Can he do it…Bugs, population and…

Can he do it…And will he?

When it’s time to add that new team member we tend to make a mistake by looking for only one aspect of the job’s requirements. Maybe that explains why so many hires don’t turn out as planned. That myopic focus has to do with paying almost exclusive attention to the skills that says the candidate can do the job.

What often gets lost in the interview process is looking for the kinds of traits that says he will.

Let’s just call them the will do’s and can-do’s. Can-do’s encompass things like mechanical aptitude, intelligence, verbal communication skills and even physical strength. They all have one point in common: They’re easily observed right there in front of you – in the present.

But those will-do traits like having a high energy level, emotional stability, honesty, or loyalty are very different. That’s because they’re really only ascertainable by looking at the candidate’s past. If the person has had five jobs in as many years maybe there might be a question of his reliability or stability. If he trashes his last employer in your interview maybe loyalty is an issue.

Most will-do’s can be identified in the interview with targeted questions like, “Tell me about how you spend your typical day off”. If he describes sleeping till nine, followed by spending a few hours watching TV, that might be a red light about his energy level. Alternatively if he responds by describing playing nine holes of golf with his buddies, followed by cutting the lawn, going grocery shopping and then taking the family to a baseball game, he’s probably got the vigor necessary for the job.

Bugs, population and…Controlling it

Understandably most customers have little understanding of how one disease causing bacteria can grow from just a few microbes to a few million. That feat’s made possible by how they reproduce. It’s a biological process called binary fission.

Simply stated, that means one microbe splits into two and then those two become four and then all those new microbes do it again and again until they are either killed or starve for lack of nutrition. That wouldn’t be all that bad except that under the right conditions that replication happens about three times per hour.

And that’s where it gets interesting. After an hour that one microbe is now a cluster of 74. In another hour there are 896. In 24 hours, left unabated and nourished, that one microorganism will number in millions. Now we have a problem.

That scenario is why sanitizing (which means killing 99.99% of pathogen) is so vastly different from a disinfectant that kills 100%. So, while sanitizing a food prep surface is great, it’s not as positive as disinfecting that table. But since it’ll be hopefully sanitized multiple times during the day those microbes can’t reach troublesome levels before 99.99% are again eliminated.

Given that logarithmic reproduction via binary fission, explaining the importance of regular sanitation of food prep services, equipment and (especially) the hands that touch, it is vital.