Mashona Marsh 21:57
Well, you know, when it comes to goals, you know, you, you want to set the standard as high, of course, you’re going to always do the best that you can. And if you, if you can achieve that, you know, you just don’t give up, you just keep trying. Now, back in high school, I didn’t run one year of track, and I set a goal, so I’m gonna run next year, and then two years after that, get the high school record. And that was, that was a goal for me. And also, it was goal for me to basically moved to another city, which was Houston, Texas, and I’ve been there 32 years. And that was a goal to get out and see what else was out there. To see what more I can to keep does that my company, I started out, you know, in Omaha started as a as a mail clerk, just doing mail. And then I came down here as supervisor mail service. And now I’m a Facility Manager, and I’m going to be my company. 2021 years. That’s, that’s my goal was really there. And that’s really achieving. It’s still there.
Greg Owens 22:56
Right? Yeah. And then and then it’s that sort of sticking with it. It’s so important, even if it’s on even if you’re not quite getting it, if you set the goal pretty high, you’re still you’re still achieving something along the way, right? And speak and speak to good about like, like, behaviors, or habits that you found that are been helpful in reaching goals, because that’s where I think a lot of people don’t realize it’s like, you know, in order to run, you have to sort of set these sort of mile markers where what you’re going to try to achieve on on on given days. Right,
Mashona Marsh 23:30
right. You can start off at a low point. Like I was saying earlier, just you just can’t give up. As always, obstacles and hurdles in front of you that you got to look beyond the obstacles and hurdles. You’ll see that on my website. Yeah, it’s never comes in front of you. I guess it’s got to do the best you can. And you’ll get there. There’s always things that we’re trying to do that we can, but then there’s always that finish line that you can always go to.
Greg Owens 23:59
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s really good stuff. And I think it’s very much needed out there to have more shared experiences and stories around how people achieve certain things in their lives. Right. And that it is possible, right? So that’s a great, that’s a great service you’re bringing into and you’re set. You’re trying to bring that to high schools and to middle schools,
Mashona Marsh 24:22
or you’re trying to motivate kids to no matter where you came from how you started. You can achieve things in life and make it the best thing you can do is just never never give up. We all need help. But sometimes you got to help yourself. You go from there, you can offer
Greg Owens 24:41
Yeah, I love I love that. Like you have to help you have to kind of you definitely have to help yourself first, right? Make sure you’re good. Then Then from there, you can actually give more, you’re more but that’s so good. And tell me a bit about how you got into it’s always interesting to me and Something I like to share of like how people get into facilities management to where they are in their careers now, because the path is not, it’s rarely a path that’s like straight, like a straight line to this, or it’s something that they always wanted to do. And a lot of times, it’s something that sort of came came in sort of increments, right, like the steps, right? kind of spoke to it a little bit, but speak to it a little bit more. You’re saying like, what what that path look like? Well,
Mashona Marsh 25:27
um, I started off as a mail clerk, years ago, back home, moved to Houston as a supervisor, mail service, downtown. And of course, during the course of that I work some temp jobs, which I got a chance to work some facility system, a few people were out and had never worked facilities may say, Oh, you’re doing good. So I went in there and found out who does the maintenance and who does the basic, you know, office knees and office what I learned and I worked there, like nine months, then I got there, I went to a human resources company, and worked there as a facility assistant. And that helped me you know, move along with smarter skills and more things I need for my new job, though. Of course, during the course of that one, I went to this company, I am now Subsea 7, they had a opening for a mail clerk. So when I got there, I said, Okay, that sounds good. Back in 2000 2001, my boss at that time, he asked me, Well, what else can you do? I said, Well, I can do I can do facility that facility experience. And believe it or not great, here were five people doing my job when I got there. So they gave me all the duties that they had put in my programs in my experience, while the face I had, and everything is still working in 20 years, right. Oh, wow. I’m seeing her in the basement, the same thing? And I’m in control of what I do.
Greg Owens 26:57
Yeah. And what happened to those the five people that were there doing the different aspects? Did they move into other?
