Taking a Break with the #BluCrew Ep. 1 Hector and Lavonte

During the pandemic, we got a little closer to our Blu Crew and decided we wanted to give them a platform to speak on their cleaning and life experiences and time with us. We would like to introduce our new series to you “Taking a Break with the #BluCrew” coming to you bi-weekly!

Interview Transcript: Hector & Lavonte

[Hector] My name is Hector.

[Lavonte] My name is Lavonte Johnson.

[Hector] I’ve been with Blu for 5 years. 

[Lavonte] I’ve been with Blu for like a year and almost a half so like a year and 3 months.

[Hector] What I love doing is, I love to clean. This is something new for me, because I’ve never cleaned in my life, but five years as I figure out how to become an expert on how to clean and do deep cleaning.

[Lavonte] What I like about Blu most is it’s just not one basic cleaning you know what I’m saying. You got carpet cleaning, power washing, you got trash hauls, you got residential cleaning, you know what I’m saying, you have bar cleaning, windows you know squeegee. And so it’s a lot of different skills you can learn within this one job, you know what I’m saying. You don’t really have to be certified and that’s a good thing, but it is good to be certified, you know what I’m saying. But if you coming in with no experience and, you know what I’m saying, coming in hands-on like that’s what I did, you know what I’m saying. I didn’t expect to be doing all you know what I’m saying when I thought about cleaning I’m thinking about, you know what I’m saying, picking up trash and you know the normal stuff. But as I got into it, I started to evolve on saying so yeah that’s what I like. 

[Hector] I was in retail, I was selling men’s clothing for 30 years.

[Lavonte] I started off as a quality control technician, which was inventory and like deliveries and dealing with the chemicals and products.

[Hector] All the companies I work for this is a very good company to work for. They would do anything for you and if you have a problem they would help straighten that out.

[Lavonte] They will tell you like if you feel like you strong in this area we’ll put you this area, if you feel like you weak in this area, you know what I’m saying, then we won’t put you in that weak area, you know what I’m saying, we want to see you do your best, you know what I’m saying. If you’re weak in one area you can always go back or ask for help or somebody to retrain you know what I’m saying. I’m gonna apply these skills that I learn. I use it at home, you know what I’m saying. Some stuff I do here I do use it at home, you know what I’m saying. Cleaning techniques that I didn’t… I’ve always been a neat person, you know what I’m saying, but this just helped you know add-on.

[Hector] The president, Saul, if there’s a problem call him up and he will try to take care of it. If you have a problem with a customer he would… call him and he will try to take care of it and try to work everything out. Cuz basically to me I think Blu’s main concern and the main goal is to always make sure that the customer is always happy and we go beyond what any other cleaning company does.

[Lavonte] Like we not supposed to set up weddings, but because we are who we are, you know what I’m saying, like I say we go above and beyond we help, you know what I’m saying. They was running late, the people who had planned the wedding they have people that was supposed to come set up but they was running late. So they see that we brung out the equipment for them so the lady was panicking, you know what I’m saying, “it starts in 30 minutes, could you guys help us?” you know what I’m saying. So you like even though it was time to clock out, we still went ahead and helped them real quick and they were grateful for that. And they sent the reviews in and all that good stuff.

[Hector] Especially during this time where you have to put in a little bit more time. For us, it’s really nothing new cuz that’s what we do anyway we put in more time doing our work. We just don’t come in, do it and then say “OK it’s clean”. We do it, we make sure, we go back to make sure everything is done. We like to make sure that they’re happy and if they’re happy that makes me happy and that makes my boss happy. 

[Lavonte] Like the accounts, if you got that relationship with the accounts, you know what I’m saying, they’ll look out for you, you know what I’m saying. They might invite you to their  events, you know what I’m saying. That’s what’s exciting to me, like when you get invited, you know what I’m saying. They don’t  just look at you as “oh that’s just the worker at our job” “come on out to this event with us”, you know get to know everybody, get to connect. Like, like here they go to Bulls games, they invite us to stuff like that so.

[Hector] My favorite memory there is the people there cuz when we’re cleaning, if I’m cleaning and they come in and they need something, then all of the sudden, they will say “ah, you know what,  I made a mistake, we did the wrong one, you need this. And I said “what?” I give it to him and I’m like “ you do it” and he started laughing. He looks at me and goes “are you serious?” I go “Nah just let me know where it is” and sometimes you know they were just like throw things on purpose on the floor and go “you missed a spot” and I go “haha very funny” and I think cuz they know we do go above and beyond and if something needs to be done we do it, with no questions asked. 

[Lavonte] Really, the staff really depend on, you know, the workers like us, you know what I’m saying. They really want to hear our ideas or, you know what I’m saying, the stuff we got to say so I feel like that’s a big plus too, to be heard. Especially being cleaners everybody think you just cleaning up you know poop and all this extra stuff, you know what I’m saying, but it’s really not the case, you know what I’m saying.