Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
![025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=54,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic]
32 Plays1 year ago
After a three month gap, we have M. Joel Gatti (Director of Housing Operations at SMU) back on the show. This time around we are cruising the ACUHO-I community message boards for topics to discuss and banter about. Those topics include:
- Mid-semester room cleaning, preparation, and handling abandoned property;
- Requiring staff to be trained to administer CPR and Narcan, plus the logistics behind such emergency response expectations.
- "Valet" laundry and trash services.
- The professional value of participating in and/or observing niche conversations about specialized topics outside your expertise.
It's a wide range of topics you certainly don't want to miss.
Recommended![023 - The Friend of My Friend Could Be My Friend: Network Science [Book Club] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
Transcript
Return of Swakuha Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Swakuha Podcast.
00:00:02
Speaker
It's been three months since our last episode, so I appreciate your return.
00:00:06
Speaker
I promised President Drew Jarr I would keep the podcast going through his tenure, so I deliver on that promise today with one more episode before the conference where he hands the gavel off.
00:00:18
Speaker
This was recorded just this past week, so it will be about as fresh as it gets on this podcast.
00:00:25
Speaker
We're doing something a little different this time around, which I think is going to be fun.
00:00:29
Speaker
At least it's going to be fun for me and my guest.
00:00:32
Speaker
Akuhoi has an online community with message board forums.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's kind of fun to cruise around in there and see what people are talking about or asking others about.
00:00:39
Speaker
This is what happened when my friend and guest today, M. Joel Gaddy from Southern Methodist University, emailed me about a topic on the forum that he thought would make a good podcast topic.
Episode Topics Overview
00:00:51
Speaker
I thought so too, if only because it was a topic I care about in the course of my job duties.
00:00:57
Speaker
But instead of focusing on that one topic alone, Joel and I are going to go through some other quote, fun posts and talk about their content and their applicability to operations, residence life, and in general, university housing programs.
00:01:13
Speaker
We will see where the day takes us, but we'll definitely be talking about mid-year room turnover for partially occupied rooms.
00:01:20
Speaker
We're possibly requiring CPR and Narcan training for RAs, staff and vendor room entry procedures.
00:01:28
Speaker
Oh, crap.
00:01:28
Speaker
The links all went away when I closed.
00:01:31
Speaker
What were the other ones?
00:01:33
Speaker
Live-in staff furniture.
00:01:34
Speaker
Live-in staff furniture.
00:01:38
Speaker
And whatever else we find.
00:01:40
Speaker
Before beginning, I want to give a shout out to my friend James Bauman in the Akuhoi Central Office who moderates and facilitates the Akuhoi forums.
00:01:49
Speaker
I know James does a lot of work finding people to chime in on conversations and working to get good information out there.
00:01:55
Speaker
So I encourage you to get familiar with and stop by and weigh in on something there.
00:02:01
Speaker
Don't just go to the forum whenever you need something.
00:02:03
Speaker
Go there when you can give something to someone in need.
Guest Introduction: M. Joel Gaddy
00:02:07
Speaker
But back to today, you'll recognize today's guest from episode 19 back in March of 2023, M. Joel Gatti, Director of Housing Operations at SMU.
00:02:18
Speaker
If you want to hear his full bio, make sure to go back and listen to episode 19.
00:02:23
Speaker
You'll hear it all, and you'll also drive up stats on that episode too.
00:02:27
Speaker
Joel, welcome to the show.
00:02:30
Speaker
Thanks for having me back, JC.
00:02:32
Speaker
I'm glad that we can get back together on this front, talk some operation things, and
00:02:37
Speaker
And now I can be a two-time guest.
00:02:40
Speaker
Is there like a vest that comes at a certain number like in SNL?
00:02:44
Speaker
I'll be handing those out at the conference, but you're in a very small group of people.
00:02:48
Speaker
So yeah, we need to get vests or hats or something.
00:02:53
Speaker
Maybe I'll get you a ribbon on your conference name.
00:02:56
Speaker
I like that.
00:02:56
Speaker
There we go.
00:02:57
Speaker
You're on to something.
00:02:58
Speaker
Good ideas.
00:02:59
Speaker
That's how we move things forward.
00:03:00
Speaker
It's the little ideas that matter most.
Message Board Experiences
00:03:03
Speaker
So, Joel, this episode stems from the message boards, which are not as big of a thing as they used to be generally in society.
00:03:12
Speaker
So first things first, were you ever big into contributing to message boards of any topic anywhere on the interwebs?
00:03:20
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question.
00:03:22
Speaker
I mean, I think.
00:03:23
Speaker
Back in high school, there was something called PennLive that high school athletes would monitor and keep track of to see who's talking about them and that kind of stuff.
00:03:34
Speaker
But no, never really a big message board person.
00:03:39
Speaker
I dabbled in Reddit every now and then, just seeing what's out there.
00:03:45
Speaker
But I think that's kind of a black hole of...
00:03:48
Speaker
chaos at times.
00:03:49
Speaker
So like, yeah, watch out what you, which, what message boards you end up on these days.
00:03:54
Speaker
So, yeah, for sure.
00:03:56
Speaker
And remind me, you were a high school baseball star, right?
00:04:00
Speaker
Star is a relative term, but yes, I played high school baseball and college baseball.
00:04:04
Speaker
My college playing years were, yeah, my college playing years at Geneva, uh, were, were much better than my high school playing years.
00:04:13
Speaker
I, I don't know why.
00:04:14
Speaker
I don't know if it was just, uh,
00:04:16
Speaker
attention to detail or I finally grew into my body or something and was able to do more with it.
00:04:20
Speaker
But yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
Did you ever see a message board post that was like talking about you?
00:04:25
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
I mean star, like.
00:04:27
Speaker
Actually the complete opposite.
00:04:28
Speaker
Someone like just trashed me on, you know, like someone had said like, Oh, Gaddy at Hemfield, he's a good player.
00:04:37
Speaker
Um, and someone else just then ripped into like, no, he's not, he's too small, this, that, or the other, yada, yada, yada.
00:04:43
Speaker
And just all the, all these things.
00:04:45
Speaker
But I think that was like self-promotion for that person's kid.
00:04:48
Speaker
I don't know.
00:04:49
Speaker
I never hunted them down or found out the author.
Mid-Year Room Turnover Challenges
00:04:52
Speaker
We should go back on the Wayback Machine and see if we can find them out now.
00:04:57
Speaker
Well, would it surprise you to tell you that I was a moderator of a message board back in the, well, actually, I think I still am, but I'm not active anymore.
00:05:06
Speaker
Surprise me?
00:05:07
Speaker
No, because what I've learned of you, JC, you have a skill set that is far reaching and into all kinds of cool stuff like puzzle, puzzle making and everything like that.
00:05:18
Speaker
So I learned something new every day.
00:05:20
Speaker
So it doesn't shock me.
00:05:22
Speaker
It does shock me that you just let it die out and not continue on.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, the sustainability of it.
00:05:29
Speaker
I actually am the moderator.
00:05:32
Speaker
I just looked it up.
00:05:33
Speaker
I still am.
00:05:34
Speaker
So they haven't booted me out, even though I haven't participated in a while.
00:05:36
Speaker
I'm a moderator of a carnivorous plant cultivation forum.
00:05:41
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:05:42
Speaker
Carnivorous plants.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
Wow.
00:05:46
Speaker
I didn't know that was in your set of skills that you had knowledge and info on.
00:05:51
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
00:05:52
Speaker
The mid-2000s, I was big into it.
00:05:55
Speaker
And yeah, it was fantastic.
00:05:57
Speaker
So we can talk about that another time.
00:06:00
Speaker
That sounds like a fun, fun future, maybe after dark episode of the podcast.
00:06:08
Speaker
Much discussed, but never coming through podcast after dark episode.
00:06:14
Speaker
All right, Joel, let's start on topic one, the one that initiated this whole thing.
00:06:19
Speaker
We're not going to read the whole thread, but basically the question was asking about mid-year room turnover on partially occupied spaces.
00:06:30
Speaker
Somebody was asking about how concerns with cleaning crews, either not feeling comfortable entering partially occupied spaces, tossing away property in those spaces that is actually owned by a resident who I saw somebody said creeps into the other room, which I appreciated that.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:49
Speaker
basically looking for like an efficiency process, integrity of students' belongings, and, but also focusing on welcoming into a clean space for anyone new moving in mid semester.
00:07:01
Speaker
That's where this all began.
00:07:02
Speaker
So let's just dive into any and all of it.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:06
Speaker
Sounds great.
00:07:08
Speaker
I know you, you posted on that, on that channel, uh,
00:07:12
Speaker
quite a great long lengthy info for folks to be able to, to, to use at their whim.
00:07:20
Speaker
That's what you get when you're a moderator, you just try and answer all the questions at once that people might ask.
00:07:25
Speaker
Even I think that's my biggest flaw is people tell me I don't need to answer the questions that weren't asked, but on the forums, I'm like, context matters.
00:07:35
Speaker
Right.
00:07:36
Speaker
So you got to add that in.
00:07:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:38
Speaker
I mean, I think,
00:07:40
Speaker
having seen it, this is that, that, that area that we all are in a rush, right.
00:07:46
Speaker
To get to winter break.
00:07:47
Speaker
And we know it's a thing that we have to map out and plan for, but then it usually ends up being something that is sometimes stumbled through, uh, or not done with the, maybe the highest amount of, uh, care and attention to detail.
00:08:04
Speaker
And, and it can create,
00:08:07
Speaker
other issues on the back end of the winter break or before your opening or bringing new students in and it detracts from that welcoming experience that we all hype and emphasize at academic year normal move-in time.
00:08:22
Speaker
And there's probably no one perfect way of doing it, right?
