sticks, cream and sugar, in caterer-perfect style.

“It looked beautiful,” she recalled.

“That looks nice. Did someone tell you to do this?” Mary asked.

Sally — a bit startled with an ‘I might be in trouble’ look — replied softly in broken English: “I want the people who come here in the morning to feel warm and welcome.”

Mary was over nine custodians, and one of five supervisors for the building service contractor (BSC) charged with daily cleaning the sprawling Weyerhaeuser campus of some 14 buildings — including the low-slung, five-story, ivy-decked HQ building — each with restrooms, breakrooms, conference rooms, and cubicles.

Weyerhaeuser had an airport at SEATAC, that Mary personally cleaned for the BSC in addition to her supervisory duties at HQ.

Mary practiced “checking in” instead of “checking up” on staff.

Her peers called it a “waste of time”.

“For the longest time, I thought I was doing my job wrong.”

Everything changed over time.

Luba’s Tale

Luba was slow and could not do her job — or so Mary was told.

Luba, a stern-faced Russian immigrant who arrived in America after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, kept her head down, quietly performed her duties with what seemed glacial slowness, and spoke only a little English.

One of Mary’s senior peers, aka, “the bully”, had foisted Luba on Mary as “punishment”.

Early-on, Mary checked-in with Luba during the evening shift, expecting to find her “behind”. She wasn’t. Toward shift’s end, Mary found Luba had indeed done everything — and well.

Was this a fluke? Mary decided to covertly observe more on subsequent nights, blending into the shadows of adjoining areas, making mental notes.

While Luba was “slow” to the casual observer, turns out she was methodical; not surprising, as many Eastern European immigrants were university-taught and held professional jobs in their home countries. The immigration wave from 1991-2001 largely consisted of engineers and other skilled workers who left oppressive regimes in hopes of finding a better life.

Luba’s process was deliberate: She emptied ALL the garbage in one precisely planned route to the dumpster; no backtracking. She picked-up, straightened, and carefully positioned chairs for later floor vacuuming, pushing them back as she went. She wiped spots from walls as she passed them, not needing to return later.

The contrasting impacts of Mary’s divergent, supportive management style and the “bully’s” were evident as the two BSC supervisors walked through Luba’s area one night.

“There’s the slow-poke…” the bully’s terse remark pierced the still, late-night air, causing Luba to stiffen as she continued her tortoise-like advancement.

Mary returned later to talk with a Luba, who was clearly upset.

“I told her not to worry about her speed because I had been watching her and inspecting her area; and as long as she finished everything during the shift and it met standards, she should just keep doing things the way she had been.”

She concluded by saying Luba’s building was “always one of the cleanest when she was finished and that I appreciated her attention to detail and excellent work.”

Luba smiled a lot after that, brought lunch items to share with Mary on subsequent nights — and arranged the kitchen cups in neat rows.

Weyerhaeuser’s HQ Building, built in the 70s, modelled sustainable architecture in the Pacific Northwest, earning AIA accolades for its green design and landscape architecture. 37 stories of office space in five stories — called a “skyscraper on its side” — had ivy vines cascading from five low-slung terraces of passive-solar concrete like a well-kept ruin emerging from the indigenous forest. Its northern foundation gathered the site’s meandering creek into a small shimmering lake with outflows that watered ferns, wildflowers and native grasses. Bonsai and rhododendron gardens graced the 400-acre site, and 1,000 indoor plants adorned offices.

Growth was afoot — and in more ways than one.

Mary Denney was good at her job. She also trusted her BSC employer, which had a multi-year contract to clean the Weyerhaeuser complex. In 2007, she was out for foot surgery and, due to complications, was away from her job for nine months — a time in which she dutifully gave the BSC’s Human Resources (HR) department the paperwork, doctor updates, and status reports required under FMLA (federal unpaid, job-protected leave for medical reasons). Three weeks before she was to return, she informed them of her medical clearance — expecting to be welcomed back.

They told her she no longer had a job.

Soon after filing for unemployment, Mary received a breathless call from her former employer admitting “a mistake”, asking her back, and arranging for her to meet the new manager at 6pm to start the night shift.

(She now notes: “Some companies often don’t want to pay unemployment claims as they don’t want their rates to go up, or they worry about wrongful termination suits.”)

Surprised, but trusting, Mary reported for work.

Her ID Badge no longer worked for entry.

Craning her neck as she looked through the entry glass, her eyes met those of a night custodian gathered with others at the start of their shift. Near-instant recognition, a big smile, rapid gesturing, and cries of “Mary’s back!” in Russian, Spanish and broken-English followed. They let her in and welcomed her like a homecoming.

It was the last welcome she was to receive that night. The BSC’s site manager was not there, so she could not speak to him (it was a week before she did).

The onsite supervisor, the only one after the BSC’s acquisition and restructuring during Mary’s absence, was on site, and it was the “bully”; who had not been informed about Mary’s rehiring.

