What lessons has the pandemic taught you and the Facilities team ?
I think the team has a heightened awareness of the value of what we do to keep our school clean and safe . I also think that the pandemic has given us an opportunity to find new ways to help each other and to become even more efficient in our daily work . For myself , I have increased my knowledge of public health issues , best ventilation technologies , and creative new ways of conducting meetings remotely .
How was resilience exemplified by the efforts of your department ?
Facilities personnel have historically demonstrated resilience over the years and continue to do so since the initial
shut down in March 2020 . As ‘ critical personnel ’ to building operations , a minimum number of individuals needed to be on-site daily . Because of concern over transit safety , Richard , Curtis , and Stanley reported to work daily by car from March until early June , so that their co-workers could stay home to avoid the infection risk of using mass transit .
Individuals have had to adjust their own lives to accept some shift assignment changes , as our department needs changed , due to Covid-19 .
All Facilities staff participated in packing and moving furniture from almost every room on campus in July to store it off-site . Then , in August , they accomplished the monstersized task of moving and completely resetting all rooms with furniture in our new six feet , socially distanced format . M
Mark Poelle , Director of Facilities .
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