Jeanina Ghadieh is the Senior Facilities Operation Coordinator at Pfizer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pfizer is a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company that is currently at the forefront of developing the vaccine and other related treatments for COVID-19. Jeanina wears many hats in the company, from making sure employees follow protocol with sensitive information to providing the right tools to help improve their productivity.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Learn:
- Jeanina Ghadieh talks about her biggest challenge in helping her co-workers get back to work
- The value of the human aspect in decision making.
- The difference between working from home and working in the office
- How does government regulations play into getting others back to work?
- How Pfizer is letting their employees know that their safety and health is their top priority
- Jeanina describes her transition from being a receptionist to being a facilities manager
- What are the responsibilities and challenges of a facilities manager?
In this Episode:
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a facilities manager for one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies? Now, imagine being one but with the added constraint of only being to do your work from your home? This is exactly what Jeanina Ghadieh, Senior Facilities Manager at Pfizer in the San Francisco Bay Area, is going through right now. She was pushed into a position where she not only has to do her function well but she also has to do it remotely. And as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to roll across the US, she is forced to put in place measures that follow government guidelines as she prepares her team to go back to work as the economy slowly eases into opening again.
In this week’s episode of the Watching Paint Dry podcast, Greg Owens interviews Jeanina Ghadiaeh of Pfizer about countermeasures she’s putting in place for her team as they work remotely and the preparations she’s making for them as they slowly ease back into office. She also talks about what it’s like to work in a major pharma company in the middle of the pandemic, their company’s top priorities, and the importance of knowing the building you work in from the inside out. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Sponsor for this Episode:
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry Podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of thousands of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Today is Friday, May eighth. And this is another episode of Watching Paint Pry, where we’re talking with top facilities managers and property owners and business building owners throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and sort of the larger sort of international business scene for facilities managers and property owners and building owners and just kind of sharing information about the challenges and opportunities unique to that to that position in these times, and we’re in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so there is a, an incredible amount of challenges especially when it comes to facilities managers, and how they are going to when they’re when they’re given the orders to reopen their buildings and that kind of things and all the types of aspects and things they have to sort of look at and be aware of to bring people back in in a safe way and bring people back to work. This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting. We are a painting company here in the San Francisco Bay Area painting both residential and commercial paint painting projects. And we have been in business since 1969. serving customers like Google Autodesk Abercrombie and Fitch at And, and so many other types of companies and plus we do residential painting. Also to find out more you can go to info@McCarthyPainting.com and today I’m really excited because we have Jeanina Ghadieh of Pfizer, it’s a pharmaceutical company that’s a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical company and they are at the forefront of coming up with a vaccine and sort of other related treatments to COVID-19. And I think you’re in a very unique position and I’m sure you have unique challenges at this time as far as bringing people back to work and your knowledge of facilities and buildings. Welcome to our podcast. So I wanted to get started like your How are things with you personally and your family and friends and loved ones. I hope they trust that they are doing. They’re doing well during this. How’s that for you?
Jeanina Ghadieh 3:06
We’re doing well. And we’ve been, you know, honoring the work from home to shelter in place. orders. Since I guess it was May 17. So it’s, we’ve been home. Yeah. Taking care of things as much as we can remotely.
Greg Owens 3:31
Yeah. And that’s got to be like a set of unique challenges. How, um, tell me a little bit about the operations you have here in the San Francisco Bay area because I know Pfizer is a global, it’s a global business with locations all over the world. And I don’t know enough about what you guys are doing here in the San Francisco area Bay Area.
Jeanina Ghadieh 3:54
Um, we do have two facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. One is a lab site, which is located down in South San Francisco. And then we have just an office location that is in downtown San Francisco, just off of Market Street. Our lab site in South San Francisco, they just recently moved into this space. So they weren’t actually up and running yet. But they’re looking to get that going here. I would think probably within the next two to three weeks, getting their scientists and lob people back in to continue the science portion. The facility.
Greg Owens 4:46
Yeah, so and so as the senior facilities coordinator, it was that part of your job was helping them sort of rearrange or re redo their workspaces and that way
Jeanina Ghadieh 4:59
um, Not so much on the lab side of the project.
I did help a little bit with, you know, the security aspects of things with helping them get colleagues and everything set up for access into the building and so on, things like that. We do have a facilities manager there that is more geared on the lab side of things that assistance with with majority of that,
Greg Owens 5:33
yeah, I would think that when it comes to a lab, because I know we’ve done some painting inside of labs, and there’s a bunch of unique sort of things that come up and regulations and that kind of thing, just in working in labs and having a clean space like that and everything so it makes sense to have somebody dedicated just to that and paying attention to the themes. Yeah. And what’s going on for you in this? What’s like your biggest challenges as far as what you’ve got on your plate moving forward with the way the world’s changed?