Mashona Marsh 27:03
They were part of, I guess, a part of the HR, I can say, I don’t think it only one person I can think of right now. Oh, right. Right. Right. There’s one person they gave me early, do, they were happy to get rid of them, I was happy to take them. And it worked out really good. I kind of put in my experience and my programs and Brona some of my contacts, and everything worked out is running real smooth, even after all these years.
Greg Owens 27:28
That’s great. Because he and you mentioned it, you get to sort of create the, your job role in a lot of ways, right? Like, right, you moved into this, you and you brought along all the experience and all the things that you’ve learned in the past to then like, streamline it, make it so that five people didn’t have to do it anymore. And it you could put systems on basically, but you got to control sort of all those aspects and put the energy in where you felt necessary. Right. And
Mashona Marsh 27:57
so my contacts are brought in, you know, that are contact for different jobs. That worked out, it worked out really well. And no one ever had that job at my company. I’m the first person that had that position. Yeah, still the person has it. And that helped me you know, put in my program to make sure it’s working in store.
Greg Owens 28:17
Yeah, and people don’t realize like one of the great benefits of having some of that experience that you have now is that sort of your contacts that you’ve learned call when there’s an issue like who do you who do you know that you can ask these kinds of questions and get this problem solved right? In all aspects of building which there’s a lot of things go there
Mashona Marsh 28:39
is quite a bit I will just hand in some flowers and say this year das and kind of okay, kind of went from there but when they realized I knew some facilities that that was not working well the position I was in first time then it all came to me this came to me all to get all together.
Greg Owens 28:55
And we talked a bit on the podcast before the podcast about your name Shona and give a little bit of like background to it because I read about it on on the web on on your website, but and you said your dad had the same name and you’re now your son was named name right. So this has been a sort of a tradition within your family and your and your culture in a lot of ways.
Mashona Marsh 29:19
This might take a couple of days, Greg. Real quick, was shown. Come from Zimbabwe. There’s a region Zimbabwe call Michelle Nolet. Now, Mashona, goes back. years is a bantu name from Zimbabwe. It goes back 1000s of years there was a African king named Shona with about 15 letters at that I can’t pronounce it but that’s an that’s another story. The way I got my name was my grandfather was a minister back in Mississippi. And yeah, he had a minister that can win over to Michelle, which was called Rhodesia back then, and I When he came, he suggested the name to my father and my grandfather. And that’s how we ended up with the name ship Mashona? The second and the third which is
Greg Owens 30:12
your son is Mashona the third then Mashona the third. Oh, nice. Yeah.
Mashona Marsh 30:17
Now on the sport name for my name is Shona, the pronunciation in Africa, the shoulders mean many in the MMA and in the shoulder means the shoulders. So that’s the definition of that goes back down.
Greg Owens 30:30
Oh, wow. That’s That’s great. There’s some serious like, a match
Mashona Marsh 30:33
my noun mouth from from the early 30s or late early 1900s. Where says Mashona, no, no, why don’t essentialism stone he says and Shona. Shona lay away?
Greg Owens 30:46
Right. And that’s, that’s all in the same Zimbali sort of region?
Mashona Marsh 30:50
Always Zimbabwe. Yeah, yeah. Even the capital Southbury that’s in Mashona, lower
Greg Owens 30:54
right. I’ve got some friends that live in Zimbabwe, and it’s on my list to want to go there and visit them and see that part of the world.
Mashona Marsh 31:02
But personally, I have never been over there one day, maybe I will. But that’s what my main basically right,
Greg Owens 31:08
right, you can claim your you can go back and clean your lands that will go over well.
Mashona Marsh 31:15
This a shoulder length research shown an arc is shown with people, Muse. So if you look up, Mashona, look up shoulder, you’re fine. All of that they see me showing a cattle. That’s something you probably wouldn’t imagine.
Greg Owens 31:27
No, no, that’s it. But it’s rolling. But it’s cuddling cattle from those lands, right? That makes sense.
Mashona Marsh 31:34
On those lands. Yeah, showing the music, you’re showing the art. And everything’s the way of life and culture is about even today. There’s millions of stoners showing up people in Zimbabwe today.