00:08:26
Speaker
Like we're all unique in our own special way at each institution based on specifics as to do you close, do you force everyone to leave, do you
00:08:37
Speaker
Do you have your own internal staff that do cleaning or do you outsource that to another contractor?
00:08:43
Speaker
And all of those melt together in this big old pot that can just get weird and it's not like one size fits all.
00:08:52
Speaker
But I think it's one of those topics that is easily not properly planned for and why I personally was like, hey, JC, this might be a good topic to kick around a
Handling Occupied Spaces and Property
00:09:02
Speaker
little bit.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right.
00:09:04
Speaker
And it also is like the one-offs in any sort of system, like when you have a system that works and it can push volume, like, you know, you and I and Drew and Kyle talked about this on the last episode with like summer volume is just –
00:09:20
Speaker
But there's a system in place that it's like, you know, every day what's happening, what the pushes.
00:09:25
Speaker
But then during the school year where it's like, oh, somebody moved out yesterday.
00:09:29
Speaker
It's like one off.
00:09:30
Speaker
It's outside the system.
00:09:32
Speaker
It doesn't have the infrastructure.
00:09:34
Speaker
It's like.
00:09:36
Speaker
gets a little special gloves, but that's where anytime we deviate from the system responses, like where issues start to rise because it's not a part of the big system.
00:09:46
Speaker
And it's like, Oh, people have to keep on top of it or maintain it.
00:09:49
Speaker
Like I always think about those one-offs in our customer service responses of like, Oh yeah, we're going to make this one exception for you based on your situation.
00:09:59
Speaker
And it's like, those are the ones I fear where our customer service is going to fail the most is because we're trying to do something different to accommodate that.
00:10:07
Speaker
And then because it's different, it gets missed in the checks and balances that have been built in the system, you know?
00:10:12
Speaker
And I think the same thing applies here.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, well, it can also unravel even further of like you hire a new building supervisor or an RCD or whatever those acronyms are on your campus.
00:10:24
Speaker
And maybe that's the first time they're seen bringing new students into a space and they think like, oh, this is the established norm when really that process looks entirely different
00:10:35
Speaker
at true academic year move-in time.
00:10:37
Speaker
And then they're off doing something that maybe they shouldn't have been doing because no one clarified that, hey, this is these weird one-offs that we have to be mindful about and done a little bit differently based on whatever variables are at play.
00:10:54
Speaker
Like, oh, someone still lives in the other half of the room and has all their personal property everywhere.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:11:01
Speaker
And how it's like,
00:11:03
Speaker
Over time, I think the abandoned property in my long-winded post that you so eloquently made obvious to everybody, the thing I fixate on was the abandoned property because this is huge.
00:11:15
Speaker
It's just the problem that never ends.
00:11:19
Speaker
But it's like you after a certain amount of time, you can kind of get a feeling for a room.
00:11:23
Speaker
You walk into a room.
00:11:24
Speaker
Is this abandoned?
00:11:25
Speaker
Is it just somebody's left?
00:11:27
Speaker
Is it the staleness to the room?
00:11:30
Speaker
You look for things like are there receipts out and what are the dates of the receipts to know when when was this person last here?
00:11:38
Speaker
And for like in your comment about like a new RCD or hall director, it's like until you've been in enough rooms, you don't always know, oh, this is obviously abandoned.
00:11:47
Speaker
Like I walked into a room today and it had furniture still there.
00:11:50
Speaker
I was like, but this has been vacated at least a week ago.
00:11:54
Speaker
Right.
00:11:54
Speaker
You can kind of get a feel.
00:11:55
Speaker
My housekeeper will tell you based on dust on a, she, she knows when the last time a windowsill was cleaned down to like a day ago because of like dust.
00:12:03
Speaker
Like it just comes with experience, you know, and you can kind of get a feel for that.
00:12:06
Speaker
I think.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:12:08
Speaker
When you think about a room space in its most basic traditional sense of there's two halves to a room, where is that true line?
00:12:18
Speaker
Like, do people tape down the middle of the room?
00:12:21
Speaker
Like, no, of course not.
00:12:23
Speaker
Right.
00:12:23
Speaker
And so then it's like, oh, well, Jimmy never used the bookshelf and it's on his half of the room.
00:12:32
Speaker
But Jimmy left.
00:12:33
Speaker
Johnny took over that bookshelf and has all of his things on there.
00:12:38
Speaker
And then someone comes through and says, Oh, this half of the room needs to be cleaned or taken care of.
00:12:43
Speaker
And this is abandoned property.
00:12:45
Speaker
And I can't even remember my own description now, whether it was Jimmy or Johnny, but whoever comes back and they're like, where did all my stuff on the bookshelf go?
00:12:53
Speaker
Because I had that there all year.
00:12:55
Speaker
And depending on, you know, that, that process was done in middle of December.
00:13:01
Speaker
But Jimmy didn't get back until middle of January.
00:13:05
Speaker
I mean, this stuff hits the dump, you know, weeks ago.
00:13:09
Speaker
There's no getting it back.
00:13:11
Speaker
You know, if that's your process.
Cleaning and Property Management at SMU
00:13:13
Speaker
I know there's some places.
00:13:15
Speaker
I mean, here at SMU, we have a 30-day hold period.
00:13:18
Speaker
Oh, God, 30 days.
00:13:20
Speaker
Where we try to make sure that we are doing our due diligence of,
00:13:26
Speaker
not throwing away people's stuff, but at the same time too, if we get confirmation well before that 30 day mark that someone has no intention to come back for it or physically like, no, I live across the country.
00:13:39
Speaker
I'm not coming back for those two books I left.
00:13:42
Speaker
You know, then we can do with it what we want.
00:13:44
Speaker
30 days?
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:47
Speaker
That's like half the summer.
00:13:51
Speaker
Correct.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:13:52
Speaker
We talk about summer maintenance flips and turns.
00:13:55
Speaker
That can sometimes get interesting.
00:13:56
Speaker
But it also goes back to did the staff member check out appropriate or check the room out appropriately?
00:14:03
Speaker
Was there scheduled checkout times?
00:14:06
Speaker
So we don't see a whole lot of abandoned property that we don't know what to do with because a vast majority of people will follow the established process of,
00:14:17
Speaker
scheduling a time or at least letting their RA know so we can get us in there and be like, hey, we found this.
00:14:22
Speaker
Do you need it?
00:14:22
Speaker
Do you want it?
00:14:23
Speaker
Is it trash?
00:14:24
Speaker
Is it not?
00:14:24
Speaker
Okay, move on down the way.
00:14:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:27
Speaker
I think that makes a huge difference because here people just turn their keys in at the desk and go and then we walk them all afterwards.
00:14:33
Speaker
So we have outrageous amounts of
00:14:37
Speaker
I mean, some of it's like toilet brushes and stupid little stuff.
00:14:41
Speaker
And, you know, we've built into our like procedure of like stuff with limited to no value.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's like been a media toss of like, you know, if somebody left a toilet brush behind,
00:14:53
Speaker
It's going in the trash right away because they also like when they sign out, they agree to acknowledge like anything I've left behind is can be disposed.
00:15:03
Speaker
Obviously, we take a little bit more care when it's like furniture or a computer.
00:15:08
Speaker
But if somebody has filled out the form themselves acknowledging we're going to dispose it and it's of limited no value, it's I'm authorizing its disposal immediately.
00:15:17
Speaker
But yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, there's nothing worse than abandon property during a term process, especially mid-year if it's the one-off because it just slows everything else down unless you have – or one of those housing departments has a magic storage facility for all this leftover furniture that you're going to hold for apparently 30 days.
00:15:36
Speaker
I think 14 is too much.
00:15:38
Speaker
I want to get ours down to like 14 minutes, but –
00:15:44
Speaker
Well, let me know how that goes and whatever verbiage and proposal you put together on that front because I might want to piggyback off that.
00:15:52
Speaker
So who, you said that people can confirm that they're abandoned property.
00:15:58
Speaker
How does that look at your school?
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the, I think if we're talking specifically in the mid-year turnover timeframe, RCDs would, would,
00:16:11
Speaker
RCDs or their RAs or both combination of both or check in the space.
00:16:14
Speaker
They finally come across something.
00:16:16
Speaker
The expectation, at least from my seat in the department, is that they are reaching out to that student.
00:16:23
Speaker
You know, found this.
00:16:25
Speaker
Pictures are tell a thousand words, right?
00:16:28
Speaker
Pictures, get in contact, send that on, figure out, call, whatever.
00:16:34
Speaker
Hey, is this trash?
00:16:35
Speaker
Did you mean to take this?
00:16:36
Speaker
Is this something of critical value or
00:16:40
Speaker
meaning to you that you want us to hold for you to be able to get back?
00:16:45
Speaker
Or do we need to mail something to you?
00:16:47
Speaker
Well, we don't like mailing things because that gets into a weird, you know, hoops and hurdles of paying postage fees and everything like that.
00:16:56
Speaker
But working out those logistics, there have been times too where some of our RCDs have called folks who left for break and they're planning to come back.
00:17:05
Speaker
There are people who are, well, I left early.
00:17:08
Speaker
I'm moving out of this room for whatever XYZ reason, but I do plan to come back to campus or whatever."
00:17:15
Speaker
Mapping out, giving that customer service on, all right, well, here's the stipulations of what we need you to come back and get this.
00:17:23
Speaker
And you don't have access to the building anymore, but we can coordinate meeting with you, getting you up to the room, and allowing you time to get that stuff out.
Policy and Communication Importance
00:17:33
Speaker
Or calling people back, you know, if it's a resident, say, who is not moving out, but they've, what was the term that they used?
