Best Of - The Stuff I've Broken

Smart Cleaning School

I've broken a lot over 15 years, but it's all relative. I have two mindsets to discuss before I share my cleaning misdeeds.

1. Your auto insurance company keeps actuarial tables and knows exactly how much an accident costs on average. These numbers are taken into account when you get and pay your annual insurance premium. In fact, it is designed to be a win-win. If you get into an accident or not, the insurance company still makes money. They win. Plus, your accident or claim is covered so you don't have to pay out of pocket. If you cost the insurance company too much money, they will raise your premium to ensure they make a profit and you can still be covered. Insurance is a product. We insure many things. One of those things is our business against general liability and bodily harm. Your business insurance company has the same actuarial tables and business model. I personally pay $550 per year in general liability and yes, I've had to use it once. The first mindset to take is this. You need insurance because things WILL break or get damaged!
2. I'm a former General Electric mechanical engineer and Six Sigma Green Belt. Six Sigma is a design system to minimize defects to 6 per million opportunities. It's an extremely difficult high bar in engineering design to achieve, that's why companies like GE and Motorola in the 90's and 2000's thrived. As a cleaner, I touch 500 things in each house or office. Over my 15 years, I've cleaned an average of 250 houses and 250 offices or 500 cleans per year. If you multiply the this out, I've created 3,750,000 opportunities to break or damage something. I call this a defect. Over this same 15 year mark, I have 75 defects. Continue the math and you'll conclude that my defect rate is 20 per million opportunities. 5 sigma is 233 defects per million opportunities. I've been cleaning for 15 years right on the cusp of 6 Sigma. In fact, I am literally a 6 Sigma Green Belt in my defect rate over the past 5 years as most of my 75 defects happened in the first 10 years. Therefore, my rate of damage or defect is as good as GE designs the airplane engines you fly with!

Side note: If you're struggling with breaking or damaging things, first evaluate your defect rate. Feel free to assume 500 opportunities per house or office. Secondly, if your defect rate is over 50 per year, you need to make changes in how you clean. A few simple system changes and routine can fix it.
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