Greg Owens 31:46
That’s wonderful. And one of the things I like to touch on in this podcast, and in this, I think will resonate with you really well is I think there’s I like to highlight or showcase that there’s, there’s different paths to be different, what directions you can take to becoming a facilities manager, and the reasons why right and, and each, like, whatever your sort of knowledge you can pass on to somebody else, like either that person that’s coming up in there, they don’t know what they want to do with their life, they’re not sure what what would you say to them is like the benefits of being a facilities manager, and then what advice to sort of help them make those steps to find out more,
Mashona Marsh 32:30
the benefits will be you real helpful with a lot of problems that gone into building in your area, and you have to be a versatile problem solver, which really helps in your job is accumulation of jobs in order to achieve all of them different need. It’s a process, like he was saying earlier, and I was suggested them and you can just walk into facility managers job, you’re going to need various different skills in order to achieve that, maintain it, and maybe pass it on a loan to someone else, to now different buildings, facility manager have different needs and wants. So every building is different, it runs different set of different, so your needs might be totally different than another person in the next bill.
Greg Owens 33:17
Right? Right. And you hit you touched on a key word there is that problem solving, right? Because like, along with each building, there’s different needs that pop up, right, like newer office complexes are have much different needs and, and services than say, like a much older bank building that’s been around for 100 years,
Mashona Marsh 33:41
you’re gonna have more problems than the older building. And normally, that’s a partial load and elevators and things like that,
Greg Owens 33:48
you’re gonna have more mechanical, you’re gonna have more mechanical, hardcore mechanical problems. Right? Right. But the new building is gonna have more hardcore software problems. Right, and it takes a different type of mindset to solve whatever problems those are, right? And then there’s experts can help, right? And then your job is really sort of facilitating how to get that figured out,
Mashona Marsh 34:16
figured out, right? And you don’t have a lot of timeframe because you never know what, what the next problems gonna be. Or the next thing that can go on in the building. And like I say, I’m a, I would call a my first personal problem solver or making, making make it easy. That’s what all my experience is. I just kind of smooth it out and go to the next one. People always say I’ve never found it. I said, Well, if you plan that you won’t get the job though.
Greg Owens 34:42
That’s a good one. Because you Yeah, cuz people around you are panicking, and you’ve got to be literal. Yes, sir. Yeah. And then you’ve got to like calm their nerves down, even though you might not have all the information yet and might not know how to solve the problem. But you know how you’re going to like figure it out. How to solve the problem.
Mashona Marsh 35:01
Yeah, I already have the answer in my head when they’re trying to figure out trying to tell me I got it. I just like calm down a little bit and kind of see what they need. Right? And my best scenario said, Okay, I’m gonna get right, I’ll get I’ll get back with you. So even though I might know the answer might not be the right answer. But if I just wait a little bit, I can
Greg Owens 35:19
see, so you give it a little time sometimes to even know, you could answer the question right away. Right? Right.
Mashona Marsh 35:25
All right, sometimes that helps you come out a little bit a little better, you know, if you just wait just a second kind of think about it without panicking with them. Right?
Greg Owens 35:33
And what, to speak more about that because I think that’s a brilliant sort of philosophy, in a lot of ways for a lot of different problem solving issues, right? So, so somebody, somebody’s panicking, and you get on the phone with them, and you could answer their questions and problems right there. But you’ve found it better to like, like, say, Hey, let me give this some thought. And I’m going to get back to you, I’m gonna make a couple of calls, I’m gonna check into some things, and I’m going to get back to you in a few minutes. Is that okay? Or an hour, or whatever the timeframe is, right?
Mashona Marsh 36:06
Right. And that kind of works for me, um, because they are, they rely on me to do a lot of different things, of course, and I’m pretty, you know, pretty smooth at what to do and what’s going to happen later, I always get back with them, always follow to check with them and make sure things are working. But this happened is slowed down a little bit. And to figure out where we’re going with this. Some things are a burden, Steve, with this, okay, I gotta go check it out. Take care of it. Get on the phone, or
Greg Owens 36:37
sometimes you got to, sometimes you got to call 911. I am. Nice. Yeah.
