Somehow, this topic of hygiene links well to 5S. The system that I am proposing to improve the overall feeling of life. A place where you could call home everywhere that you go. In the office, in the car, in your room and in your physical home. The 5S system originally proposed by Toyota Production System, a lean system has its own followers and advocates. The system personally works everywhere, and anywhere. As will be discussed throughout my journey on this web. Lets us go together on the journey. Personally, I plan to update only in a weekly basis on Saturday night God willing.
What about this Covid-19 which makes it so big throughout the world. Its a pandemic, which sweeps the whole world in less than 6 months from the starting point in Wuhan. It has locked down almost the entire world or earth in that sense. It has caused everybody to stay in the door because of the worry of what the pandemic will do to our health. This small virus has caused more chaos that there rest of humanity in the modern age. But, it is not that the pandemic did not occur in history, but this time it is different. Before, we are at the mercy of the pandemic, before the religious houses and spaces are closed because most of them are not around anymore. There are effectively dead. But, this time around, it is not. People are being proactive, the government are being proactive, the governor is being proactive so everybody is trying to mitigate bad thing from happening in their area. That is the main difference. Imagine, if we do not take action to stay home, what happens at every turn of the century will happen again, the plague will continue for years until it calms down. The call for prayers will stop because nobody is there to call for them, and the bell will stop ringing because nobody is there to ring them. So, is that ideal?
No right or wrong answer
I am no giving the answer here, because it is a philosophical one. There is no right or wrong answer. As in any storm, some would just ride the storm until it is over, some will prepare for the storm and some will do their best during the storm. Can anybody answer which is the best? I can’t. Still from 5S point of view, we could consider the following:
- Should we let people die because of our in action or are we going to do the best that we could?
- Is there any other way?
- Economy first or human life first?
It have always been easy to say somebody is wrong, he did that, she did that or they did that. However, the most difficult part and the most humbling part is for us to acknowledge that we may be wrong. We may not be taking the best action, or we are not doing it right at the moment. Everything in this world is about doing experiment, an experiment to make it better, a technique or method to improve ourselves and our lives. But, somehow some people just don’t get it. And it is okay. We do not expect everybody to understand that improvement comes slowly and require consistency. In any way, the commitment is still required to help everybody from this pandemic. And it is all about the good things in life that we need to progress to make it better. So, let’s hope that the few suggestion that government and WHO is proposing is good. Let’s do our social distancing, do our stay at home routine, improve relationship with our family, slow down and see the world from a different perspective.
Social Distancing
So, social distancing is important to reduce the pandemic to reduce the infection rate. Some may not like it, but for the rest is it okay. Those who are used to social events will feel that this is a stop to their life. But, it is. Now we should be able to appreciate people more. A way to improve the overall system so that we could be in a better state from what were are right now. Can you imagine how it would be if we were to fully embrace the way of life we are now? The life that was will be different, a lot will need to be changed for us to be able to work, play and rest. Are we ready for the change? So, at least for the next 6 months – 2 years we will need to stop kissing non-family members and close relative to reduce the risk of infection to us and then to the one we love. That is new already.
Infection
Next when we talk about infection, we will be taking about hygiene and how well have we performed. How good is our hygiene, from dusk till dawn, and finally till we sleep. Are managing hygiene or it is part of our life. Are we doing the hygiene route just for the sake of it, or is it how we have been doing this for a very long time. Simple question to ask about hygiene?
- How does you toilet looks like at home or in the office? It is sparking clean, or is it full of you know what?
- How does your kitchen looks like? Have you seen any mold around the edges? Can you find those black strips any where? How would you rate your toiler?
- The pantry in your office? You cleans them> It is the cleaning lady that comes in one a day, or everybody cleans them as it come. Thus, making it clean at source.
- When we go into the bedroom how does it look? It is messy, dusty and moldy? How frequent do we remove the rubbish from the room?
- Look at our trash, it is smelling or still look and sounds fresh?
- How frequent do we check the food in the refrigerator or freezer for expiry dates?
Question are the answers
These are some of the questions that we have or I have, but the list could go on endless. Your see, I learn from a book “Question are the answers” by Allan Pease. So, the quality of our question determine the quality of our answers? So, I like to ask questions more, and listen more.
- How does your toilet look like at home or in the office? It is sparkling clean, or is it full of you know what?
- How does your kitchen look like? Have you seen any mould around the edges? Can you find those black strips anywhere? How would you rate your toiler?
- The pantry in your office? You clean them> It is the cleaning lady that comes in one a day, or everybody cleans them as it comes. Thus, making it clean at the source.
- When we go into the bedroom how does it look? It is messy, dusty and mouldy? How frequently do we remove the rubbish from the room?
- Look at our trash, it is smelling or still look and sounds fresh?
- How frequently do we check the food in the refrigerator or freezer for expiry dates?
These are some of the questions that we have or I have, but the list could go on endless. Your see, I learn from the book “Question are the answers” by Allan Pease. So, the quality of our question determines the quality of our answers? So, I like to ask questions more, and listen more so please give your comment and feedback on this.
House condition
In this case, if the house we are in poor condition, we can’t expect the same person to be serious about hygiene. They can’t even manage their own office, their own, car and their own house, how about managing their self. It is already too much to ask. I once was being sarcastically commented by my dad look interesting, but in fact it is full of rubbish everywhere!! I keep on saying that the kids are small and they eat in the case and got a cold answer that “that is the reason I don’t allow you to eat in my car!!!” Problem solved. But, it is?
Personally I do not think so. Because, what is important is we come out with a routine to clean, lubricate and re-tightened whatever is in the car. A standard schedule of work. A standard routine where cleaning ix performed, once a week, once a day or even once a month. The frequency is not as important as that depend on the condition that needs to be done, but the schedule is. We need to have them to make sure that we are in good condition and consistent.
Cleaning as we go
For example, if we have the faucet below, we definitely need to clean them in a certain schedule to make it clean and to tighten certain portion of the faucet and lastly probably to replace the o-ring when it started to worn out. But, how many of us do this in our own home. We run maintenance to failure concept in our house. Although we know for our car, there is a schedule to follow. But, we do not design them for our house, even our offices.
Thus, I am here to advocate, Covid-19 may not all be about hygiene, there are social distances to follow, good social norms to adhere to and lastly personal hygiene to follow. In effect, however, we try to manage our personal hygiene, it would not be a positive response until we move into a higher level of hygiene, the cleanliness of our space. Let’s think about it this way, how about we need to make sure that we are happy with he space that we are in, working in and living in.
Hotel inspector
My wife made it spot on, whenever she went into a new hotel or house, the first thing that she will definitely check is the toilet. If the toilet is horrible, then we can expect the rest could be even worst. Cosmetically, it may look very well in the kitchen, room, living room and so forth, but if we delve deeper we will see the consistency between the their toilets and other location. Some of you are smiling now.
With that let us do the following.
- #stayathome
- #goodluckfrontliner
- #takecaretogether