October Newsletter 2019
Halloween Fun Facts
With fall and winter comes holidays, and while we don’t really celebrate this one with time off, Halloween is next.
Did you know that trick or treating comes from the Middle Age practice of the poor dressing up in costumes and going around door to door during Hallowmas begging for food or money in exchange for prayers?
The earliest known reference to “trick or treating” in North America is from Alberta, Canada in 1927.
Jack O’ Lanterns come from the Irish tale of “Stingy Jack”, which you can read all about here if you are curious.
For those of you that have little ones going out to forage for candy, we want them to be safe and enjoy themselves. We ran across a nice list of safety tips for trick or treaters and it can be found here.
Denver is also full of fun things to do for young and old including corn mazes, parties and movie nights. The folks at Denver.org published a great list of happenings in and around town this year, check it out here.
We wish you and yours a Happy Halloween!!!!
Ski Season
We got our first dusting of snow a week or so ago…..that has to make you skiers and snowboarders very happy!
In that spirit we thought we would give you the run down on Colorado ski resorts and what the schedule looks like for 2019-20.
Arapahoe Basin started making snow on October 2nd and opened on the 11th. Keystone immediately followed, opening on the 12th.
Loveland started making snow on the 3rd and while they have yet to announce their opening, they should be next.
Other notable resorts opening days:
Breckenridge-November 8
Winter Park -November 13
Eldora and Vail-November 15
Steamboat-November 23
Snowmass-November 28
For the full list of opening days, click here.
We hope all you snow lovers have a wonderful season of powder!
Can You Detect a Liar?
All of us tell lies….yes you too.
Most of them are harmless, designed to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.
“Do these pants make me look fat?” is a good example. (By the way, the answer to that question is always…”no honey”).
Those little lies are harmless and common.
What about when you are involved with a big negotiation? Or maybe trying to find out if your child was doing something they shouldn’t be?
We recently attended a cool seminar by Traci Brown that gave us some great tips on body language and other giveaways.
That got us thinking and certainly paying more attention to those around us. It seems that while the words people say are one thing, the body nearly always betrays the liar, IF we know what to look for.
We found a piece from Parade that interviewed CIA officers for their top signs that someone is lying to you.
Also, Forensics Colleges has their top 10 “tells” when someone might be hiding things.
All in all, we like to believe in the goodness of people, but that has gotten us in trouble before.
Being on the lookout for all of the non-verbal signs makes it much easier to detect deception.
Minimum Wage Increase
You may have heard that a law recently passed that allows any city in Colorado to set their own minimum wage.
The current minimum wage in Colorado is $11.10, with $12.00 going into effect on January 1, 2020.
Following this new law, Mayor Hancock immediately then proposed a big increase for city employees which was approved as follows:
“Under the approved measure, the minimum wage for city employees and contractors would raise from $11.10 to $13 per hour by this July. It would then increase to $14 per hour in 2020 and $15 per hour by July 2021.”
Restaurants in Denver are certainly concerned, as outlined here in 5280.
Denver Concierge pays our people well and always will, but this will certainly put pressure on our industry in total when it comes to getting the best people in your homes.
Looks like the days of a $25 cheeseburger might not be far away.
Winterizing Your Lawn
We talk a lot here about what we do inside your homes, but we also realize that outside is important as well.
We also know that many of you have beautiful yards and lawns, so we thought that we would give you a quick checklist of exactly what your lawn needs going into winter.
Hopefully you have had your sprinkler system blown out and shut off for the winter. Not doing so can obviously cause damage from freezing.
Beyond that, the folks at Rachio, who make an amazing automated sprinkler system came up with five things you should do to prepare your lawn for the impending cold.
Monthly Award Winners
Please join me in congratulating our best performers for September 2019.
Our top Cleaning Associates for the month were Maria Zapata, Josefina Puga, Patricia Rodriguez, Aurora Dominguez and Concepcion Reyes.
In the Team Leader ranks, our top Team Leaders were Natalia Olivas and Rosa Chavez.
Thanks to all our team members for their hard work, and a special thanks to our award winners!
Congrats ladies!
Queen Bee Corner
by Angela
Keeping up with technological advances is daunting and not all are applicable to our business. However, over the years since the inception of Denver Concierge we have gladly embraced a few:
Cell phones; say no more. Ditto GPS.
Texting; it has been roughly two years since we introduced texting as an additional means to communicate with our clients.
It is an instant way to contact you in an emergency, or for you to contact us with last minute changes.
Door keypads; many of you now have keypads for the primary door of your home in addition to garage keypads, thus eliminating the need to give us a key, or hide a key.
If you are not texting me, and would like to, let me know. If you want to change from key access to code, let me know that too!
In the meantime,
Happy Halloween!!!
Bee