Mashona Marsh 36:47
It’s okay. Cuz I just, you know, just be smooth with it. And they like, Okay, I’m not panicking. So they come down really quick, when they realize that I’m in charge, because you trying to tell me something? And I’m trying to help, you know, so this, this, get through this. But of course, they don’t know that. They just say how it goes really?
Greg Owens 37:07
Yeah. And I’ve learned this the hard way that, that so when I when I get a call from a customer, or an employee that’s panicking and having a challenge, right? That I used to try to solve it right away on the phone with them. But inevitably, now they’re hurt. That would be be more hurtful to me, and maybe not necessary, right? And so I learned and it sounds like you learned the same trick, or not even a trick, just sort of like a philosophy to give it a little time to really think through how you’re going to help what’s best for you, and what’s best for them. And the whole structure, basically. Right? And then you can you can come back with a more thoughtful, like, here’s what we’re gonna do. Here’s the steps. Here’s, here’s the next step in this process, right? Do you have any other questions? And then they inevitably, they’re much calmer than
Mashona Marsh 38:02
they’re much calmer? Because they’re not really in a panic mode, and they’re ready to receive your answer. Right? And sometimes you don’t get back with them right away. But I’m always thinking about how can make it better when I when I do?
Greg Owens 38:15
What’s going on? Like, what’s one of the most difficult things you’ve had to run into in your career here now?
Mashona Marsh 38:22
Um, well, there’s probably a long list. But one of the things that basically happens a lot, they have a they have like maybe a meeting going on. Either the projectors not working, or something wrong with the different setup for the table. We know things like that. I have one instance where a pitcher fell off the wall. But of course break I have 50 pound books on the pitch. A lady sat down is a big meeting with them. I don’t say who was witnessed a big meeting. Some big guys render and of course, she sit down and when she rose up as a question her surely for knocking picture off the wall. Everybody jumped up, but first thing someone said was Hey, Paul, Michelle, Anna has a efmd Powell hooks on there. So they’re not sure why after a lot, they find out that team, Papa, get rid of the chair. So it wasn’t that problem. But that was a major problem. Because then I had to go check all the pictures. Everything had to be double check, but we didn’t find anything wrong with any other picture stuff that works, you
Greg Owens 39:31
know, right, right, right. And you’ll find this out you know, as you do speaking engagements it gets it gets super challenging. I rolled into like, Here I am, I’m supposed to speak and the facility isn’t ready for us, right? We’ve got 30 People in the parking lot and they don’t have a room right like because because some somehow communication broke down and like they didn’t they didn’t set it up correctly. Right maybe problems. Oh, yeah, right. Right, and then I as the facility, you know, as the as the speaker and stuff have to, like, calm everybody down and be like, jokes of like, no big deal, we’ll do this in the parking lot, if we need to have like, we’ll just have to get some excellent jackets on, we’ll do some jumping jacks, because I know it will warm everybody up during this process, right. But I but I’m doing that stalling hoping that that they get it worked out and we get a room and it did, right. And those kinds of things are, they’re stressful, right? Like we, when you’re, you’re you’re going to be presenting or you’re presenting to the board at a company, we see this a lot within what I do is a painting contractor. It might be a big board meeting with the CEO and other CEOs of other companies and that kind of thing. And, man, they want everything to run like clockwork. Right. And, and they might be called bosses. Right? Right. And they might be calling us in the background saying, Hey, we’ve got a major problem. There’s some, you know, there’s some problems in this office, we want to get it fixed right before the next board meeting, which is tomorrow, right? Can you get some people here tonight that can clean this mess up and make it look better and make it look presentable and make it so it doesn’t smell like pain at the same time, all of that.
Mashona Marsh 41:19
So I probably missed a meeting sometime, you know, they don’t have as many meetings as they used to, because COVID, right, a lot of cars coming in. But that was a major one. And plus the safety guys was in a meeting and they all jumped up. The picture never fell off the wall. Because the other cook, you know,
Greg Owens 41:36
that’s nice. The backup was hanging
Mashona Marsh 41:39
off a little bit. But of course, that was a big deal do safety guy, they came down measuring it.
