A few more tidbits of wisdom

For newly two decades, I have chosen to use my December column in a sort of whimsical manner.  I’ve call it my Christmas Wish List.  I have “asked Santa” to grant us new products, devices or equipment that would fill a need that I find in the industry.  Memorable asks have been a handheld button sewer for shirt laundries that can’t justify the cost of a sewing machine; a shirt press that makes its own hangers, one at a time; a device that stretches the front of a shirt in the event that the buttonhole band shrinks and there are dozens and dozens more.  It’s meant to be fun, but also with hopes that a manufacturer or two is inspired.  That has happened a couple of times and I’m flattered.

This is my 26^th year writing for this publication.  I appreciate this industry and everyone in it.  The industry has been very good to me.  In that spirit, I don’t want to be asking Santa or anyone else for anything.  This is the season of giving.  Not for getting and not for asking for stuff.  

Over the 46 years that I have worked, managed, consulted and directed in this industry, I have picked up quite a few tidbits of wisdom, gold nuggets of “oh I wish I knew that 10 years ago!” and a few, “Well I’ll be a son-of-a-gun.”  Luckily, I have a great memory, so I haven’t forgotten these treasures yet.  I started last month, and I had such a good time sharing that my proverbial cup runneth over and I have still more to share this month.  Read on!

• Why doesn’t the vacuum on your shirt buck work as well as it should?  The answer is pretty easy, but you won’t like it.  Also, your equipment must be well-maintained.  You can’t have a split in your vacuum hose and expect good suction.  Similarly, you can’t have flannel that is so compacted that it is no longer porous.  There is a device that can measure the suction of a vacuum.  I’ve never owed one, although I considered getting one years ago, but I didn’t because I have never once measured a shirt unit vacuum to be below the target range.  Not even once.  Yet most drycleaners would probably claim that the vacuum on their machine sucks, meaning it doesn’t suck.  Why?  How many times have you gone into a restaurant and found the front door difficult to pull open?  If you’ve never noticed, you will starting today, now that I have mentioned it.  This happens because the exhaust fans in the kitchen are on (as they must be), sucking fresh air from somewhere.  The exhaust fan will draw air – no matter what – from somewhere.  Why doesn’t the vacuum on your shirt buck work as well as it should?  Because you have an exhaust fan in your plant that vigorously fights the relatively small vacuum motor which is no match for the 36” (or larger) exhaust fan that moves between 6,200 to 13,000 cubic feet per minute.  The fan will draw air through the vacuum buck, fighting the puny vacuum motor.  If you want to test me “theory”, notice how well the shirts stick with the vacuum first thing in the morning before any fans are turned on.

• I am very much an “employee’s manager”.  I recognize that no manager can accomplish anything unless he/she has the support of quality staff members.  I also have been known to give raises before someone asks for one.  Or let’s say that I’ve done it in the past.  Probably not going to do it in the future.  My philosophy had been in line with that of The One-Minute Manager (Authors  Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson)… catch someone in the act of doing something right.  I definitely subscribe to that philosophy, full force and have for decades, but I took it too far, at least once.  The big laundry that I spoke about last month was really growing.  But we were not quite at the point where we needed two shifts.  We worked 7am-9pm on Monday and Tuesday, until 7 on Wednesday and just regular 8-hour days on Thursday and Friday.  There was one particular employee that worked every single hour that we were open, was never late and never missed a day.  He had five kids with four different women and his wages were garnished to the hilt.  He took home $70.  On a whim, I called him into my office and told him that he was the hardest worker I had ever met and I was giving him a $1 per hour raise, effective immediately.  Who’s dumber than me?  He immediately started taking Thursday off and I sooner fired him for absenteeism based on your attendance policy.  I should have left it alone. 

• You’re gonna hate this one, but it’s true. 

It’s hard enough to get the starch on shirts correct.  Few customers understand that only natural fibers absorb starch, for one thing.  Try as you might, that polyester disco shirt will be as limp as al dente tagliatelle, no matter how much starch you use.  I believe that some customers specifically ask for “heavy starch” because they want that limp noodle to be as full of body as their Robert Graham.  Worse still, they may think that you’re incompetent because you still didn’t give them heavy starch!  I was talking with a customer today who brought in 17 shirts.  He asked for heavy starch.  I decided to explain things to him.  About a dozen were dark colors and 100% polyester.  Four or five were actually starchable.  Starchable is a word that I invented. Conveniently, every single person that reads this sentence knows the definition of this word, which is why if you look up the word in the dictionary, you will see this:                      

I told him that I’ll ring his order as heavy starch and I showed him which ones (the four or five cotton shirts) would feel stiff.  But we know all this.  We all do.  Yet, there are times when the shirts at your plant feel starched and at other times… not so much.  How can that be when you always put the same amount of product in the starch cycle?  You probably think that it’s the number of shirts in the wheel.  It isn’t usually.  And I say “usually” for a reason.  You might need more starch than you’re using.  I have seen some use laughably little in a 50-60-pound wheel.  Like two ounces.  A ballpark amount might be around eight ounces, but it could easily be double that.  I can’t calculate that from here and that’s not what I’m trying to do.  I’m trying to explain why your starch level is different from day to day.  If you are using far too little product and then you double the number of shirts, use the same amount of product and that is still far too little.  You can see that the number of shirts in the wheel may not affect the starch quality in the least.  I had to starch four shirts the other day.  I threw them loosely in the empty drum of a 60-pound washer to run a Starch Only cycle (100 degrees, Low Level).   Knowing that this column had been brewing in my brain, down through my arms and about to ejaculate (Oh Chris!  I know you’ll come up with a synonym!) through the keyboard and into this trusty Mac, I grinned at the shirts in the washer.  I was certain that 99 out of 100 people in this industry are thinking the opposite of what I was thinking.  It was only four shirts; I only need to add a little bit of starch.  Admit it, you would add less starch for these four shirts than if it was a full load of shirts.  That machine likely uses 150 gallons of water (here’s a freebie tip: 70%; 105 gallons of that is hot water).  That’s probably five cycles.  Wash cycle at high level would consume 25 gallons.  Low level is something like 15 gallons.  Following this?  Let’s say that I regularly use eight ounces of premium starch. (another freebie tip:  always throw the starch powder directly on the shirts.  Close the door and start the cycle.)

