The Stuff I've Broken

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

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

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

Now that you have the proper perspective on my defect record, let's examine some of the 75 so you can see how I handled them.

1. Knick-Knacks - In my first year, I had a client with a LOT of knick-knacks, especially in the kitchen. I decided early on to be a full surface cleaner, so I would move everything in order to clean under it. This house made me change my policy. I had to move close to 100 items to clean the kitchen every 2 weeks. It's no surprise that I broke 3 of them. I would slide them or bump them and it would crack or break. I told the owner each time. After my second break, she held back $20 from my cleaning check and fired me on the third.
2. Coffee Pot - What happens when you attempt to clean a thin glass coffee pot in a slippery wet hand over a hard granite kitchen counter? The answer is a broken coffee pot. I told the homeowner. He ordered a new one and I asked him to dock the amount from my next cleaning. It cost $25.
3. Microwave Plate - Do you know how brittle these plates are? I was cleaning one about 10 years ago and it bumped the granite counter and chipped! I told the owner right away and offered to pay for it. It cost $75 for a new one. She told me not to worry about it, although I offered to replace it many times. By the way, I've cleaned thousands of these glass plates and only broke one.
4. Toaster Oven Tray - I was going the extra mile for a client and cleaned an entire toaster oven including the metal tray. Unfortunately, I used a cleaning product that was alkaline and damaged the surface finish of the tray. It was clean, but damaged. I told the homeowner right away and offered to pay for it. She wanted me to do the leg work. I found the part online, ordered it, and took it to her. Then I discovered I ordered the wrong part. The tray was too big. I re-ordered it and got to keep the first one. Oh well. Problem solved for $50.  
5. Storm Glass & Window Screens - I've done window cleaning for 15 years and have broken a few storm windows and screens. This usually happened when I was removing old parts to clean. This was an easy fix. I found a glass dealer & repair shop to partner. Then I'd tell the client that I need to take the broken part to the shop for repair. I'd drop it off, pay between $20 - $40 to repair, and re-install in the home. The client was always happy.
6. Blinds - I was wrapping up a post-construction cleaning for a client moving into their new home. My detail was exquisite down to vacuuming out ducts. Unfortunately, three blinds cracked or broke while I cleaned them. They were not high quality. I should have recognized that prior to cleaning them. I told the homeowner and we decided to handle this through a partial reimbursement of her online payment. I refunded her $60 and she took care of the rest.
7. End table - This is the only damage claim that was not small. I use a backpack vacuum cleaner. These machines have a large footprint and you must be spacially aware. I was at the same house that I broke the coffee pot. While vacuuming the dining room, I was pushing in the chairs and backing up. That's when I heard a crash. A heavy lamp fell over on the end table. The lamp was fine, but the table had a 2 inch scratch. I immediately told the owner. He was not happy. This end table was a Stickly Audi end table worth $2,000! I felt terrible because the process took several hours for the homeowner to deal with. My insurance policy had a $500 deductible. I've always paid damages out of pocket unless it was over $500. This was the first and only time in 15 years. I gave my insurance information to my client. He called and had an adjuster come to see the damage. They were trying to get the table resurfaced, but the manufacturer was not able to do this. Thus, the adjuster had to provide my client with a replacement table. They chose a really nice one. I paid the $500 deductible. For the rest of my decade of cleaning for this family, they had a beautiful new end table and the old scratched one in the same room.