Jeanina Ghadieh 6:09
Um, well, right now it’s preparing the office space for colleagues to be able to return to work. Making sure that we have the social distancing protocols in place. cleaning and disinfecting of work areas, making sure that you know, whatever supplies we need to achieve that are there and readily available or easily obtainable, which has proven to be a challenge on some of those things. I have to rely heavily on my colleagues that are in Southern California to procure a lot of Because they’re they’re a much larger site so they can order in larger quantities and disperse as needed to some of the other smaller sites.
Greg Owens 7:11
Oh that’s a nice, that’s actually good for me to hear because I’m being a owner of a small business and you know where you were used to buying an ordering personal protective equipment and that kind of thing and we’re struggling to get that but to hear that your company is also having those struggles means that we’re we’re doing the best we can with with this. Yeah, and even just getting masks like we’ve had to resort to making our own just so our guys can go to work now that they’re not the kind we also have the kind of the full blown respirators for the guys when they’re working with chemicals. But to wear that all day long is actually prohibitive. It’s really difficult and challenging to do. So we’re intermixing the two and how do you see people Coming back to work or what do you see changing in your facility? Now, I’m not familiar with your facility, but I know that a lot of the dot com companies like Facebook and Google and those kinds of, you know, gone to these big open spaces and sharing and sharing a lot of spaces. Is that them in the same for you guys over the last bunch of years?
Jeanina Ghadieh 8:23
Not Not so much. Because a lot of what my site does is they’re more on the clinical research side of the company, where they receive the clinical data and they go through and they read that data decipher it, and put it into a format where it’s easily understandable. They also need to make sure that it’s within, you know, compliance regulations and FDA regulations, and so on and so forth before there’s any submissions to the FDA. We have colleagues that have a very mix of different ranges or departmental differences. As far as my colleagues are concerned, we have people that are more on the training side of things where they handle the regulatory training and compliance training issues or programs. And then I have some people that are within the larger business portfolio. I have myself which is more in the global workplace solutions or facilities aspect. I have people that are in oncology that are more geared toward the
some of the science but they’re not lab science.
So there’s a wide range of colleagues that are on site.
Greg Owens 10:08
Right and so they’re they don’t necessarily have like that collaborative shared spaces, they have individual offices more, more so. So in some ways that’s going to be a little bit easier for you guys to do social distancing and that kind of thing, because you don’t have to worry about those spaces. But then when it comes to like cafeteria workers and those kinds of things, what is what is the challenges you’re seeing around that are completely ending food and coffee breaks and that kind of thing within the building?
Jeanina Ghadieh 10:40
We were putting together
social distancing plans within the break rooms, conference rooms, and even out in our workstation areas, where it’s actually cubicles Hmm. But we still need to be able to maintain that six foot distance between, you know, the colleagues living within those workstations. So I’ve had to go through and map out where I need to move colleagues so that they’re there further than that, or at least not be there within that. That guide of not being within six feet of each other so it’s marking this workstation is non usable. You can’t sit here and this one’s okay. That one’s okay. Having to move people into available offices to make sure that you know, we all maintain that six foot distance. Yeah, was you know, implementing the wearing of masks when you’re in a common area. Making hallways one way restrooms limiting the number of people that can be in the restroom at one time. Waste marks the restrooms so that colleagues know Okay, there’s two people in here so nobody can go When you have to wait, you know, so on and so forth. So those things are some of the challenges that I’m faced with right now. break room, we don’t really have a cafeteria on site. But we do have a break room where my department provides snacks and coffee beverages for colleagues Plus, you know, it’s a pretty large room, where colleagues can go in and sit down, have lunch, and interact with each other during that period of time. So now I’m having to move my tables around so that only one person can be at a table and removing chairs, so that colleagues don’t pull up a chair to sit with somebody else. And, you know, the signage and everything that has to go into play with this, you know, for colleagues to maintain that distance. I’m not going to police it. I’m hoping that everybody just uses their, you know, common sense and follows the guidelines that we’ve been And that’s pretty much the most I can do.