The happy chatter of the night crew ended abruptly as the supervisor entered, glared at Mary and shouted in staccato English tinged with a Hispanic accent: “You don’t work here. You are not authorized — get out now!” She threatened to call security.

Mary left in shock, went back to her car, called and left a message with HR.

The HR department responded the next day: “Sorry about that. Ok, we got it worked out. Go back tonight.”

She did. Her supervisor had still not been informed, and was again vehement, but agreed to call the new manager who directed her to put Mary to work as a substitute custodian.

“She put me with her sister, who had worked for me, and we went to work on her building.”

Mary suggested they split up to cover more ground. They did, leading to another run-in with the supervisor, whose angry response held accusations of Mary not following directions, and to her sister, that Mary was not to be left alone in the space.

Demoralized but compliant, Mary continued with her work until about a week later when she met the new BSC manager. Maybe this was her chance to communicate.

“May I ask a few questions?”

“Yes.”

“When I left, I was a lead or supervisor, and had received a $1 per hour raise two paychecks before my FMLA absence began. So, frankly, I’m a bit confused. What am I now?”

“Well, we restructured everything, and we only need one supervisor now. So, you’re a custodian.”

New reality: The manager who gave Mary the raise was no longer with the company, turnover had skyrocketed, and worst of all, the company did not care about its workers.

Mary had grown to distrust the system.

After six years of cleaning Weyerhaeuser buildings — with access to behind-the-scenes knowledge only BSC staff and precious few others get — Mary knew the cleaning, her job, and the customer.

On her night rounds, offices were eerily hushed due to the facility’s passive concrete design and a climate control system so quiet, that during the day, “Weyerhaeuser [initially] found it necessary to pump ‘traditional’ HVAC sounds through the building’s intercom system to provide greater privacy to its employees.” (Ref: SOM Architects)

In this silent space, Mary could focus on cleaning quality, her team, and how the customer, Weyerhaeuser — being much more than just a “paper company” — had spent millions on technology to be sustainable over its 100+ years in business.

(Weyerhaeuser now plants 150 million trees yearly but harvests just 2% of its forests, creates tree buffers along waterways to protect threatened species, uses 95% of every log, has 100% SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative)-Certified lands, and is recognized as among the world’s most ethical companies.) (Retrieved @ www.weyerhaeuser.com, 11/29/20)

As Mary found, knowing is growing, but hardly common practice, especially in custodial.

Not Knowing

The BSC that first hired Mary to clean at Weyerhaeuser had done so based on a generic job application with virtually no interview:

“We need people, so if you’ll show up for work, you’re hired,” she said in mock summary. Mary was hired as a “floater”: a substitute custodian asked to call-in daily to see if the BSC had a work assignment for her — or not.

The BSC did not seem to care who Mary was — beyond that she had not committed a felony or failed a drug test — and apparently cared less about training.

“Training” was watching a few VHS video tapes, notably one on restrooms that focused on “bright work”, and stressed “this is what you should clean, and this is how it should look when you’re done”, with very little info on procedure, chemicals, equipment, or safety.

This contrasted with Mary’s experience at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU): Her January 2008 interview with PLU, South of Tacoma, Washington —where she had applied before being called back to Weyerhaeuser — was surprisingly thorough.

Mary dressed for it; white blouse, black blazer, black skirt, and dark pumps; and was glad she did, though, in her mind — conditioned to view janitorial as grunt work — she was “just” interviewing for a custodial job.

The Custodial Manager greeted Mary in the lobby, walked her down a carpeted hallway and into a conference room with a white board, television, and eight-foot conference table where six persons in business suits/ties representing facilities, grounds, and HR, sat.

They asked questions in round-robin fashion for about 45 minutes, and dismissing thoughts of the Inquisition, Mary answered each question clearly and carefully.

Toward the end, mustering courage, she asked her own question: “What happened to the person who used to have this job?”

“That would be me,” the Custodial Manager smiled. “I started as a custodian and worked my way up to supervisor and now manager.”

Mary’s heart skipped a beat at the prospect that if hired she would be supported by a manager who grasped custodial issues.

Hiding her enthusiasm, she thanked each one in turn, got up to leave, and on the way to her car, prayed silently that she get the job.

A few days later, she did — and the same day resigned from the BSC that cleaned Weyerhaeuser.

Growing Awareness 

Hired as the 7am shift manager for PLU residence halls, Mary grew to become the daytime supervisor of both the 5am and 7am shifts.

When her manager’s attention shifted to other matters, primary responsibility for custodial performance fell to Mary; a situation that at first was disappointing, but later proved serendipitous.

“I stepped up.”

Feeling solely responsible for quality, Mary spent more time with team members and on cleaning inspections — with a twist. Rather than inspect as a “gotcha”, she used it as a conversation starter:

“When you’re looking at a custodian’s work, you’re also communicating with them.”

“That looks lovely, how did you do that?”

“How are you doing?”

This “knowing is growing” example rightly occurred in a place of higher learning.

More than a decade later, Mary is still doing both.