When I looked at that washer drum with four shirts in it, I thought, “I think that I’d have to add two pounds of starch to get those shirts to stiffen!”  All the while, everyone else is thinking; “Maybe two teaspoons?”  The reason is that you starch the water, not the shirts.  The more concentrated the starch/water mix, the better your starch quality will be.  I get it.  Nobody is going to add two pounds of starch to those four shirts.  I did the same thing that you would do.  Add some starch and hope that you don’t annoy the customer.  If they’re returned, claim “honest mistake.”  If I added eight ounces to 15 gallons of water, the water would be just barely cloudy.  Now, picture the same wash wheel, full of shirts to starch.  The water level in a washer isn’t metered.  The volume, say 15 gallons, is variable, based on the water line on the glass.  For instance, halfway up the glass; 1 inch below the glass.  If the wheel is full of fabric, much less water will be introduced.  Now, the eight ounces of starch produce a liquid that looks like skim milk.  The result will be well starched shirts.  So it does depend on the number of shirts in the wheel but it is inversely proportional, that is; fewer shirts=more starch, more shirts=less starch.  There is a similarity with detergent and water level.  If you have a single piece to wash, and wash it a typical drum at the usual water level, it will have a very dilute solution of detergent and may not do the job. 

I said that you were going to hate this one.  Let me correct that.  Half of you are loving this tip and the other half are hating it.

• In order to press something, you need steam, followed by drying in place to remove all the moisture.  If you don’t remove all the moisture, the fabric will wrinkle, now or later.  Sometimes, if wrinkles occur, one may add more steam.  This happens often with automatic toppers or steam forms.  Adding more steam makes the problem worse.  Remember 3-1.  Use a three to one ratio of dry time to steam time.  This holds true for all equipment and can be damaging to the equipment if you don’t do it.  If you set your steam form to steam for 5 seconds, set the blower for 15 seconds.  If your pants topper steams for 4 seconds, blow-dry them for 12.   Did I say damage?  I often see the steam/blower woefully out of whack.  I can tell when a suzy or a topper is (or was) just by looking at it.  Rust.  The steam is never blown out of the equipment.  Droplets of steam, turn to puddles of water and slowly rust up the cabinet.   Just enough steam to dampen the cloth, then blow dry. Ta da!

• While we’re talking about steam and vacuum.  I just reminded you of how important drying the fabric is.  That’s certainly just as important on a press.  Many have built-in vacuums now, but a great many plants have central vacuum.  There can be all sorts of leakage within either of these systems.  Knowing how important vac is, how can you test to see if you vacuum is adequate?  It’s easy.  Depress the bottom steam and the vacuum pedal at the same time.  There should be no steam escaping through the buck.  If there is, this is a high-priority repair.  Depending on the severity, this press may be unusable.

• Last month, I told you that I would expand on the four things that you need to wash shirts: Time, temperature, chemical action, mechanical action.  These are listed in order of confusingness. Yes, that word does make sense. It’s been said that you can play loosey-goosey with these components – more of one and less of the other and get the same results and then back again, but which ones?  And by how much?

• Time.  Really?  We can’t be taking two hours to wash shirts no matter how big the washer is.
  • Temperature.  We talked about this at length last month.  Check it out.Chemical Action. I suggest that you leave this to your supplies rep.  The best thing about being in the laundry business is that you can make poor wash quality someone else’s fault.  But do your part!  Make sure your equipment is working correctly and that your water temperature is correct (go get that December issue!)
• • Mechanical Action.  The confuse-ability quotient has been maxed.  As long as the washer is tumbling, that’s a ton of mechanical action, right?  We need it.  We have it.  What else you need?  The tumbling washer is, indeed, mechanical action, but not necessarily good action.  If shirts were uniformly dirty, washing loosely might make sense.  I’m not sure.  I’ve never seen shirts uniformly dirty, but I know that bed linen is and that is washed loosely.  Shirts must be rope-tied in order to get clean.  You cannot get shirts clean if you wash them loosely.  (Sorry Charlie)

Oh!  I see you in the back row!  Your shirts are always clean, and you always wash loosely.  But you scrub collars and add a “dirty collar” additive to the wash.  What you’re doing is making up for inadequate mechanical action and adding chemical action.  And if you do the math, you will see that your chemical cost is twice what it would be without those additives!  Oh, excuse me.  You said that you do not scrub or spray collars and the shirts are coming clean while being washed loose?  Well, in that case, we will reduce your chemicals and chemical cost and add mechanical action with RopeTies. Additionally, the RopeTies will protect the shirts from getting torn, keep shirt orders together to make assembly super-quick and easy, protect tags from getting lost, improve wash quality and increase wash capacity.

Hey, this was fun.  If you have any specific questions, drop me a line at tailwind.don@me.com.  I’ll group a bunch of good questions (If I have the answers) in an upcoming column.

See you next month!