Greg Owens 13:03
Yeah, yeah, no, we’re running into the same issue of like, how do we just can keep reminding people that we need to continue doing this, you know, the social distinction, especially because they easily fall back into, you know, like giving one painter giving another painter a ride, right? Because like, they’re like, oh, we’ll just let’s just share the car. But it’s like, well, you can’t maintain the six foot distance now that you’re in a car with somebody. And, you know, and there’s something that I’ve seen too, and you’ve probably noticed this also is that when you’re really friendly or familiar with somebody, you feel like they’re safe. And that’s something that from everything that I’ve read that you have to constantly keep in mind that you’re probably not safe and neither is your friend or your family member at this night. Right. Yeah. And then having those reminders How will you go about limiting or telling People that like so when it comes to bathrooms and knowing like how many people are in the bathroom at a time. So I know this is a challenge for other facilities managers as the bathrooms weren’t designed to keep this sort of six foot space at all. And so limiting it down to two people. How will you Is it going to be like a card system or what have you guys figured out as far as that goes at this point,
Jeanina Ghadieh 14:27
looking at a couple of different aspects.
One for the restrooms on our floor right now. There are two wash basins. And each of them one of those wash basin basins is within the handicap stall. Yeah, and then the other one is outside in the main portion of the restrooms. So we’re looking at only having one stall open in the main restroom. Then having that handicap stall open and closing down the other stalls so people don’t go in there. Therefore, only two people can use the restroom at one time, the wash basins are separate. So there’s no chance of standing at the same washbasin. Even though there’s two sinks there to wash their hands. They’re separate in that way, as far as signage, or letting people know that there’s all that the room is already occupied by two people. We’re looking at possibly putting signs out on the door that you can slide. It says, you know, occupied or vacant, and I’m putting up two of those one, you know, one for each person that would be in the room or in the restroom at a time. So if there’s two people, it shouldn’t be, you know, but that slider sign should be moved over to occupied and then when the person comes out, they’d say It Back to vacant so that they know that there’s still a space available. It’s kind of hard to explain, but when you see it visually, you’re like, Oh, Okay, I got it.
Greg Owens 16:10
I could see any. I could see the human aspect,
Jeanina Ghadieh 16:14
we’re gonna have to go. Yeah, it’s a trick we’re going to have to go through with our colleagues. We’re preparing, you know, slide decks and videos that we can present to them before we go back on site, so that they’re aware that these changes are in place once they’re there. And they won’t be surprised or at a loss of what am I supposed to do right now, or I’ll probably be somewhere we’re going to have to reiterate or replay some of these these videos so that they are aware of what’s going on and maybe actually walking them in and showing them of course, Keeping that six foot distance and showing them this is, well, this is how you do it.
Greg Owens 17:05
Right, right. And like you said, it’s gonna be, you know, really challenging to police these kinds of things. nobody really wants to either they just want to leave it up to common sense and why and that kind of thing and I know for a lot of my clients that they were really really busy before all of this as facilities managers and challenges and that kind of stuff. Is that is that now is do you feel like you’re working at a faster pace and and seemingly more than ever now that you’ve been stuck working from home and, and also looking at all these different aspects.
Jeanina Ghadieh 17:46
The work is kind of it’s kind of shifted from taking care of everyday operations within the facility. Following up on client requests for, you know, issues with their, their desk not raising when it’s supposed to or needing their their monitor or keyboard tray moves to another location, because it’s not ergonomically correct for them physically moving a colleague from one workstation into an office or out of an office and into a workstation, things like that. It’s gone from that to planning.
A whole new way of working a whole new way of getting people back on site.
And learning, again, what I have to do in order to facilitate that, and then what I need to do to teach or to train, the colleagues want to return to site, how to follow it’s going to be a whole new way of working, right?
Greg Owens 19:03
And that’s a
Jeanina Ghadieh 19:03
things are gonna be the same,
Greg Owens 19:07
right? Everything’s getting looked at and looked at closely and then and then it’s falling on your shoulders and a lot of ways to do the training of this, which is a whole nother, um, what sort of not not necessarily something you’ve had to do in the past quite as much you maybe had to do it a little bit here and there, but not to this extent where every single step of the building has to be almost rethought and retrained and that kind of thing. Including, including I know, like, some of the other facilities managers I’ve talked to, like the challenges with elevators, like how many people in the queue to getting into an elevator, what was your guys’s thoughts on on that for your facility and,
Jeanina Ghadieh 19:49
well, we’re, we’re in a multi tenant building, which makes it even more challenging how we’re we’re I’m I’m working in conjunction with building management to come to a solution, they’ve already decided, pretty much we’re not going to have more than two people in an elevator at any given time, because there’s no way to have that six foot distance between each other.
Otherwise.
So, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of things that that building is looking into, with their elevator provider, their technical, technical team and everything from the elevator company to figure out is there a way that it can be programmed so that the elevator doesn’t stop more than twice on its way down or on its way up so that it’s not picking up more people and just making sure that at that ground level, and on each floor. Each tenant knows that there should not be more than two people in the elevator at a time. So it’s, you know, it’s a whole new training experience or learning experience. And it’s something that you know, for the most part, again, it’s going to be one of those things where we can’t really police it because we can’t be on every floor, right? To make sure that everything is being adhered to. So we have to trust that people will use their common sense. And while we realize that, yes, it is an inconvenience, it can be an inconvenience, to have to wait for an elevator longer than what you anticipate, but for the safety of everyone. Hopefully that common sense comes into play and people adhere to and follow the guidelines that are out there.
Greg Owens 22:00
Yeah, yeah, that’s so many challenges, especially in a multi multi use building because now you’re coordinating with the other facilities manager of those other, the other tenants in that building, and including the facilities manager of the building itself, which is a completely different role and job and that kind of thing. Also.
Do you guys so I think
our governor is saying where we have the stay at home orders until the end of this month, the end of May. And what do you see as far as either is going? Is it you’re probably not going to go to 100% or people coming back to work when you’re allowed to what are you guys anticipating sort of that first sort of wave of opening for you?
Jeanina Ghadieh 22:54
At this point our guidance has been essential.
colleagues are essential work only. So if I did have lab space, then they would want to start the lab space or the scientist coming in first, and then they would do a wave of support for those lab people. Being that my site is primarily an office, we are pretty much in the last phase of returning to work, right. Any work can be done remotely or be done from home. They’re encouraging colleagues to do that. I know that we don’t know right now. If there’s going to be any type of orders from the governor or even from the mayor of San Francisco or the mayor’s from other countries that are here in the Bay Area are we what public transportation is going to look like? And I know Pfizer, even before the stay at home orders went into place. They put out, you know, a recommendation that any colleague that had to utilize public transportation to get into the office and back home, they were encouraged to work from home. So that week before that order went into place, I had maybe six people coming into the office because everybody else uses public transportation. So they, you know, took that, that guidance and they started working from home. Right. You know, depending on what those orders are, once they’re lifted, what public transportation is going to look like, I may still have just, you know, a handful, or maybe two handfuls of people that start coming back in, but I don’t anticipate us getting back into full swing until Probably mid to late June.
Greg Owens 25:03
Yeah. Yeah
Jeanina Ghadieh 25:05
possibly longer. It depends, you know, how things go after May 31?
Greg Owens 25:12
Yeah, it’s sort of the future, a big mystery on how this will unfold and and what our numbers look like and how things look as they start to open for sure. And it’s interesting that it makes total sense that Pfizer would be sort of ahead of every a lot of other companies that I’ve talked to and seen because you are a pharmaceutical company and you do work on vaccines and treatments for viruses and that kind of stuff that you guys would be looking at this and be concerned about your your workforce and your colleagues and people that way ahead. You probably saw the writing on the wall and said, Hey, this is we’ve got to end a lot of things that we know is being okay right now, even though the government hasn’t said anything yet.
Jeanina Ghadieh 25:56
Right. Right. And I know that One of Pfizer’s biggest concerns is one of their main priorities is making sure that their employees and their staff are healthy and safe. And they’re doing whatever they can to make sure that you know that colleagues know that their health and safety is our number one priority. Yeah, yeah. If they’re not healthy and safe, we can’t we can’t produce science, we can’t move forward with that. We need them healthy and safe and taken care of.
Greg Owens 26:37
Yeah, I’m wrestling with the same things on my own with my own workforce much smaller than your guys’ workforce. But the same thing like we’re very concerned about the painters, families, their safety, and how how we can do things where we were allowed back to work this week, and and and being able to go back into facilities and things like that and start painting but we had to put in all kinds of new regulations and a lot of it’s just reminding them constant reminders right like right hey keep this up keep the social distancing wire the mass to washing your hands right because they they so easily start falling into that trap of thinking like oh, it’s I’m not gonna get it I’m invincible it’s not you know, it’s not as bad as everybody thinks it is. But we know, we’re just trying to just keep everybody safe and keep everybody aware along this process. Right? You’re so when you have most of your workforce are all for you. Almost all of your workforce is working from home right now as the facilities manager, how are you supporting them with each individual’s home office, that’s got to be another whole challenge there that’s sort of new for you in a lot of ways.
Jeanina Ghadieh 27:57
It is and for the most Apart
any issues that that colleagues are having. Technically, it’s shifted over to our business technology department. So issues that they’re having with, you know, computer hookups and things not working right, log on issues and things like that. It’s being taken care of by our business technology people. We do have a site services person that is located in our South San Francisco office, that colleagues can make the trip there. If they need to, if it’s something that can’t be taken care of remotely. They’re going there. He’s helping them with connectivity issues or my laptop won’t turn on.
Believe me, it happens.
That whereas, you know, when everyone’s on site, I can usually help try to, you know, troubleshoot things. But in instances like right now, it’s been shifted over to them because we don’t want them coming into the office in downtown San Francisco. Parking is horrendous. Trying to take public transportation. We don’t want them taking public transportation.
So it’s the you know, if you can meet with
BT off site in the South San Francisco office, we’d much rather than do that. So that’s taken a burden off me.
Greg Owens 29:45
Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Because Yeah, there’s I can only imagine there’s so many little issues that can come up from working from home like the internet not working or too many people on the internet at the same time, or just or is it their laptop? Top just not able to connect at that point, right? And it’s super hard to troubleshoot from, from afar, right? Yeah, leave it to leave it to the experts that are in that everyday to figure out for sure. Definitely. I’d like to get to know a little bit more about you and how you got into this role. And, you know, I think as we were talking before the call you have a unique way of sort of coming into becoming a facilities manager and I’d love for you to chat a little bit about that.
Jeanina Ghadieh 30:35
Um, I originally started out with a company called motivation, and this was back in 2012. It was a smaller startup by a biopharmaceutical company. I started as the receptionist with them and worked for them at the reception desk. For just a little bit over two years. During that two year period, I was giving given more and more responsibilities to take care of from the reception desk like being the administrator for service requests submissions into our service tracking program, assigning those service tickets to technicians, and making sure that the following up with the client or with the colleague to make sure that their service had been completed closing out the tickets,
escalating anything that needed to be escalated.
Anything that building management took care of as far as you know, there was a plumbing issue or a lighting issue, something like that, that is that fell within building management’s responsibilities, but I would submit you Or the work orders to building management system for them to take care of, and then following up and making sure that things were taken care of. So that was one aspect of things that was handed on to me or over to me to work, or to take responsibility for while at reception. And in addition to all of the other receptionist, responsibilities, phones,
receiving guests, issuing
badges and things like that. I took over some of the security aspects as far as taking the photo for a colleague’s badge, creating their profile within the security program. And then letting the security officer know that he could go ahead and print the badge and issue it to the colleague. So I took on some of that there were other things that ultimately need You know, they started giving over to me inputting a purchase order request, and so on and so forth. It got to a point where I was like, Okay, guys, come on. I’m doing all of this. So let’s get me out of reception. So I can get my fingers into really, you know, more in depth of the facilities aspect of,
of work. So they worked with me.
We hired another receptionist or replacements, receptionist and I was promoted into operations coordinator position. And from there, it’s just it, it flew.
I went from
learning how to schedule the H back maintenance and knowing when I need to call an H back assistant for an issue that’s going on. working more closely with building now management and learning the different things that building was actually responsible for versus what we were responsible for. went in through learning how to do space assignments, physical moves of colleagues from one space to another construction and build build out new floors, and what all that entails the program or the not the programming, but the planning of any big move projects and how to bring up a new floor and have it ready for colleagues to
what do you call it to occupy
and it’s just kind of it the training and the knowledge and everything was kind of a Learn as I go. And something that really interested me. So I’ve just, I just kept at it. And thankfully, I had an amazing boss that was more than willing to do whatever he needed to to train me in whatever I wanted to know. So I went through, you know, a lot of different steps with him. Then we were acquired by Pfizer, and my role just kind of rolled into getting more and more responsibilities and taking on more learning more, a lot of it was or has been self taught. But at the same time, things that I don’t know, I’ve had colleagues from our south Southern California locations, assist with bringing me up to speed showing What needs to be done and so on and so forth?
Greg Owens 36:03
Well, yeah. Yeah.
Jeanina Ghadieh 36:10
I’m a better learner and doing things hands on than I am sitting with a textbook, or an online program, trying to teach me how to do things. I’m more of a hands on person.