Greg Owens 41:44
Yeah, we’ve had, we’ve had some jobs, and we had to go through all the flat screen TVs, you know, and make sure they’re more secured to the wall. Because they were right. They were worried about those popping off dirt where you know, we’re in earthquake country. And so they were they were very concerned. So we went through and made sure that there was extra Molly’s and each one of those so that if it if it was to fall off, it would just hang on. Yeah, cuz, because some of those get pretty heavy when you’re at like 90 inches, you know? Yeah, yeah. Um, so any advice for somebody like coming up and thinking about becoming a facilities manager? How would you tell them? How would you tell them to get started in this now?
Mashona Marsh 42:22
Well, there’s a lot of life spare experiences you’re gonna need. Basically, if you work in an office, like you’ve, if you’ve been in, like, being a clerk in office that helps you kind of know what the office needs are things like that. need to have some experience. Like I said earlier, you can’t really walk into a facility management job is a process that you go through. And you basically have to use all your skills that you’ve learned through your office, or through your job, job performance. Yes, you’re gonna need all of them on that job. When you push really bad. Some people asked me, How do I do it, I said, well, is experienced through the years of experience, experience, and write it off as being around people, because I like to help people. And I like to see the result.
Greg Owens 43:10
And being helpful like is it is a really good skill, because you can learn a lot, right? Like if you’re right here, and you’re coming in as an intern, or if you’re coming in and just being like, like open to new experiences, and being boots on the ground helping out right, seeing what to how the process gets to how it gets solved. Like there’s a major problem, and yet people have to stay late, or whatever it is stay late, you know, and that those kinds of those kinds of little experiences can add up
Mashona Marsh 43:39
can add up. That’s true. That’s true. But remember, never pay. Never, never pay. That’s the verification that you pay again, for that work
Greg Owens 43:47
for that matter. Right. Right. Right. Any and what do you what’s your thoughts when it comes to never panic on any skills or any things you do personally to not get caught up in that? In that
Mashona Marsh 44:01
panic? Yeah, well, this, I look them in the eye. And I’m just to reassure them that I’m okay with what the problem is. And they look at me like, Well, I’m not having a problem, but they are. But if I if I show them that I’m okay, but what’s going on, they come down really quick. And then they can kind of explain a little bit better as to what you’re trying to do. And I feel bad about it, because now they’re talking in more of a lower tone and more of a an email. It’s kind of slowed down a little bit too as what they’re trying to
Greg Owens 44:33
tell me. Right. Yeah, that’s a whole tricky one with the emails too. Sometimes they’re super long
Mashona Marsh 44:37
emails. Right? Right. The whole different ballgame.
Greg Owens 44:40
Right, right. I I I rarely read critical emails, like to my company. I’ll look at it. I’ll get the gist of it. And then I’ll call the client because I want to I want to have a conversation about it. Right. I find that to go back and forth and emails just Like, no, it crushes my soul.
Mashona Marsh 45:05
I put a little words back.
Greg Owens 45:07
That’s it. Yeah. Right. And people can be vicious in an email, right. And I find that when I get like, in front of them, and we get to actually like, talk it through, we can we can come to agreements, I can put the nuances of what what actually transpired, I can bring it what you were saying earlier about, when somebody is panicking, you make it, you take on the personal responsibility of the problem, your understanding of it, you’re not saying like, it’s my fault. You’re saying, I’m hearing you, a god it? You know, I understand the problem making sure I get it clear. Right. And then you can then respond, right? Yeah. And that’s, that’s a power. Those are powerful steps, right? Because it definitely does calm people down, because they hear you taking ownership of that.
Mashona Marsh 45:58
Right? Right. It’s best if you can talk to someone about it. It’s all pretty quick version back and forth with the emails. Sometimes it takes time any got any master will call me in less than three minutes. We didn’t solve what’s going on?
Greg Owens 46:14
Right? Right. Yeah. Whereas an email, man, it could be multiple threads.
Mashona Marsh 46:21
For our email, lead, come back, and Denise back at the same email himself.
