Digital Shaman Enterprises - Articles and Rants

You’ve secured your building against outside break-ins and theft. You’ve hired a security force to patrol the areas, inside and out, to protect your business property. You’ve trained and retrained your staff in security, privacy and discretion regarding your company information. How much good does all that do when every day you hand over the keys to your company to a complete stranger, you allow them full access to many areas of your business. The janitor knows the most intimate details about your business and your employees. They have opportunity and time to filter through any and all of your information and equipment as they see fit. Your diligent company security efforts are no more effective than the security clearance of the janitor who empties your trash.

The janitor has a time line to work on and will normally ask an employee if they want their work area cleaned while they are in their area. How many times have you had to work late? How many times have you been still at your desk when the cleaning crew arrives? Have you even been asked to step away from your desk so the janitor can quickly tidy up your area for you? You don’t want to look at the same dirt tomorrow so your first impulse is to get up and move away from your desk. After all, it only takes a couple of minutes to clean a work area and empty the trash, right? Usually an employee will step away from their desk for those few moments, leaving their current work projects as they are, while the work crew tidies up the desk area. Many times the employee with take this opportunity to use the restroom or go the vending machine in the break room, expecting this will enable the janitor to be able to work more efficiently if they are not underfoot.

From my personal experience as a commercial janitor, this means that there is data left in plain sight with no supervision from your employee. Computers monitors are left on, desks are left unlocked; notes and printed reference material are left on the desk for anyone to view. And let’s not forget about the password that’s written on the monitor or carefully “hidden” under the phone or on the bottom of the keyboard. If anyone is going to find your secret hiding place, it’ll be a janitor. At least if they’re doing their job right, they will. After you’ve cleaned for a while, you’re able to pick up any item on a desk and put it back exactly where it was placed before, leaving no trace that you were even there other than the fact that there are no fingerprints or dust. If something comes up missing, you can bet that there won’t be any fingerprints for you to trace either. The cleaning chemicals that a janitor handles every day, even something as ordinary as window cleaner, dry the oils in the hands leaving little chance for fingerprints left behind.

There are nicely framed family photos on the desk and calendar pads with personal appointments, meetings and dates scribbled on them. You have phone numbers and addresses in hastily written post-it notes stuck all over your desk and computer monitor so you don’t forget something important. Your dental appointment, your hair dresser, your vacation are all displayed for your convenience. There are few real secrets among office mates so you don’t think twice about these notes. Why should you care if the person who sits at the desk next to you drops by for a chat and happens to see that you’re going out for pizza with the kids next Thursday evening? You probably don’t. But do you want a stranger you’ve never neither met nor laid eyes on to know these details? Do you want them to even know you’re married or single or have kids, how old they are and what they look like? They can find all this personal information about you just by dusting your desk.

And that’s just your desk! What about the garbage you tossed today? Are there receipts for items you bought when you went to lunch? Is there personal mail you brought from home to look through and dispose of after you’ve looked over the credit card applications, bills you’ve paid that you no longer need the paperwork on? How about the notes from the company meeting last week that you’ve now entered into your computer database? Did you just toss those notes into the trash instead of walking them over to the shredder because you figured no one else can read your poor handwriting anyway? Think again. I’ve had to fire more than one nosey person for sifting through a trash can as they put it into the barrel. I’ve even known of some who go to the bother of taking the trash home to sift through on their own time! You can learn a lot about a person from their trash. Some people have nothing better to do than to piece together torn up papers. Some are just plain bored and nosey. And some have learned that there’s money to be made from your trash.

If you’re like me, I’m a phone scribbler. I write notes about conversations I’m having while on the phone as I’m talking or listening. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve been scribbling away at key words or numbers without even thinking about what I’m writing down until I look at it later. Often times, this has saved my butt when I’ve needed to remember some of the conversation but my memory eludes me to whether that number was 876 or 786. No worries, it’s on the note. I can get away with that. I work alone in my office. No one else cleans my office. No stranger has access to my desk. I like my organized chaos here. I can find any paper I need at my fingertips and just exactly where in the pile it is. I am tidiness challenged these days. How about you?

The company that hires the cleaning personnel is responsible for the background checks on their employees but how much do you trust their judgment in hiring the person who has the keys to your candy store? What about the not so uncommon hiring of a “cousin who needs a break in life”, a “friend of a friend who really needs the work for a little while till they get on their feet”? Basically, you’re leaving your company security in the hands of the janitorial company. Not in the hands of your highly qualified security staff, not with your trusted employees who’ve been carefully screened and passed security clearance procedures and not even your experienced judgment in who you allow to have access to your company heartbeat; your own office.

The employee break room is another hot spot of information. Check out that wall calendar that your employee birthdays are scribbled on. No one wants to miss out on a free birthday cake and special attention on their birthday so they happily enter their name on their special day. Vacations are something else employees celebrate. Is yours penciled in there?

How many times have you cleaned out your purse while you were eating lunch? Do you shred those receipts for the dress you bought last week? How about that gas receipt? You might need that for the company expense report so you toss it on your desk before you leave for the night so you won’t forget to enter it in your computer tomorrow. Is your signature on it? Is your credit card number on it? Have you even looked at it to see just what information is there? You really have to love those idiots who put that personalized message on the receipts for the groceries you buy with the store discount cards. “Thank you for your purchase <Your Name>!”

You’re going for the bottom line, cutting expenses wherever you can so you take the lowest bid for the lowest type of work you need to have done. Is that really the smartest thing you can do? Why pay top dollar for someone to clean your toilet? After all, the job is relatively easy, right? Just a bit of dusting and maybe swing a broom or a mop around, slosh that toilet wand in and out of the porcelain throne? The bottom line is that the most intimate relationship you can have is with that of your cleaning staff. You have to be able to trust them to leave everything in your offices as they found it, sans dirt and garbage. And yet, these are the same people you would not shake hands with if you met them in the hall because there’s a change that they just cleaned your bathroom. But they have the keys to your office. They are your biggest security nightmare.