00:17:41
Speaker
Spread, it wasn't spread, kind of creeped out throughout the room.
00:17:47
Speaker
You know, like if it's someone that had done that and we need to clear that other side to be a welcoming environment for the new student, then, you know, call them that, are they local?
00:17:57
Speaker
Hey, I know you're gone for break, but can you come back?
00:18:00
Speaker
We need you to move this stuff over.
00:18:02
Speaker
Otherwise, we or our cleaning folks are going to have to move this stuff over.
00:18:07
Speaker
Nine times out of 10, that sometimes will prompt some people to be like, oh, no, no, that's my bad.
00:18:11
Speaker
I should have done that before I left.
00:18:13
Speaker
Let me come back.
00:18:14
Speaker
It's all about that relational aspect.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so we hope our RCDs are having those discussions with people when they pop up.
00:18:21
Speaker
Hopefully they've had an established rapport with the individual through interactions earlier in the year.
00:18:28
Speaker
And so
00:18:29
Speaker
People will be more responsive to that.
00:18:31
Speaker
But of course, there's going to be some folks who pop smoke and they're gone and they don't care anything about it anymore.
00:18:37
Speaker
And then we just have to work the process and be in good coordinating partnership with our cleaning folks and us in the operations area to make sure that, all right, here's the next steps in the process.
00:18:50
Speaker
Go get it done so we can be ready to go.
00:18:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:54
Speaker
So going back to the cleaning folks and, uh, part of the original question about like comfort level or, um, with like escort procedures, I think was one, another one of the questions is like, do you all for you, like you contract out your cleaning or is it?
00:19:10
Speaker
Yes, we do.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
And so when they enter occupied spaces, do you provide escorts?
00:19:15
Speaker
What kind of staffing does that look like?
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:17
Speaker
So, um,
00:19:19
Speaker
We have a service level agreement with SMU Facilities to perform all work.
00:19:23
Speaker
SMU Facilities has a contract with a cleaning company to perform all cleaning for campus.
00:19:29
Speaker
That company is ABM.
00:19:32
Speaker
I know ABM is a national brand.
00:19:36
Speaker
that exists out there.
00:19:37
Speaker
I dealt with ABM as well at Oklahoma State University during my time there.
00:19:42
Speaker
ABM has a policy where they don't like to be touching personal property, but there are established protocols in place for providing managers access to rooms.
00:19:52
Speaker
So there are certain level managers within ABM who have key access.
00:19:58
Speaker
We are
00:19:59
Speaker
most of our campus is on id cards so you know it's just a matter of making sure they have the right setting in the system uh some of our other places are physical key and so they do have um master keys or the ability to at least check out a master key from us um if needed and so those managers then would go to the space with their um worker b uh individual
00:20:25
Speaker
to be able to then let them into the space and give the orders on what needs to be done.
00:20:31
Speaker
So that definitely rolls through pretty well, at least on our end.
00:20:37
Speaker
In my time here, I've only been at SMU for a year now, a year and a few days.
00:20:43
Speaker
Happy anniversary.
00:20:45
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:49
Speaker
We haven't had very many scenarios or situations where
00:20:53
Speaker
personal property that needed to stay in the room got removed and got thrown away.
00:21:00
Speaker
We did have one scenario earlier this year where that did unfortunately happen, where they went in and thought bags were trash just because of where they were and they weren't.
00:21:13
Speaker
There was no recovery by the time that got brought to the attention of folks.
00:21:17
Speaker
But there was a different situation where
00:21:20
Speaker
Building staff happened to be on site checking the room that same day of like, hey, I know these items were in this space and they were someone else's stuff that was either coming back or still in the room.
00:21:35
Speaker
The bag is now gone.
00:21:36
Speaker
We have ample great video camera coverage across our halls.
00:21:42
Speaker
And so we were able to see, oh, yeah, there's the bag that came out of that room with the with the ABM staff member.
00:21:49
Speaker
And fortunately, that staff member had taken the items back to their closet to then work with their supervisor of like, hey, we found these personal items.
00:21:57
Speaker
What do we need to do with them?
00:21:58
Speaker
But we had already alerted the management team of.
00:22:01
Speaker
hey, this stuff went missing.
00:22:03
Speaker
We have it on footage that your staff took it.
00:22:05
Speaker
Can you find it?
00:22:07
Speaker
Let's hope it didn't get its way into the dumpster right away.
00:22:11
Speaker
We got it recovered and had it back to the room all within that same afternoon period, which is great.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:20
Speaker
Correct.
00:22:21
Speaker
Correct.
00:22:23
Speaker
I mean, there's no worse – I'm being dramatic, but I mean there's – the PR on like throwing somebody's stuff away is just awful.
00:22:32
Speaker
So like anytime even like when it's suggested, I'm just like, no, no, no, no.
00:22:38
Speaker
There's no way.
00:22:39
Speaker
Like if we did, it's because somebody deviated because – I mean I'm pretty – we've worked really hard at UTD to like really strengthen and standardize our like –
00:22:48
Speaker
Abana property disposal, personal property, like, and anytime it's even like suggested, it's always been like a student, like a roommate put their stuff in the room and it all that, like everything always checked out.
00:23:02
Speaker
So like whenever it's suggested, I was like, oh my gosh.
00:23:05
Speaker
that this is just a PR nightmare.
00:23:07
Speaker
And then how do you go back and be like, no, this is all lies.
00:23:10
Speaker
We did not.
00:23:11
Speaker
I mean, this is not us.
00:23:14
Speaker
And us in the operations world, you know, it never ceases to amaze us that something is like that most critical heirloom, family heirloom that I got from grandma or grandpa.
00:23:26
Speaker
And,
00:23:26
Speaker
means the world to me and it's irreplaceable and toilet brush was in the dust bowl and has been passed down for generations thrown away without a second thought how dare you how dare you um but yeah i mean i think it speaks to the importance of having well thought out policies and procedures and making sure everyone is aware of those workflows
00:23:52
Speaker
and training on them right before those periods of time to make sure even though it's been covered and everyone knows it, let's do a refresher.
Furniture for Live-In Staff
00:24:01
Speaker
It won't take all but 10, 15 minutes to refresh this policy of what we're doing so we don't stub our toe and make us all look bad, right?
00:24:10
Speaker
Because it's that PR piece, like a different group does something, but if you have a good working partnership relationship with those vendors or those entities,
00:24:21
Speaker
Like it's a we mentality of we messed up and now we all look bad.
00:24:27
Speaker
Well, let's, let's all do our part to make sure that we all don't look bad or do something out of, out of, out of the protocols.
00:24:35
Speaker
So.
00:24:37
Speaker
All right.
00:24:38
Speaker
Let's move on to live in staff furniture.
00:24:41
Speaker
This was a post from back in June of last year, but worth revisiting.
00:24:48
Speaker
Someone asked about purchasing new furniture for live in professional staff in their apartments.
00:24:57
Speaker
And, uh,
00:24:59
Speaker
The question was about recommending a furniture line, but we're going to take it more in the logistical considerations for providing furniture after people have already moved in, while people are living there and may already have furniture and all the headaches that may come along with this benefit.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
I mean, I think that live-in furniture, live-in staff furniture is always that piece that
00:25:29
Speaker
We obviously want to make sure our spaces for our live-in staff are comfortable and adequate, that we know that they're going to be working long hours.
00:25:37
Speaker
We want them to have that home feeling in their space, somewhere they can recharge their own batteries and everything like that.
00:25:44
Speaker
But that also comes with a level of customization and personalization that ebbs and flows depending on the staff member living in the space.
00:25:53
Speaker
And when you add in room dimensions or layouts like
00:25:57
Speaker
Sometimes in some of these older buildings, like the intention of the live-in staff member's apartment is not what I think we probably are accustomed or want it to be now.
00:26:09
Speaker
When the building was built, it's like, oh, hey, they knocked out this little corn.
00:26:13
Speaker
They made a double into, you know, they made a double, two double rooms into one apartment.
00:26:19
Speaker
That was my first full-time apartment.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate.
00:26:24
Speaker
My first full-time apartment was a four-bedroom apartment in the North Rural area of campus at OSU.
00:26:32
Speaker
but two of the apartments were offices.
00:26:34
Speaker
So I got a living room and two bedrooms on the other side.
00:26:37
Speaker
It was a great commute to work.
00:26:39
Speaker
Let me tell you, just walked literally through this one door all the way inside.
00:26:43
Speaker
But it ebbs and flows based on the specifics of a building or an area.
00:26:50
Speaker
And there's always discussion on what are we willing to commit funding-wise to staff up these rooms?
00:26:58
Speaker
And I think too, that there's
00:27:01
Speaker
you know, probably at times in the field, you know, I've only been in the profession professionally for what, 11 years now, like probably well before me, there was different types of people coming and being live-in staff members.
00:27:18
Speaker
And sometimes they had families and big family had their own stuff.
00:27:21
Speaker
They were moving onto campus from after being off campus.
00:27:24
Speaker
So they had their own stuff.
00:27:25
Speaker
And so it was like,
00:27:26
Speaker
Hey, you get an unfurnished apartment, do with it what you want.
00:27:30
Speaker
But as we see more of a shift of like fresh grads coming in to fill positions, like they've never lived off campus, especially if they've been in that traditional housing experience life where they were an RA and then they were a grad in residence life.
00:27:46
Speaker
Like they never had to go buy an apartment worth of furniture so they don't have anything.
00:27:51
Speaker
And so we need to make sure that we're providing them nice things.
00:27:56
Speaker
that are livable and usable without just breaking the bank either on a non-revenue generating bed space.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
Well, and many of them are coming out of grad school and student loans, student debt.
00:28:11
Speaker
That's right.