Greg Owens 36:27
Right. And I think that’s what a lot of people that don’t know about be a career in facilities management, property management, and that kind of thing is that they don’t don’t realize a tremendous amount of it is like learning hands on and sort of relying on other experts in other fields, like you mentioned, HVC, or plumbers and that kind of thing. And you start to get sort of the rhythm and knowledge of a building and in each building is unique to and each building has its own sort of aspects. Do you sort of get to like delve into and learn and a lot of it’s not, you can’t read about it in a book and you can’t sit at a desk and learn about it, you have to actually, you know, walk the hallways and go into the basement and see for yourself and see the challenges that takes place there. Any other sort of advice to people that might be looking at a career in, in facilities management because you went from being the receptionist to wearing two hats for a very Sunday, like a good chunk of time where you’re actually doing, you know, the job of two people and taking on more and more responsibilities and that
Jeanina Ghadieh 37:38
there’s some aspects where I’m worrying more than two hats. I have the facilities maintenance aspect of things. I’m site security so I do all of the badging issuance and making sure that everybody is following security protocols. The site information security officer. So I have to make sure that people are turning off their laptops when they walk away from their desk. They’re not leaving, you know, confidential information out on their desk and things like that. I take care of conference room reservations and making sure that room setups are what are needed for training or meetings and things like that I assist with vt issues. So it is a facility person can wear multiple hats. They sometimes are given multiple responsibilities. If you’re if you’re someone that
likes challenges,
and you like being able to have that rush of adrenaline and Having that, you know, the ability to do multiple things at one time.
Facilities is one of those. It’s one of those jobs.
Greg Owens 39:14
Yeah.
Jeanina Ghadieh 39:15
Get into it. You know, I got into it just literally by chance. Um, and it was just, you know, the job came around at just the right time I went from being a private business owner owning my own business to saying I’m, I’m done with this and getting back into the workforce and starting literally at Ground Zero and working my way up.
Greg Owens 39:47
Right, right. So you’ve learned and you’ve learned every aspect of the job in that way. So you know, all the ins and outs of it all. I know that I had one of my, I remember making a phone call at like two Three o’clock in the morning, we were working in a skyscraper in downtown San Francisco. And as we were cleaning up and leaving, I heard this water running sound and like That’s odd. It shouldn’t be inside a building. And it was raining really hard in San Francisco and I turned around the corner and there’s water just pouring out of the ceiling. Right and not something that we did. We just stumbled upon it. And I had to. I was regretting making that phone call. But I knew I had to go to the facilities manager at like, 2:30am in the morning and say, hey, just got a problem here. And we’re going to put some buckets and some garbage cans underneath it, but there’s a lot of water coming out and you’re going to get people to hear right away. And that’s part of the job though, right? Like at any time, anything going wrong with the facility, the building, that kind of thing. It’s falls on your shoulders, your responsibility and you know who to call and what aspects of it are
super, super cheap. And that way
any other sort of like ideas on learnings or software books or anything like that to get people started in looking into careers as a facilities manager coordinator.
Jeanina Ghadieh 41:15
There it is. One organization that I am aware of is called IAFMA, or international Facilities Management Association. I joined them way back in, I think it was 2013. And they do offer training programs. Most of it is textbook and online. So, I did go through that. I did find it helpful in some respects. But, again, there’s only so much that you can learn and
But that is that is a good source.
And for introduction, at least, you know, there’s things that you know, short courses or small courses that you can take. That gives you an insight on what facilities management is what it’s all about. And if it’s something that is actually something you want to get into.
Greg Owens 42:25
Yeah, yeah, we’re a member of if also and it’s a wonderful organization for a lot of information for sure. But you do need like, so that that hands on experience of, of walking through and seeing what a boiler looks like and what a HVAC system looks like. And because each one is so different, depending on how long the building is and where they’re located, that kind of thing. Um, well, this has been wonderful if people wanted to find out more information about you. Where would they go if they can?
Jeanina Ghadieh 42:58
Um, well, I am on LinkedIn. And
I would say probably basically, through my LinkedIn profile would be the best, the best way to reach out.
Greg Owens 43:13
And we could put that information in the show notes for this podcast. I really appreciate having you on this on this podcast and phone call. I’m just sort of sharing and learning about being a facility facilities coordinator for Pfizer. And this has been really wonderful lots of learning and good luck to you in this sort of unfolding of the future here and all the mysteries that we’ll be learning about as we all kind of go along in this sort of new world era. Oh,
Jeanina Ghadieh 43:51
yeah. It’s a whole new learning experience. Definitely.
Greg Owens 43:55
Yeah. Thank you so much for being here.
Intro 44:08
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