There are several ways to encourage people into joining the facilities management industry. People are intrigued already by the job security and the likelihood of being replaced by AI is slim, but there is so much more to the industry than just that. Facilities management allows workers to be creative and use their hands every single day. This line of thinking is critical when coming across unknown issues in buildings.
FacilitiesNet recently asked managers what the strangest thing they ever found in their facility. Here are some of the strangest finds:
“While investigating a smell call it was discovered that someone had been living above the ceiling and using the space to defecate and urinate on top of the ceiling.”
“We operate a commercial office building with a full-size cafeteria and production kitchen. The chef called me to come to the kitchen, he needed to show me something. He had a bag of frozen french fries in the fryer basket ready to cook- but he pointed out something in the basket- it was a stainless steel wrench set about 8" long- frozen along with the fries. I removed the wrench set from the basket and still use it to this day.”
"Several events have happened on my watch. The minor ones involve animal removals. We’ve had a dead deer on the lawn, several birds getting into the building foyer, a 7’ long rat snake in someone’s office, but the one that still has me scratching my head (and my staff’s too) is that someone pooped on the floor about 1 - 1/2 feet outside the entry stall door of one of our three-bathroom stalls. We are an engineering firm filled with 70 or so professionals! This was not the accidental type at all, it was a formed pile. We can’t figure why this person wouldn’t pick it up even if it was an accident."
“A box fan (yes...a 3 speed, residential box fan!) blowing on a vav in a non-plenum ceiling, presumably to keep it from sweating...it didn't work as intended, but it did violate some fire and safety codes rather nicely.”
“A deer inside the office building. It crashes through one of the ground floor stairwell windows.”
“We were contacted by a department complaining of a "moldy smell" in their area and were requesting indoor air quality testing. We sent some of the "best noses" from the Facilities department to investigate the unpleasant odor. After sniffing around and literally crawling on the floor, we found a full bag of oranges in the bottom drawer of a person out on maternity leave. We disposed of the oranges and the smell was gone- another case closed!”
Mackenna Moralez is the associate editor of the facilities market and the host of the Facilities in Focus podcast.
