A Case Study: White Tiles

It’d be tough to describe fully, but let’s just say we took a very hands-on-approach to open DEUCE Gym. Much of the hands-on work that cleaned out, built out, and prepped the facility was our own doing. From laying concrete to drywall, the job was dirty and tough.

To get our permits for business, one big hurdle was making the bathroom handicap compliant. Most of the intricacies of this project were executed by Andrew Jayne, who is only called “Dad” around the gym, and Danny. If there was something simple enough for a newbie like myself to do, I tried my best not to screw things up.

One of the features of the new restroom was the tile floor, which the tiles indecently were not imported from Italy, but based on their signature white enamel I could see how one might make the mistake. Given Andrew had them laying around his garage, they were free. At the time, “free” sounded good and when they got laid down, we were quite affected by their impeccable beauty.

Forty seconds later, we realized that the floor would align perfectly with the signature soot of Lincoln Blvd. and, well, any auto service garage ever to create the world’s first fully sustainable, never-ending cleaning project. Every foot that would step on those tile floors laid in that particular bathroom on that particular street would leave a distinct black smear completely unavoidable to the eye. As we know, eye sores don’t “hold the standard.”

Now, we’re no millionaires now, but we could replace the tiles. Yet, we don’t. In fact, these tiles have become a bit of a case study in human behavior. Let’s just say these are the perfect tiles for building organizational culture. We’re not big on titles around here. You won’t here too much “head coach,” CEO, or secretary talk, because we’re a team and for now those things don’t help us provide an excellent product.

Do you know what does?

Every single staff person in the gym, at some point during the day, from intern to coach and whatever else people want to be called around here is on his or her knees wiping down a floor they know will be dirty forty seconds later. It’s humbling, but it’s important. Given it will mean nothing in short notice, it can seem silly but it builds pride.

If you ever see the floor dirty, just know that it was cleaned with pride not long before and it will be cleaned again with pride not long after. If you’re struck with some extra pride and want to try it out, we’ll even let you wash these white floors for free! Thank goodness we weren’t smarter than we are when we laid those beautiful tiles, or someone might just develop some entailment around here.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach