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Managing the masses

Managing the masses

It is a job that is more prevalent in Southbank than just about anywhere else in Melbourne and one, that if done correctly, is easily overlooked.

Every apartment complex in Southbank has a facility manager and every facility manager has a story to tell.

This month Southbank Local News went to find out whether what happens in facility managers’ offices stays in facility managers’ offices.

David McGlashan is the facility manager of Freshwater Place and has been working in the field for many years. He’s seen plenty of interesting occurrences in that time.

“Aside from the serious management there have been plenty of times where we can have a bit of a laugh,” he explained.

Mr McGlashan said of all the incidents he had seen, both live and on security footage, the most humorous usually involved a big night out.

“At another building we had a bloke running around the car park, completely naked. A lot of residents don’t realise there are a number of cameras in the building and at times we have viewed some interesting and humorous activities, particularly in lifts,” Mr McGlashan said.

From the stories it seems these activities, and friendly embraces, happen in common areas of the building more often than you would expect.

Freshwater Place has had a number of cases of mistaken identity, with people coming in and asking concierge for directions to a particular floor looking for a business, visitors trying to find the Crown gaming rooms and the Sky deck and even residents forgetting which apartment is theirs.

falling asleep outside their apartment door on the floor.

“We’ve also had residents who try to interpret rules to their advantage. We have had a resident who had the pet dog in a pram on common property where dogs are not allowed. The resident explanation was that my dog is in the pram and therefore not on common property,” Mr McGlashen said.

“Then there are the residents who like to hang their clothes on a line tied between two sprinkler fittings. On one occasion a business man working for a large bank hung his suit from a sprinkler that ended up going off resulting in $7K worth of damage to his apartment and common property.”

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