Greg Owens 46:26
Oh, man, I mean, some I’m in something that because we because we do quite a bit of corporate work, it’s sometimes the worst, because they’ll have like 15 people and an email thread, right, talking about one problem. And in my mind, I’m like, well, I could solve this with two of us just having a conversation and meeting and taking a look. Right, and we’d be done. A whole lot of time, just back and forth, back and forth. I’m always pushing to like, hey, I’ll even say things like, hey, guess what? I’m in the neighborhood, which not necessarily true, but I’m not that far away. Oh, oh, go and put eyes on it right and walk through with you and, and we’ll get this thing. We’ll get this squared away. It’s so much better.
Mashona Marsh 47:13
Another person on Korea, if they jump in and they had made a comment didn’t start over? Right? Exactly, exactly. person in there. We didn’t think of that. And it kind of keeps going and going until I kind of lose out.
Greg Owens 47:26
Right. And I can miss some things too, because there could be like little nuances where they mentioned my name, but you know, my eyes are glazing over. Because there’s a tremendous amount of it’s not relating to what we’re doing. The joys of this,
Mashona Marsh 47:43
that you probably don’t have a clue. You probably remember, you know, by track and you never work for the facility manager. But this is something you probably don’t know about me. I should be a DJ back in eight. Oh, really? A DJ. I was a DJ. Yeah. Back in it back in the 80s. Ma’am. And that was when this kind of era when Michael Jackson’s hand off off the wall album, it was in the air. All right.
Greg Owens 48:09
Nice.
Mashona Marsh 48:11
never would have thought of that would would have you?
Greg Owens 48:13
No, not at all. That’s a whole different track. You are on there. That’s it. That’s great. Are you doing any of that kind of thing now? Or is that that you put that
Mashona Marsh 48:24
on No. DJ at home on holidays and for like family and things like that? I probably still could DJ.
Greg Owens 48:31
Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s that’s a fascinating career path these days. You know, some of the some of the best DJs in the world make like 60 million a year. It’s crazy. Right?
Mashona Marsh 48:45
I do a podcast DJ and some new music. I don’t know. I’ve heard about guys doing it.
Greg Owens 48:50
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of creativity going on out there. And in the mean, this you got to bring that the Shona back in to DJ music, and that would be combining combining traditional stuff with DJ is unbelievably absolutely incredible. I go to Burning Man every year and I highly recommend it and hear about that. That’s in California. It’s in Nevada. It’s in the desert, rather close. Yeah, and some of the music out there where they have like a DJ mixing in the acoustics of another color array. And expanding upon it and creating something completely new is just phenomenal. It’s really
Mashona Marsh 49:35
great for what my DJ name was,
Greg Owens 49:38
unless your do Yeah, well do it. Is it go on your credit? Yeah,
Mashona Marsh 49:41
I was known as Mr. ldeo. Mr. LDO, LDO. Calm whenever I go back home, but what does that stand for?
Greg Owens 49:49
What does that stand for? Yeah, long distance operator. Do you find it funny though? That is great, long distance operator Oh, this
Mashona Marsh 50:01
is operator. That’s why I was calling.
Greg Owens 50:04
Is that just
Mashona Marsh 50:06
to let you know you would have never asked me about?
Greg Owens 50:08
No, no, I did not see that on your personal website there was not on there. Yeah, that’s great. Is that did you get that nickname from your running and that kind of thing? Or when?
Mashona Marsh 50:22
I didn’t know this? Extra? I heard it on the phone. You heard it on a song. Oh, really? I can’t remember what song it was. But it was a salsa, my set alone this operator, and it was in a song. That’s how I came up with that.
Greg Owens 50:36
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, this is this is, you know, we’re coming here to the close of this podcast. It’s been absolutely wonderful. Talking with you. How what’s the best way people could find you? I’ll put your personal website in into the, into the into the chat, you know, and so that people can see it. They can find you that way. Also, like LinkedIn is probably pretty good for messaging you if they want to learn more. Yeah, all right. Yeah, that’s That’s great. So thank you again for being on this podcast Watching Paint Dry. Mashona This has been a wonderful conversation
Mashona Marsh 51:12
or be in touch you ever heard Houston? Look me up. Okay.
Greg Owens 51:16
Yeah, yeah, it would be good same. If you get out here to visit family in Northern California. You definitely should stop in and we get out here and near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Mashona Marsh 51:27
Really good. Have a good weekend, right? Yeah, you too.
Outro 51:41
Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.