It's 90 degrees in the shade in north Texas right now, it is mid-October, football is on a constant loop on all the channels, and did I mention it's 90 degrees in the shade?
Still, we property managers must plan for rain, sleet, snow and all the same things that keep the post-person slogging through to bring you your mail. So in this week's PM huddle, the subject of ice melt came up, and whether we are prepared for the rare but inevitable sleet event. The only question is when. We stocked up last year, and didn't use a single bag. Complacency could bite us this year, so we thought it through. Do we have enough to go around to all the properties? Do we have a landscaping company on board to get out (just) ahead of the storm to put it out? Do we have them scheduled to come clean up the residue after the sun comes back out?
The toughest part of a sleet event for us? It's whether and when to get in our cars and come to work. We north Texas drivers don't have much experience with the subtleties of steering into skids, and our municipal authorities do well just to sand the overpasses. People die on slick roads. I prefer no one does that for the sake of getting to an office building thank you very much. But the tenants expect us to be providing service whatever the condition of the roads.
We communicate early and often with our tenants, keeping expectations reasonable while admitting our own frailty to stand up to scary icy roads. If it's dangerous, we stay home until it's not dangerous, that's where we come down on the subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment