Catastrophic failures By Don McNulty April 26, 2012 Print / Reprints / Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin | Share More PLEASE GO TO; http://www.janiservu.com/ For articles just like this!! Advantage Cleaning Services Does Office Cleaning In Horseheads, N.Y. 14845!!! What happens when there is a catastrophic failure? By definition, a catastrophic failure is a botched job. Stuff happens, technicians can become myopic with their field of vision, or they can be inexperienced and have work they feel is beyond their capabilities. But the bottom line is they failed in a big way, and didn’t complete the job the way it should have been completed. Below is an accounting of one such job. Note: A catastrophic failure does have the ability to severely cripple or put a company out of business. Lawsuits for “mental distress” can ensue and these cases are some of the hardest suits to fight and, more than likely, the insurance company would settle out of court just to make this go away. Here is the job that is the lesson for this article: The technician walked into the small, and dimly lit, unfinished basement where the victim had committed suicide just the day before, using a slug in his 12- gauge shotgun. As the technician surveyed the job, for some reason he felt there wasn’t enough human debris for a shotgun blast and immediately assumed the victim had covered himself with a blanket or coat just before his demise, therefore greatly reducing the amount of debris that would otherwise have been present. He called his boss to report what he had surveyed and that there would be no need to have another technician report for the job. He continued to describe the unfinished basement as being “very cluttered” with boxes and other stored items. His supervisor told him that in a case where a slug is used it can still cause bone and tissue fragments to fly through the hole made by the slug, and he was to be very careful in his cleanup and he was to get into every area within the basement. He was further instructed that every box and item should be handled and moved from one side of the basement to the other, thus insuring a thorough job. These instructions were ignored by the technician. He spent the majority of his time dealing with a large pool of blood and the human debris in the immediate area of the gun blast. He felt it was it would be a waste of time to check any further in and around the basement. Two days later, the family came down into the basement and discovered bits and pieces of the victim still in the basement. “Shock and horror” were their comments, in regards that someone could do such a terrible job with this situation, and much more care should have been taken so the family would have never seen this. Another company was brought in to finish the job. When this company was contacted and was informed of the situation, they knew the first company’s owner and that he was very reputable, although something terribly wrong happened with this job. When the second company reported this situation to the original company’s owner, they told him how they had suggested that he be given the opportunity to remedy his failure to the relative of the victim. But the relative said, “We do not want that company anywhere near this property!” You can only imagine how the owner of the first company felt, with his heart sinking to his stomach and passing on down to his feet as he shuddered to think how this one job could put him out of business. Even though only one technician was used to do this job, the owner described this technician as one of his most faithful, thorough employees he had and, to the owner’s regret, no one was sent in behind the technician to check his work. With the job more than an hour and a half away, everyone thought they were too busy. It was reported that the only thing that saved this company’s reputation with a very prominent insurance provider was that this was the adjuster’s last job before going to another employer in a completely different industry. So where was the real failure in this accounting? If you said, “With the management or owner of the company,” you’d be absolutely correct with your assessment. It’s highly recommended that two technicians always be used on every job site, no matter how small and insignificant the job may seem. Many times, the work of bio technicians is done alone in the home. The families are busy elsewhere and/or they have no desire to even be in the home to supervise the work or the workers. It is imperative that a full vetting of the technician is made before they are hired in the first place and, by adding a policy of sending two technicians, there is less opportunity for mistakes. Don M. McNulty was the founder of Bio Cleaning Services of America, Inc. known now as MAC Signature Group, Inc. McNulty currently teaches The Basic Bio Technician Course™ to the public and has now certified more than 1,000 technicians in the U.S. and Canada since 2002. If you wish to contact Don or find out more about the Basic Bio Technician Course please visit www.biotechniciancourse.com.