00:28:12
Speaker
And often will not get their first, quote, adult paycheck for a month.
00:28:18
Speaker
Right, right, right.
00:28:20
Speaker
And so where do they go out and get furniture?
00:28:22
Speaker
So, I mean, I can go either way on it, but it's like the last thing I would ever want is a staff member sleeping in a sleeping bag on a floor in this great apartment.
00:28:34
Speaker
So I can see the value.
00:28:38
Speaker
But it also kind of hurts the people you're talking about.
00:28:41
Speaker
It's like, yeah, I already have my own stuff that I want to bring in.
00:28:44
Speaker
And now we're telling staff, well,
00:28:45
Speaker
Just like our residents, you can't remove any furniture.
00:28:48
Speaker
You can bring whatever you want, but we're not gonna store it for you because I just don't wanna keep track of furniture like one more way.
00:28:57
Speaker
Right, right, right.
00:28:58
Speaker
Well, and let's be honest too, right?
00:28:59
Speaker
Like you're giving the keys, you're giving a live-in staff member the keys to a whole building.
00:29:04
Speaker
Here's this master key that gets you into all these rooms, gets you into the whole place and get this whole building.
00:29:10
Speaker
But let's be real.
00:29:12
Speaker
Someone has a chair that they don't like
00:29:15
Speaker
in their apartment, their living apartment, can we, can we honestly say that that, that chair might not get swapped out with another chair that's, that's like for like, but in better condition somewhere else.
00:29:26
Speaker
I mean, I think we're all human enough to admit that.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:29
Speaker
I mean, like I run this building, so I'm going to make this swap and it's no big deal.
00:29:35
Speaker
You know, and that kind of stuff.
00:29:36
Speaker
Or I'm going to hide this with loveseat in a storage closet that nobody goes in because I don't have space for it.
00:29:43
Speaker
Right, right.
00:29:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:29:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:29:45
Speaker
And not that I'm endorsing or recommending that because I actually know of a person who stored a personal bike in a university storage closet that they left for a couple of years and then it just disappeared once and they never found it.
00:29:59
Speaker
And.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's funny that you bring up bikes.
00:30:02
Speaker
We had a situation where bikes were being stored in an electrical closet, which then the fire marshal had come around and issued a ticket for things being stored in an electrical closet that can't have things stored in.
00:30:18
Speaker
And having to navigate the discussions with that, you know, it's stuff that happens.
00:30:23
Speaker
Did you pass the bill on to the persons who bike it was or did the department eat the bill?
00:30:29
Speaker
Or can you say?
00:30:32
Speaker
We'll move on.
00:30:33
Speaker
We'll move on.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, no.
00:30:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:41
Speaker
All right.
00:30:41
Speaker
So what do you think then for schools out there who have historically not provided furniture, but now want to move in that direction as a part of the remuneration package?
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:54
Speaker
but say 50% of your staff has been living with you for more than a year, 50% of them are new.
00:31:02
Speaker
How do you phase in?
00:31:04
Speaker
Do you phase it in as people move out?
00:31:08
Speaker
Do you buy it all at once and store it somewhere?
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question.
00:31:15
Speaker
And that really probably comes down to individual budgetary constraints.
00:31:18
Speaker
But if I were being asked that question in a year,
00:31:23
Speaker
setting and scenario that I'm in.
00:31:25
Speaker
I think a phased approach is probably the best route of being able to, all right, where are vacancies?
00:31:32
Speaker
Establish what that new standard is going to be.
00:31:35
Speaker
Bring in, you know, whether it's a furniture showcase or, hey, let's, you know, here's options that we're looking at, whether that's through your normal dorm room furniture vendor company or whether you're just going to go look at a Nebraska furniture mall or whatever.
00:31:53
Speaker
Reign in where you kind of want to be searching for things and then, you know, get that get that co-ownership of the department work through the through the proper channels of like, hey, let's get some buy in.
00:32:06
Speaker
What do you think for generally speaking?
00:32:09
Speaker
Do we want to make sure that there is at minimum a three seated couch or a two seated love seat or a table and a queen mattress and frame in the room?
00:32:23
Speaker
or do we want to do something different?
00:32:24
Speaker
And then in those vacant spaces, that's what's there.
00:32:28
Speaker
And then working with your recruitment teams to make sure that they are upfront and transparent.
00:32:32
Speaker
You are getting a furnished apartment.
00:32:34
Speaker
These are the items that will be in the apartment.
00:32:36
Speaker
So at least some of those discussions can happen well before the person's moving in or maybe even offered that they knew what the expectation on, what their compensation package is and looks like.
00:32:50
Speaker
Because you and I both know, I mean, almost anything can be negotiated in a job process, whether it comes to fruition or not as a whole different factor.
00:33:01
Speaker
But sometimes those are things that can be negotiated about, okay, well, in this scenario, for whatever X, Y, Z reason, the department wants to make the exception.
00:33:12
Speaker
And so we'll give them that unfurnished space.
00:33:16
Speaker
or not.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yep, no, it's furnished.
00:33:18
Speaker
It is what it is.
00:33:20
Speaker
Stuff has to stay in the room.
00:33:21
Speaker
This is what you get.
00:33:22
Speaker
And working through that.
00:33:23
Speaker
But everyone has their own customization feel, right?
00:33:26
Speaker
Like, I'm willing to bet that the way you decorate and have your house is going to be different from the way I do mine and everyone else is listening.
00:33:34
Speaker
We all have our own style and things that we find as comfortable.
00:33:39
Speaker
So you just got to try to find what is that sweet spot that
00:33:43
Speaker
most people can be in agreement about.
Staff vs. Student Work Orders Debate
00:33:46
Speaker
Well, and I think sometimes when we say like a furnished apartment, that also might imply more than we're actually talking about or need to, it's like, here's the basics.
00:33:54
Speaker
This is going to get you started.
00:33:55
Speaker
This will get you through your first paycheck.
00:33:57
Speaker
This will get you through until you're ready to kind of like, you know, it's like accumulate, like people create a household style over time.
00:34:07
Speaker
You don't just run out and buy like all your artwork, right?
00:34:10
Speaker
the second you own has like, like the taste is developed as you buy this piece of art and then that piece of art or this thing to hang on or this puzzle I just glued is now hanging in the garage or, you know, it comes over time.
00:34:23
Speaker
And the same is true of furniture.
00:34:25
Speaker
It's like you accumulate stuff as you decorate and build.
00:34:28
Speaker
So it's like, here's your bedroom set and here's a dining room table.
00:34:31
Speaker
You got what,
00:34:33
Speaker
You can live now.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
And we're not going to fully furnish a two bedroom apartment.
00:34:38
Speaker
So, and then I think also if you simplify, if a department were like simplify well enough, then they can also say like, oh, well this bed takes apart or make this other room, the primary bedroom with your furniture.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
And here's your guest room.
00:34:53
Speaker
They can sleep on our, you know, whatever contract.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
Shout out to you, Trey.
00:35:03
Speaker
As they build their own style and all that.
00:35:05
Speaker
So I think that's important to consider.
00:35:06
Speaker
It's like, we don't have to provide like the big screen TV and the leather sectional and all that.
00:35:11
Speaker
Correct.
00:35:12
Speaker
It was just enough to get them over, have some friends over whatever.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Hmm.
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:18
Speaker
I like inventorying like staff furniture, like in a warehouse just sounds awful to me.
00:35:24
Speaker
And like, I totally agree.
00:35:26
Speaker
If I was ever like in charge, I would,
00:35:29
Speaker
unless there was like an accommodation requirement, I would never let people take furniture out of their apartments because the space, the warehouse, the real estate, the inventorying, it's like, we talk about the one-offs and the room turn.
00:35:42
Speaker
It's like staff turns are even more one-off because they're not a resident room.
00:35:49
Speaker
They happen so like, you know, not as often.
00:35:52
Speaker
Hopefully not as often.
00:35:54
Speaker
We have furniture now.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:57
Speaker
Well, and to like,
00:36:00
Speaker
you buy these certain pieces of furniture for this staff room and now you're taking it out of the room.
00:36:05
Speaker
It maybe had one or two RCD life cycles living on it.
00:36:11
Speaker
It's still in good shape, but the next one doesn't need to be there.
00:36:15
Speaker
So you take it out, you put it into storage, and now it sits in this storage with, you know, let's be real, warehouse space.
00:36:23
Speaker
If you have it on your campus, it's not climate controlled 100%, you know,
00:36:30
Speaker
top of the line, wrapped and sealed, you know, spaces that it's going into.
00:36:35
Speaker
It's dusty mechanical room areas, you know, that cobwebs start to build up.
00:36:43
Speaker
And the next thing you know, you go in there to get it to put it because that person who had the exception moved out and you're now going to put it back.
00:36:50
Speaker
And you're like, this isn't usable now.
00:36:52
Speaker
It's now 10, 15 years old.
00:36:54
Speaker
It only had two people ever use it, live on it.
00:36:58
Speaker
but are we really going to put that in there and, and that be the welcoming environment that someone walks into and starts day one on the job?
00:37:05
Speaker
Like you're probably going to see high turnover in that position.
00:37:08
Speaker
If that's, if that's the method you're going with, I would think, I don't know.
00:37:13
Speaker
I don't know if this is related at all, but something you said about like staff and maybe when I was talking about like the difference between staff and students, let me ask you this.
00:37:21
Speaker
If you had a staff apartment and a student apartment with
00:37:27
Speaker
the same work order issue submitted and you only had time to do one, which one would you do first?
00:37:38
Speaker
Staff.
00:37:39
Speaker
I think we have to take care of our people, our people who are also taking care of our customers.
