Grant’s Blog

Several years ago, one of the auto companies – Ford, I think it was – advertised that “Quality is Job 1.” If my memory serves me correctly, some of the television ads punctuated the statement with a loud sound as the word “Quality” was stamped onto a car or truck. It was an effective slogan.

Any number of organizations promote workplace safety with the theme “Safety is Job 1.” Maybe you have one or two such posters adorning the walls of your wastewater treatment plant.

Which brings me to ask; “As wastewater superintendent, what is your highest priority?” What is “Job 1” at the treatment plant?

Most of us, I’m betting, believe it to be permit compliance. Or, more generically, environmental protection.

At the risk of getting my workplace TP’d*, I disagree. Environmental protection is a critical component of what we do, but I respectfully submit that serving the needs of our community is our highest priority. Environmental protection is a component of community service; a very important component to be sure. But, the highest priority, I submit, is providing wastewater service so that the community can prosper: to effectively and efficiently meet the community’s need for wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal services.

The difference is important.

If environmental protection is job 1, then there is no limit on cost. Our job would be to spend as much money as necessary to make the environment better. And, better. And, better.

If community service is job 1, then it becomes our job to protect the environment at the least possible cost. That is, to optimize. And, compromise. (Compromise, for the record, is not one of my strong suits.)

I’m in the profit business. I pay my bills using money my company makes by assisting municipal wastewater superintendents protect the environment in the most cost effective way. I believe, perhaps naively, that making clean water affordable means that more water will be clean. Which, in turn, means that providing community service is more environmentally sustainable. But… maybe I am just coming up with justifications for what I do.

Regardless. I’ll keep promoting the notion that the most effective wastewater treatment plant operators are those that “tinker” with their facilities in order to produce the highest quality effluent at the least possible cost. To those that do, here’s hat’s off to you.

Thanks for reading.

*Explanation. TP’ing, for those of you who didn’t grow up in the Midwest in the ‘60s, is the practice of looping rolls of toilet paper into trees. A high impact, but otherwise harmless, prank.

Grant

To generate work, my company sends out postcards touting our “brilliance.” Because we are so doggone smart, we make technical presentations at seminars. Some are even worth listening to.

In an effort to keep existing clients happy with our service, we give them our best effort. When we have a story worth telling, we write it up and share it with upper management. We’ve found that people like it when we tell their bosses how they have improved operations without spending much money on new equipment.

On occasion, we’ve been known to buy a pizza or two. Meaning, as consultants go, we are at the cheapskate end of the spectrum.

When I was a municipal wastewater administrator, I partook of some wining and dining. At one WEFTEC conference, my wife and I were treated to an outlandish five course meal at a fancy, big-city rooftop restaurant. Somewhere during the meal, I got a bit uncomfortable with the extravagance.

I’ve found that I’m not the only person that would rather not be showered with gifts.

One plant superintendent told me about how he and one of his staff were taken to a strip club by his municipality’s design engineer. The consultant was plying them with drinks and bills. An odd way of generating wastewater design business methinks.

A consultant I hold in very high regard for his technical expertise once confessed that he had employed women to entertain clients. This man, a sad neurotic genius, is long ago retired. Maybe his story is the reason I’m so tight with the buck; his is not a situation I want to find myself in.

My opinion: municipalities deserve wastewater treatment plants that are reliable, efficient, effective. Like many others in the business, that’s the service we attempt to provide. On occasion, we get one right. And when we do, it is that reputation – a proven ability to deliver quality – that we want to be the measure by which we are judged. Or, maybe if I were more entertaining and a lot better looking, I’d be all for using the social skills I don’t have to dazzle potential clients.

I’m realistic; or, somewhat so. As mentioned in one of my first blog entries, getting public recognition for a job well done is something that so rarely happens in our business that, with time, most of us pretty much give up hope for. We are the poster children for under-appreciated service, are we not?

But.

Peer recognition is different matter. Most wastewater professionals know quality when they see it. As a guy like you – that is, somebody just doing his best to make affordable clean water – it feels really good when a client is truly satisfied with the work.

It’s almost as good as getting paid.

Thanks for reading.

Grant