Who’s the boss?

The Uncertain Hour

Marketplace

Government, News

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jerry Vazquez was in the cleaning business now, and his clients liked him. They’d leave him notes, some with smiley faces drawn in. But, he says, he was barely getting by on the rates negotiated by Jan-Pro. He started feeling like had little control over a business that he owned. As Jerry would soon find out, some of Jan-Pro’s other franchisees felt similarly — they were stuck. So Jerry decided it was time to fight back.

For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week’s word is “franchise.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, just a quick note to say this is the second episode in a three-part series.
0:05.0	You'll love it even more if you start at the beginning.
0:09.0	Take exit 39, on-line, to Mount Vernon Avenue, then keep light.
0:14.0	So this is the exit that you would always take.
0:16.0	This is the exit? Yeah. It's coming back. Yeah, memories.
0:20.0	On a rainy day before the pandemic, when we could still be inside the same car,
0:25.0	Jerry Baskas and I were driving south on the 215 freeway, East of LA.
0:29.0	And Jerry's old, faded gold Honda, which was badly in need of new shocks.
0:34.0	If you notice one, you hear that sound?
0:37.0	Oh, is that what that means? That's the shocks and the mortar mount that needs to be replaced.
0:42.0	I'd ask him to take me by that daycare he used to clean, just so I could see it.
0:46.0	The one with all the poopy diapers.
0:48.0	We were retracing the route that he used to drive every weeknight when he was a janitor
0:53.0	with the cleaning company Jan Pro.
0:55.0	Keep right on road to East Washington Street.
0:57.0	And as we got closer, he was starting to look nervous.
1:01.0	What's going through your mind, man?
1:03.0	I don't want to go there and clean the building.
1:06.0	He was surprised how quickly the dread came flooding back, even more than a decade later.
1:12.0	It's like a little bit of a headache.
1:14.0	It makes your heart pump and makes you sick.
1:19.0	I mean, and I had no problem cleaning the messes or anything.
	...

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