00:37:45
Speaker
I think we need to
00:37:46
Speaker
make that line of demarcation that we take care of that one first.
00:37:50
Speaker
Although I could be swayed, you know, the bottom line is the bottom line and it's a rentable space.
00:37:57
Speaker
There's an expectation level.
00:38:00
Speaker
We are selling property.
00:38:02
Speaker
We are, you know, in the landlord business, take care of your customers first and staff should be able to adapt and flex and know that, hey, we service them first because they're the paying customer.
00:38:14
Speaker
we'll get to you.
00:38:15
Speaker
So I can ebb and flow there depending on, you know, the day.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:21
Speaker
But, but I, I think in a, in a perfect isolated scenario, I would want to make sure that we're taking care of our people.
00:38:30
Speaker
Cause I would hope that that would show and that we would have longevity from the staff consistency of someone staying and not moving on because they were slighted in some way, shape or form.
00:38:42
Speaker
So,
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:43
Speaker
I mean, I could go either way.
00:38:45
Speaker
Probably, like I said, depends on my mood of the day.
00:38:48
Speaker
I hate to say it, but maybe the person too, but.
00:38:51
Speaker
Well, that's a, that's a real life factor, right?
00:38:54
Speaker
Like if you, there's, there's some people that depending on the, the working relationship that can sometimes sway a decision to go one way or another.
00:39:05
Speaker
I mean, no, who's the favorite kid of the family.
00:39:09
Speaker
You can ask your parents that like, they're never going to give you a true answer, but.
00:39:12
Speaker
you know, probably the one who didn't end up in in-school suspension and have to get bailed out of jail is probably going to get some, some, some extra leverage or leeway on, on certain things.
00:39:23
Speaker
I would guess.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah.
Training for RAs: CPR and Narcan
00:39:25
Speaker
But it's also like, maybe we engineer situations where staff get taken care of last.
00:39:29
Speaker
And so they have the experience of the like extreme delays.
00:39:32
Speaker
Sure.
00:39:33
Speaker
And then they can like truly speak to the experience.
00:39:37
Speaker
Like when it's non-extreme, it's like, Oh yeah, I know what you're going through.
00:39:39
Speaker
Like, uh, you know, I know that.
00:39:42
Speaker
Or,
00:39:42
Speaker
you know, hopefully they have a better understanding of how the gears of the big machine work.
00:39:47
Speaker
So staff was like, yeah, I think they didn't get to it on Friday because they were dealing with student issues and taken care of on Monday or something.
00:39:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:55
Speaker
I don't think there's a right answer, but I think it's a fun thought experiment to help prioritize values.
00:40:00
Speaker
And, you know, absolutely.
00:40:01
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:40:01
Speaker
All my staff listening out there.
00:40:02
Speaker
Of course, we should take care of you first.
00:40:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:09
Speaker
Let's talk next about CPR training for RAs was the topic of another one back from November of last year.
00:40:20
Speaker
And this is another one I chimed in on at some point.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:25
Speaker
And my answer there was only two paragraphs, so not as long-winded, but...
00:40:30
Speaker
Longer than some other people's one sentence.
00:40:32
Speaker
So somebody posted about how they had historically provided CPR training, which is actually something I did in my first full time job at a small private school.
00:40:43
Speaker
But now the cost was becoming cost prohibitive at like $80 a person.
00:40:48
Speaker
And so they were asking, how are other housing programs paying for this?
00:40:52
Speaker
Have people moved away from it due to cost and otherwise?
00:40:56
Speaker
In my first full-time job, I think in our biggest year, we probably had 16 or 18 RAs, if I remember right.
00:41:06
Speaker
And every year I paid for CPR training.
00:41:09
Speaker
And my...
00:41:11
Speaker
recommendation or the thing I said in the post, my response was, is maybe you meet in the middle of the responses.
00:41:19
Speaker
Like you don't need to require the training, but maybe offer it as professional development because I personally believe everybody should be certified.
00:41:25
Speaker
Like the world would be a better place if everybody, or if there was at least one more person CPR certified.
00:41:31
Speaker
Not necessarily in housing or in college, but just in general.
00:41:34
Speaker
And so I was saying, like, don't require it.
00:41:37
Speaker
Offer it as like an optional professional development.
00:41:39
Speaker
People can either sign up or they can submit an application.
00:41:42
Speaker
The department would pay for X number of slots.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:46
Speaker
Then you got a few people around.
00:41:47
Speaker
It's not a requirement.
00:41:49
Speaker
And I shared also that the benefit is like, I just think it's a good life skill.
00:41:55
Speaker
And in six years of training RAs on CPR, only one of them ever used it.
00:42:01
Speaker
and he used it in a gas station off campus and potentially saved the life of some random citizen.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
But not even in the halls, not even in the halls.
00:42:11
Speaker
It never came up, but it's like good life skills to have.
00:42:15
Speaker
And how do you, how do you provide it?
00:42:17
Speaker
Like, are we supposed to like, it's just raises the questions about like, where is the line of accountability and liability drawn in our student staff, paraprofessionals who I think constantly feel like we just keep adding more and more responsibilities to them.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think I resonate pretty well with what you described on it being an offer, being able to use it as a professional development opportunity.
00:42:45
Speaker
I also know our individual places may dictate a lot of that, right?
00:42:50
Speaker
You might have a legal counsel that requires certain things or
00:42:53
Speaker
a risk management office that says something different, right?
00:42:57
Speaker
But I definitely agree with you that I think it's a great life skill that everyone should at least experience in their life of getting that service, even if you don't re-up it year after year.
00:43:09
Speaker
like at least having gone through it once to at least know, you never know when that could be applicable and helpful in your own personal life with, with a loved one, uh, where that, that skill comes out in handy.
00:43:22
Speaker
Um, I mean, I think some small, smaller institutions, smaller colleges, like maybe they don't have as deep of resources, but at some of these larger schools, there's, you know, the,
00:43:36
Speaker
the ability to go to a risk management office and get that CPR training done by them for free.
00:43:44
Speaker
You know, it doesn't even cost the department anything but your own time in your schedule to be able to go and attend that session, you know, and utilizing those resources.
00:43:55
Speaker
But if smaller schools don't have those types of things, you know, I think it's a worthwhile effort to at least provide as an option.
00:44:02
Speaker
There's,
00:44:03
Speaker
There's a million different ways to look at professional development.
00:44:06
Speaker
I think we sometimes get looped into, oh, my professional development is on a conference this year.
00:44:13
Speaker
That's what I'm doing.
00:44:15
Speaker
But there's a million different ways to cut up professional development.
00:44:18
Speaker
I have it in my staff meetings where I have it as a line item because I want to value professional development.
00:44:25
Speaker
Some weeks I have things, my staff, if they listen, like, they'll be like, man, Joel hasn't done professional development in weeks.
00:44:32
Speaker
But, you know, it's never good enough.
00:44:35
Speaker
But even just like topical things, right?
00:44:37
Speaker
Like that can be, hey, I attended a session with, you know, a guest speaker that came to campus.
00:44:44
Speaker
I sat in on this session.
00:44:45
Speaker
Here's some gleanings that I got from it.
00:44:49
Speaker
and just want to open up the discussion.
00:44:51
Speaker
I'm not even the expert, but hey, let's talk about this.
00:44:53
Speaker
Let's kick it around a little, see what other thoughts are.
00:44:56
Speaker
That's a professional development opportunity that literally costs nothing but a supervisor prioritizing it in their schedule, in their staff meeting schedule.
00:45:06
Speaker
But to get back to CPR training specifically,
00:45:11
Speaker
At OSU, there was no requirement that we had to be.
00:45:15
Speaker
I don't believe that there's any requirement that we have to be here at SMU.
00:45:20
Speaker
But we all, both of those institutions, we have our own police force who are on campus, you know, all the time, right?
00:45:27
Speaker
And so you call 911, they have a set response rate.
00:45:31
Speaker
You know, they have metrics that they have given out.
00:45:35
Speaker
I remember one time at OSU, they talked about we have a,
00:45:38
Speaker
a 90 second response rate to calls when they looked at the average of things like we have someone who can get there.
00:45:44
Speaker
So there was no Narcan training.
00:45:47
Speaker
Well, I lied.
00:45:48
Speaker
That's not true.
00:45:49
Speaker
We did do Narcan training, but then it kind of backed off on like Narcan's in the police officers' cars.
00:45:54
Speaker
The police officers' cars also have an AFib machine.
00:45:59
Speaker
And that's not what those are called, I don't think, but.
00:46:02
Speaker
AED.
00:46:03
Speaker
AED, yes.
00:46:04
Speaker
You know, so like,
00:46:05
Speaker
We don't even have them in all of our halls per se, because, all right, OSU, we didn't have them in the halls.
00:46:11
Speaker
We had them in some, but the police officers had that.
00:46:14
Speaker
So they're, you know, responding to a situation, they're grabbing that right from their car and they're going to use that because they, they have that continuous training.
00:46:22
Speaker
Um, and the risk management side of things says like, no, a constant professionally trained individual will be utilizing that equipment.
00:46:31
Speaker
Um, you know, so.
00:46:33
Speaker
I think it definitely ebbs and flows based on those higher levels of a university org chart that make decisions on what risk the campus is willing to take.
00:46:45
Speaker
But yeah, to specific CPR training, I don't think that it hurts to have that skill set under your belt of having done.
00:46:55
Speaker
And hopefully you never have to use it, right?
00:46:57
Speaker
I mean, I was trained in college.
00:47:01
Speaker
If I had to use it in the moment,
00:47:03
Speaker
probably stumble my way through it, but I'd at least give it a try, right?
00:47:06
Speaker
You know, to try to save a life.
00:47:07
Speaker
So, well, and the, I think the other point is, is like, I, I made the comment the other day to someone, we were talking about this is like, when I, when I provided CPR training for my RA staff, I also made it clear I was not requiring them to ever use it in a situation where it might be needed.
00:47:29
Speaker
from like a comfort level, putting people in position, like we try and put people in position to be successful, like someone could be so overwhelmed.
00:47:36
Speaker
And somebody told me after that, and I don't know if this is actually true or not.
00:47:40
Speaker
It's like, if you're certified and you don't do anything, you're liable in that situation.
00:47:44
Speaker
I don't know if that's actually true, but- I don't know if it is.
00:47:47
Speaker
I know I've heard of like good Samaritan laws.
00:47:50
Speaker
I don't know if that's like- Yeah, I think that's on the other side.
00:47:54
Speaker
That's my wife who's a nurse practitioner.
00:47:56
Speaker
She's like, well, there's good Samaritan.
00:47:57
Speaker
Like if you make a good faith effort and it doesn't go well, you're protected.
00:48:00
Speaker
Right.
00:48:01
Speaker
But I don't know about like if you avoid the situation when you could have done something.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:06
Speaker
So it's worth thinking about.
00:48:07
Speaker
But the conversation about Narcan also has been coming up a lot recently about do we train RAs on how to administer Narcan?
00:48:14
Speaker
And I, and again,
00:48:18
Speaker
The mid-level roundtables, sometimes topics come up in there and I can get on little soapboxes.
00:48:24
Speaker
And I went off one day about like, no, we shouldn't like we're just giving more emergency crisis response to people who are.
00:48:33
Speaker
barely have frontal lobes developed, if at all.
00:48:36
Speaker
Good point.
00:48:37
Speaker
It just went off about it.
00:48:38
Speaker
And then somebody said, well, it's simple to do.
00:48:41
Speaker
Like, what training do you need?
00:48:42
Speaker
It's just an aerosol.
00:48:43
Speaker
You stick it in their nose and spray it.
00:48:45
Speaker
And that was the first I had ever heard that, which is probably part of the problem is I just assumed it was like a needle that you like shove into somebody's heart and squeeze.
00:48:56
Speaker
I was like, no way we're doing this, but maybe that's part of the problem.
00:49:00
Speaker
But I've also since heard, like, as I've been actually on the Akuhai forums, it's like people talk about like the reaction, like it's such a fight or flight reaction, like when coming back for after administering Narcan, it's like people can be very violent.
00:49:13
Speaker
And that's not a situation where like, how do you train somebody to do that?
00:49:17
Speaker
And in that situation, you talk about response times of 90 seconds is like, I think a lot, I've read a lot on the forums about people who's like, our police have guaranteed response time where our response is not any, any going to be any better than that.
00:49:31
Speaker
Right.
00:49:31
Speaker
Right.
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:33
Speaker
And ultimately, it comes back to the institution's legal area, legal affairs group being OK and comfortable with.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:49:40
Speaker
No, we don't want you guys having to administer that because we have this resource that can and protects the university from that aspect.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
Other places, it may be different.
00:49:54
Speaker
Can you imagine a 19 or 20-year-old RA administering Narcan and a person still dying?
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh my gosh, the trauma involved with that.
00:50:04
Speaker
That just would be awful.
00:50:05
Speaker
It would be.
00:50:07
Speaker
I'm a big proponent of having accessibility to Narcan anywhere and everywhere.
00:50:11
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, but I start to have issues with
00:50:15
Speaker
requiring people to do things.
00:50:18
Speaker
Sure.
00:50:19
Speaker
I think my logistical brain goes back to like shelf life, their shelf life on that, those type of things.
00:50:24
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
And how frequently are they being checked to make sure that they're good?
00:50:28
Speaker
I mean, he has that.
00:50:29
Speaker
Doing that.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:30
Speaker
We had them in on-call bags at OSU when that first became the thing, right?
00:50:35
Speaker
We had to do a training on how to administer it, and it was literally sit and watch this video.
00:50:41
Speaker
There was no actual demo, like at least in a CPR certified class, you're going to get to try the techniques on a dummy body and be able to practice.
00:50:52
Speaker
But there was nothing on that front.
00:50:54
Speaker
But then we had Narcans in offices and in on-call bags, and then they all expired.
00:50:59
Speaker
And someone didn't realize it until one random person happened to dump out the bag and had to put stuff back in and looked and saw the expiration of like, oh, this is expired.
00:51:08
Speaker
And it prompted the question of how many other ones
University Housing Services: Laundry and Trash
00:51:11
Speaker
are expired?
00:51:11
Speaker
And they all were, you know, so then it's like, yeah, no good anyway, even if you tried to use it in a situation that required it.
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:19
Speaker
I mean, it's like we inventory stuff all the time and just adding one more thing with an actual show.
00:51:24
Speaker
It's like, how many screws do you have in the warehouse right now?
00:51:26
Speaker
Well, that's fine.
00:51:28
Speaker
If we accidentally run out, it slows us down, but it's like not a life and death situation.
00:51:33
Speaker
Screws don't go bad.
00:51:35
Speaker
Right.
00:51:35
Speaker
But now we've got like sensitive life-saving equipment that somebody has to monitor regularly.
00:51:42
Speaker
Right.
00:51:42
Speaker
And what sort of turnaround, like if it gets used in the on-call bag, like
00:51:47
Speaker
The last thing people are thinking about is re-upping the on-call bag because they're writing all sorts of reports or doing all this.
00:51:53
Speaker
Phone chargers go missing in on-call bags all the time.
00:51:56
Speaker
Like how can we actually trust that something else is going to stay in there?
00:52:00
Speaker
Right?
00:52:00
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:52:01
Speaker
How many times have we taken the on-call bag out without batteries to replace smoke detectors or whatever?
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yep.
00:52:08
Speaker
It just is like, and it shouldn't, it sounds so simple.
00:52:13
Speaker
until you're actually somewhat responsible for like the auditing and inventory of like one thing.
00:52:18
Speaker
Right.
00:52:19
Speaker
On a regular basis.
00:52:20
Speaker
Like it sounds so simple.
00:52:23
Speaker
And it can be so simple with the right processes and procedures and setup, but there's, there's a toll there's a, there's a monetary and physical toll on, on mental toll on making sure those processes don't get forgotten about.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
And then it's like, well, if we find one that's about like, OK, so then we got to log in when it's two weeks from expiration because we know it takes about two weeks to get it in or whatever that time.
00:52:46
Speaker
Like then you're starting to build this timeline in.
00:52:50
Speaker
It just is like I'm like you.
00:52:52
Speaker
The logistics of it is fun to think about, but also a nightmare to think about.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:52:58
Speaker
Especially when it's within a job, a job description or a responsibility.
00:53:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:53:03
Speaker
And then that becomes the focal point.
00:53:04
Speaker
You talk about like job satisfaction is like the running commentary here is like, they ask us to do everything.
00:53:10
Speaker
Well, yeah, literally we are in this situation asking you to do everything.
00:53:16
Speaker
You're the first responder, you're the observer, you're calling it in your document.
00:53:19
Speaker
Oh, and now
00:53:21
Speaker
use this equipment that we made you watch a 45 second video on.
00:53:25
Speaker
Right.
00:53:25
Speaker
So comfortable spraying this thing up your nose.
00:53:27
Speaker
Like push it in far enough.
00:53:29
Speaker
Did he not?
00:53:29
Speaker
And watch out.
00:53:31
Speaker
They're about to be violent.
00:53:34
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
Side, side note.
00:53:36
Speaker
Don't get punched.
00:53:38
Speaker
Right.
00:53:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:42
Speaker
I don't know.
00:53:42
Speaker
It's, it's tough.
00:53:43
Speaker
Like there's no good answer sometimes.
00:53:47
Speaker
Correct.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:49
Speaker
All right.
00:53:50
Speaker
Our last topic of the day is going to be laundry service.
00:53:54
Speaker
Back in...
00:53:56
Speaker
Oh, yesterday, someone posted about laundry service, asking if anyone uses a laundry service where students pay a fee and they have drop off and pick up with a local dry cleaner.
00:54:06
Speaker
And then asking kind of about the logistics of how that goes on.
00:54:11
Speaker
So I think this is a fun one because I know before I moved in my apartment complex, they had moved towards like, quote, valet trash.
00:54:21
Speaker
Oh, pick up your trash at your door.
00:54:23
Speaker
And so I think we can probably talk the gamut of like, how far should university housing services be going to provide various services?
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, great, great thoughts.
00:54:35
Speaker
I can speak from from the SMU perspective when it comes to laundry.
00:54:41
Speaker
We have a contract with CSC Service Works to provide laundry equipment and maintain all maintenance and upkeep of that equipment.
00:54:51
Speaker
SMU has had a long standing partnership with CSC Service Works for that.
00:54:57
Speaker
So much so that I believe our president signs the actual contract with the company.
00:55:05
Speaker
And that being said, there's a group, a
00:55:10
Speaker
a group of, it's not a student org, but it's kind of like a student org in that it's moms and dads of SMU has their own affiliated group on campus.
00:55:23
Speaker
And within that group, they have a contract with Tide Cleaning Services to provide that option where parents and students can buy packages and bundles of X amount of
00:55:40
Speaker
of laundry care throughout the course of the year so that their son or daughter doesn't have to be bothered with needing to worry about doing their own laundry.
00:55:48
Speaker
They can just take it to the Tide to go truck, the Tide to go truck.
00:55:51
Speaker
I mean, it was out here earlier today, you know, where they have a process and a routine of you, they distribute certain color bags.
00:56:00
Speaker
And so this bag is your bag that you bring down and it's your dirty clothes and they take it and they go and they launder it offsite.
00:56:08
Speaker
And then I don't know if it's a one or two day turnaround time where they come back and here's your clothes that come back to you all folded in this bag and you take that bag back and now that's the bag you bring back.
00:56:18
Speaker
You know, so they have a cycle on that front.
00:56:21
Speaker
Is it a per poundage?
00:56:22
Speaker
Is that how it's built?
00:56:24
Speaker
It's a great question.
00:56:25
Speaker
I've never delved into the weeds on what that package looks like.
00:56:29
Speaker
I just know it exists since it's not our contract and not our thing.
00:56:33
Speaker
I try not to get too in the weeds on it.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah, I want zero ownership or responsibility associated with that program, but I'm glad it's happening.
00:56:43
Speaker
Well, and the interesting part is CSE Service Works now also provides a similar service and have, they know that Tide is on our campus.
00:56:52
Speaker
And so they have, you know, been trying to come to us saying, hey, we have the service too.
00:56:57
Speaker
Can we do that?
00:56:58
Speaker
And very much from the same perspective.
00:57:01
Speaker
opinion.
00:57:01
Speaker
It's like, we're not at that point.
00:57:03
Speaker
We don't want to go down that rabbit hole with y'all.
00:57:06
Speaker
And we also don't want to compete with what the moms and dads club is doing.
00:57:10
Speaker
If that's the route that the student body wants to go, cool.
00:57:13
Speaker
If we start hearing otherwise that our students want it all done by CSC for some reason, that maybe we explore.
00:57:21
Speaker
But I don't see that happening anytime soon because they don't know those type of
00:57:25
Speaker
logistical aspects to contracts and whatnot.
00:57:28
Speaker
We offer free vending, right?
00:57:31
Speaker
I use that in quotations for our listeners.
00:57:34
Speaker
Like, obviously, their room and board rate, like, it's part of that they're paying for it somehow, right?
00:57:44
Speaker
But they don't have to actually take coins or swipe a credit card to run the machines.
00:57:48
Speaker
It's free vend use in the halls.
00:57:51
Speaker
They just have to be our residents.
00:57:53
Speaker
to be able to get into the space.
00:57:55
Speaker
Right.
00:57:55
Speaker
And so then they go in there and they do the laundry as they want to.
00:57:59
Speaker
So again, another situation that can be definitely chopped up and done a million different ways based on the specifics of an institution and what you're willing to get into, you know, but to get back to this, this post from the open forum, like,
00:58:18
Speaker
about services that are taken to a local dry cleaner.
00:58:22
Speaker
I mean, the closest version of that is, is this tide program.
00:58:25
Speaker
Um, but it's not like tides go into the local laundromat on the corner down here.
00:58:30
Speaker
Like they're taking it to whatever facility they have close by.
00:58:33
Speaker
They're professionally laundering it and bringing it back.
00:58:36
Speaker
Um, so, you know, I would worry about a local, just regular dry cleaning service.
00:58:44
Speaker
Like,
00:58:45
Speaker
how are they going to handle if things go missing?
00:58:47
Speaker
You know, someone, someone put their, their, their dress that they got in high school for something and they, they went, went out one night, used it, they sent it in and now it's gone.
00:58:57
Speaker
And you know, what type of replacement does that look like?
00:59:01
Speaker
I mean, that, that can get ugly quick.
00:59:03
Speaker
I would assume, but yeah, that's the whole, like good for you all for doing that.
00:59:09
Speaker
But it's like, since I'm also on the, like the communication style, like the emails that come in for like operational stuff, it's like,
00:59:16
Speaker
I can just imagine people emailing us complaining about something that happened or went wrong with their laundry.
00:59:22
Speaker
And I just want to be like, did I take your laundry?
00:59:26
Speaker
Did I launder it?
00:59:28
Speaker
Did I stay?
00:59:28
Speaker
No, like this is through a third part.
00:59:31
Speaker
Like, I feel like we'd still, and maybe it's me just being cynical in the moment, but I, because I think it's a, I know I have friends who use a similar service at their home, you know, it's like, sure.
00:59:40
Speaker
Sure.
00:59:41
Speaker
where do you want to invest, like spending a little bit of money to give you time back with your family or whatever, completely valuable.
00:59:47
Speaker
Now you add in students is like, I need to focus on finals or this project and I don't have time to do four hours worth of laundry.
00:59:55
Speaker
So spending 20 bucks, whatever is so worth it.
00:59:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:59
Speaker
I think it's a great service to be able to provide.
01:00:01
Speaker
I just think about the, the, the outliers that are going to come across my desk.
01:00:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think too, right.
01:00:09
Speaker
Like us and the operations, um,
01:00:11
Speaker
realm.
01:00:13
Speaker
So much of our job is responding to the complaint and the one-all.
01:00:18
Speaker
It's all reactive.
01:00:19
Speaker
It's all reactive.
01:00:20
Speaker
Put out the fire.
01:00:21
Speaker
And we've seen the gambit.
01:00:23
Speaker
And maybe that's a future podcast episode of like Res Life Operations Horror Stories.
01:00:31
Speaker
Whatever, right?
01:00:31
Speaker
But what has the most random question that came through or the finger pointing that we get from a parent or a student about
01:00:39
Speaker
you guys missed the mark on this.
01:00:41
Speaker
And this was a sold expectation to us that you were doing this and you missed the mark.
01:00:46
Speaker
And it's like, no, that's not what we're here to provide.
01:00:49
Speaker
And that's not within our purview.
01:00:51
Speaker
And sometimes life happens.
01:00:52
Speaker
I'm not providing all the control efforts over the laundry program that is outscores that you made an agreement with.
01:00:59
Speaker
Well, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, we actually did
01:01:01
Speaker
do this during the early, like the first year or two of like pandemic when we were quarantining students is like they, we provide like served as a third party.
01:01:12
Speaker
Here's someplace you can, if you need laundry done in 14 days, there's how you can get it done.
01:01:18
Speaker
And it was like a scaled down version of that where they put the bag outside the room, somebody they'd come and get in and they'd return it like the next day or two days later or something like that.
01:01:27
Speaker
That's a great example to brought to mind at a previous institution.
01:01:31
Speaker
We had a laundry room.
01:01:33
Speaker
We have flood situation.
01:01:34
Speaker
Laundry room was offline for, I think it was a nine story building, one laundry room, you know, type thing.
01:01:41
Speaker
So a bunch of students that were impacted by not having a functional laundry service.
01:01:48
Speaker
And so the department reached out to a local dry cleaner and came up with an agreement, a deal that was like, okay,
01:01:57
Speaker
X amount of poundage, you know, we would be, we would pay for or have an agreement and that company had to track.
01:02:05
Speaker
And all the students had to do was go show, you know, they got a list of who residents were.
01:02:10
Speaker
So if someone comes by to drop off clothing, like,
01:02:12
Speaker
bill it to our agreement or whatever.
01:02:17
Speaker
And so they would drop their clothes off at the laundry service and then they'd go back, pick it up just like you would a local dry cleaner.
01:02:26
Speaker
And we footed the bill that way in order to get through that emergency situation of not having a facility.
01:02:34
Speaker
But- What's the cost of doing business?
01:02:36
Speaker
That's your- Yeah.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yep.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yep.
01:02:39
Speaker
So-
01:02:40
Speaker
Well, let's take this to trash then, because like I mentioned, in my last apartment, they were doing, quote, valet trash pickup.
01:02:47
Speaker
And I can't remember if it was every weekday night or if it was like three nights a week.
01:02:51
Speaker
But, you know, they provided a semi like a kitchen size trash bag, like 13 gallon or something like that.
01:03:00
Speaker
And you put your trash in it, set it outside your apartment and every night they come pick it up.
01:03:05
Speaker
And I think about that is like.
01:03:08
Speaker
I've thought about it.
01:03:09
Speaker
I've never localized
Housing Operations Insights
01:03:10
Speaker
this.
01:03:10
Speaker
So if any of my supervisors are up to the supervisory organizational charter listening, a surprise, you could theoretically do that at a university and think of all the potential problems that we have with trash.
01:03:27
Speaker
People not taking it out has to come along.
01:03:30
Speaker
And I'm like, is this even worth suggesting that maybe we contract this out of like twice a week?
01:03:37
Speaker
on a routine schedule of like, you know, but then I'm like, it's really, we could just hire student staff to do this.
01:03:45
Speaker
You could.
01:03:45
Speaker
And like, but then it's like, we're, we're adding costs, but with the, the tangible, like reciprocation of like, uh, what am I trying to say?
01:03:55
Speaker
Like the, the financial benefit of that is not felt.
01:03:58
Speaker
directly.
01:03:58
Speaker
It's not like money comes in, money goes out.
01:04:00
Speaker
Sure.
01:04:01
Speaker
Yep.
01:04:01
Speaker
We're not saving over here because it's saving like on pest control services and saving on cleaning and roommate relationships, all, you know, things that aren't necessarily tangible in that way.
01:04:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:12
Speaker
I just think about like, would people do that?
01:04:17
Speaker
Well, and so it's funny that you describe that because I could say,
01:04:21
Speaker
Here at SMU, we maybe kind of do something like that in the aspect we have trash rooms on our floors that are cleaning partners empty.
01:04:31
Speaker
And we provide a trash can and a recycling can in every room.
01:04:36
Speaker
That's part of the room inventory, that those are in there.
01:04:41
Speaker
And the expectation is the student takes their trash to the trash room.
01:04:44
Speaker
ABM, they empty trash rooms.
01:04:47
Speaker
The frequency is every day.
01:04:49
Speaker
It's part of the agreement that they're emptying the trash rooms every day.
01:04:52
Speaker
Doesn't happen every day.
01:04:54
Speaker
You know, that's, you know, happens sometimes where space gets missed or the perceived notion that a trash room hasn't been emptied when really it was they emptied it at eight o'clock.
01:05:06
Speaker
And by 10 o'clock, everyone else on the floor had taken the trash and now it's filled again.
01:05:11
Speaker
but they did the frequency that day of emptying it.
01:05:15
Speaker
So, I mean, I guess we kind of have a version of that.
01:05:18
Speaker
And a lot of that is also because of our geographic makeup in the sense that we just don't have, we don't have a lot of parking around the halls.
01:05:27
Speaker
And because we don't have a lot of parking around the halls, there's not the ability to have an amount of dumpsters for people to take their trash out to a dumpster for.
01:05:37
Speaker
So it's, we have a
01:05:39
Speaker
Trash rooms in the building on the floors, residents take the trash to the trash room, you know, and then that gets emptied by a service, you know, based on the contracts that we have.
01:05:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:53
Speaker
No, I remember the trash chutes in the nine-store buildings I lived in when I was in college.
01:05:59
Speaker
We lived on the fourth floor.
01:06:00
Speaker
We knew it was bad when it was backed up all the way past the fourth floor.
01:06:04
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:06
Speaker
But I'm thinking of like, kind of like your garden style apartments where you have to walk it like all quote, all the way to the dumpster.
01:06:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:14
Speaker
And like, if sometimes what are the barriers to success?
01:06:19
Speaker
And one of them is like, the dumpster is 25 feet from my apartment.
01:06:24
Speaker
So I'll take my trash out later.
01:06:26
Speaker
And then later becomes much later.
01:06:28
Speaker
And one bag of trash and becomes 10.
01:06:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:31
Speaker
It's like, I now have too much to carry out.
01:06:33
Speaker
So I can't do it.
01:06:34
Speaker
It's like,
01:06:35
Speaker
I don't know.
01:06:36
Speaker
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who does like that, like garden style apartments, valet trash pickup.
01:06:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:43
Speaker
Like university owned housing, not like a private place.
01:06:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:49
Speaker
Cause I know a lot of it's becoming pretty popular.
01:06:51
Speaker
I've heard a lot of people talk about in privates, but.
01:06:54
Speaker
Well, and sometimes too, you know, those markets, like they're, they're trying to sell space just like we are.
01:07:00
Speaker
And so they're out there trying to add amenities to their package.
01:07:04
Speaker
And so they start doing that and then that becomes the norm and the expectation everywhere.
01:07:09
Speaker
I mean, I think, I think about ring doorbells.
01:07:12
Speaker
Almost everyone has a ring or a blank video doorbell at their house where they grew up.
01:07:20
Speaker
And now they want that on their apartments because they're used to having that.
01:07:24
Speaker
I want to be able to see something get dropped off at my door.
01:07:27
Speaker
I want to see who's physically outside ringing the doorbell.
01:07:30
Speaker
And it's like, do you have the infrastructure to be able to do that?
01:07:33
Speaker
Are we, is there going to be some expectation that future remodels that we do for apartment buildings, like that they have to have that capability on them?
01:07:41
Speaker
And, you know, you can go down that, that rabbit hole very quickly on costs and how do you deal with,
01:07:48
Speaker
roommate changes and now who has access to that camera and this, that or the other.
01:07:52
Speaker
Right.
01:07:53
Speaker
So, I mean, now that you're talking about it, I'm thinking like we, based on our housing agreements and residence hall handbooks, it's like, we don't allow them because they invade privacy of like the person living across the hall.
01:08:05
Speaker
It's like, I suppose we could design our next phases of buildings where the front doors are staggered.
01:08:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:12
Speaker
So they're not across from each other.
01:08:14
Speaker
Like that's three feet down.
01:08:16
Speaker
And then it's like,
01:08:18
Speaker
But what kind of headaches would that cause of the consistency of build?
01:08:23
Speaker
Correct.
01:08:24
Speaker
Correct.
01:08:25
Speaker
Interesting.
01:08:26
Speaker
All right.
01:08:27
Speaker
Any closing thoughts, Joel?
01:08:31
Speaker
No, I mean, I just think that these are fun discussions to be having, whether you are a day in, day out ops person or just a normal residence life area focused person like
01:08:45
Speaker
These type of discussions can be fun and good mental exercises, but also to like utilizing your resources that exist through professional, professional organizations, listening to podcasts, checking out open forums, engaging in those platforms, the amount that you can learn or just hear and be in the know about that there.
01:09:08
Speaker
You don't have to be, I'm, I know this might crush JC's heart as, as a data research guy, but like,
01:09:15
Speaker
I struggle with making sure to read very, you know, thoughtful, pulled together, you know, research papers or whatever, you know, like the talking stick is, you know, a resource out there that I'm like every month.
01:09:31
Speaker
I'm like, ah, I'll read the talking stick this month.
01:09:33
Speaker
And then the month goes by and the email comes again, a new talking stick.
01:09:37
Speaker
Oh yeah.
01:09:38
Speaker
I'm gonna read this month's instead.
01:09:40
Speaker
Right.
01:09:40
Speaker
But sometimes there's more than one way to skin a cat and there's different ways to try to educate yourself and be in the know of what's being talked about within the field and being able to share wisdom, even if you aren't the expert per se, like engage with folks.
01:09:59
Speaker
You never know who it's like that whole survey mantra.
01:10:03
Speaker
I'm going to fill out the survey because I know I have to do this survey, get a survey completed later.
01:10:08
Speaker
I'll put some good survey juju out into the universe.
01:10:11
Speaker
Like just answer some of those open forums that pop up that you have some thoughts or experience on or have seen done.
01:10:18
Speaker
Because you never know when you're going to be asking that question into the vast universe of the Internet wondering, is anyone going to respond today?
01:10:29
Speaker
You know, so.
01:10:30
Speaker
Well, a couple of things on all that.
01:10:33
Speaker
First of all, I'm pretty sure you're going to read March's talking stick, Joel, because I have it on pretty good authority that you might be quoted in it.
01:10:41
Speaker
So, yeah, only an egocentric review.
01:10:46
Speaker
So everyone take a look for an article in March's talking stick with Joel.
01:10:52
Speaker
The second thing I was going to add is about the expertise.
01:10:57
Speaker
And I couldn't agree more is like,
01:11:00
Speaker
so-called experts, they didn't wake up one morning and they're like, experts, so now I'm going to start talking.
01:11:06
Speaker
They contributed and participated in conversations all along the way.
01:11:10
Speaker
And I think that's just so important.
01:11:13
Speaker
It's like a forum is a very, pretty low stakes environment where there's not a lot of like, this is going to sink my career if I happen to say something that's
01:11:24
Speaker
oops, I got the wrong number right or I got the wrong number or something like that.
01:11:31
Speaker
But it's also, like I start to recognize some names on there and, you know, Joel, you were talking about these are fun conversations to have.
01:11:38
Speaker
Yes, they're totally fun.
01:11:40
Speaker
And there's something kind of neat about
01:11:44
Speaker
Even if you're not going to participate, like listening to people who like have experience and know what they're talking about, like kind of geek out on like obscure topics.
01:11:53
Speaker
When I was at Akuhoai this summer, the best program that I went to, and I would say probably the best program out of all the programs I didn't go to, was on like mold technology.
01:12:08
Speaker
remediation process.
01:12:09
Speaker
Like, I mean, they had, but just listening to three guys or three people up there talking about mold, like it was just a matter of fact.
01:12:18
Speaker
It wasn't like, Oh my God, mold.
01:12:19
Speaker
It was like, yeah, we're talking about this and blah, blah, blah.
01:12:22
Speaker
It's like, yeah.
01:12:23
Speaker
Listening.
01:12:24
Speaker
I love listening to people like geek out about like key track system.
01:12:28
Speaker
Like you can learn so much.
01:12:32
Speaker
I was in an email exchange with some old colleagues and
01:12:37
Speaker
that went on probably far too long, but about like bidet approval processes.
01:12:42
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:12:43
Speaker
And it was just kind of fun to just like, here's what it is.
01:12:46
Speaker
And taking things so seriously that are just kind of like these random things that people don't want to like
Conclusion and Professional Growth
01:12:53
Speaker
talk about.
01:12:53
Speaker
But it's like, if you ever get a chance to like listen to a couple of maintenance guys sitting around talking about something like boilers or whatever.
01:13:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:13:02
Speaker
Just listen.
01:13:03
Speaker
Absorb.
01:13:04
Speaker
Absorb.
01:13:04
Speaker
Just listen.
01:13:05
Speaker
And at the bare minimum, just appreciate the level of knowledge and expertise of people communicating about.
01:13:13
Speaker
It's just fascinating.
01:13:16
Speaker
Totally agree.
01:13:16
Speaker
Totally agree.
01:13:19
Speaker
All right.
01:13:19
Speaker
Well, thank you, Joel, for coming on once again.
01:13:22
Speaker
And thank you for the suggestion on this topic that we expanded into what I thought was fun and pretty sure you did too.
01:13:29
Speaker
I definitely did too.
01:13:30
Speaker
And if we're the only two that think it's fun, I will rest easy because it was a good time.
01:13:36
Speaker
So I'm glad to have been able to be back with you on this front and do the podcast in a different way.
01:13:43
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:44
Speaker
And we'll see you here in a couple of weeks at this Wakuho conference.
01:13:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:13:48
Speaker
Yes, you will.
01:13:49
Speaker
All right.
01:13:50
Speaker
You as well.
01:13:50
Speaker
We'll see you there too.
01:13:52
Speaker
Definitely.
01:13:52
Speaker
And with that, to all our listeners, I say good day.