The Window Cleaner
November 17, 2013 7:33 PM   Subscribe

 
A man got a phone call, and someone said, "The viper is coming."

A few minutes later he got another: "The viper is four blocks from your home."

He was beginning to get a bit nervous. The next call said, "The viper is one block from your home."

And then the door rang. Quite nervous, now, he answered it. A man stood there, with a cloth and a squeegee. He said, "I am the viper. I'm here to vash your vindows."
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:42 PM on November 17, 2013 [16 favorites]


That was a lovely read. Now I want to hire a window washer.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:46 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm going to make this my next vocation in life.
posted by humanfont at 8:09 PM on November 17, 2013


Thanks for this...
posted by HuronBob at 8:45 PM on November 17, 2013


"I am the viper. I'm here to vash your vindows."

Is this a joke or a G.I. Joe reference?
posted by Hypnotic Chick at 8:46 PM on November 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is this a joke or a G.I. Joe reference?

It's a pretty old joke.
posted by curious nu at 8:56 PM on November 17, 2013


There's a beauty in doing a job just right.
posted by arcticseal at 9:11 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Even Van the Man cleaned windows! [YouTube]
posted by maupuia at 9:32 PM on November 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is this a joke or a G.I. Joe reference?

It's a pretty old joke.


Probably most well-known from Alvin Schwartz and his Scary Stories books.
posted by daninnj at 10:00 PM on November 17, 2013


One of the nicest guys I know is a professional window washer. Work slows down (but never stops!) in the winter, here, when it gets below freezing, but he's run off his feet in spring and fall. He has a couple guys working for him now, so he can do the bigger commercial gigs, but he still has time to do residential work - including cleaning your gutters, since he's up there with the ladder anyway, you know.

he has a great tan, too.
posted by Fraxas at 10:24 PM on November 17, 2013


Cleaning the windows is one of the few housecleaning jobs I rather enjoy.
  • Vacuuming is too noisy.
  • Mopping leaves areas of the house inaccessible.
  • Dishwashing hurts my back.
  • Dusting upsets my breathing.
  • Cleaning the bathroom (all that white!) seems so sisyphean.
Cleaning windows - it's quiet work, the dust is contained, and you get to go outside. When it's done well, you let the sunshine in, and when you're inside, you get to enjoy the view through the window.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:35 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


#otherpeople? Maybe I'm inside, cleaning the other side of the window. Not so #other #after #all, #huh, #punk?
posted by oceanjesse at 10:45 PM on November 17, 2013


Found the tone of this slightly condescending, like a 1950s Pathe newsreel about the cap-doffing working class. Also had hoped for more info on how often nude people are seen while cleaning windows.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:41 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Also had hoped for more info on how often nude people are seen while cleaning windows.

Inside and out the back, sure, but I put something on when I do the front windows.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:12 AM on November 18, 2013 [8 favorites]


I respect people like this, and I've been one, and perhaps will be again some day. People with simple work that the world oversees the import of, but who still are committed to doing it well. These are good people who will get what is coming to them, if not in this life.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'
posted by allkindsoftime at 1:32 AM on November 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


True story - my uncle was a window cleaner on the skyscrapers in Toronto in the 70s. He once fell 20 stories into a snow bank, broke his back and couldn't walk for a year,but lived to tell the tale (and he likes to tell it, every time I see him).
posted by mannequito at 1:56 AM on November 18, 2013 [4 favorites]


When i'm cleaning windows
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:18 AM on November 18, 2013 [2 favorites]


2 Scaffold Workers Rescued From Outside 45th Floor, New York Times, June 12, 2013:
The Hearst Tower is one of the most modern and distinct buildings in the city, with radically angled panes of glass rising above the original 1928 Hearst International Magazine Building as its pedestal.

Designed by the architect Norman Foster, it was the first skyscraper approved for construction in the city after the Sept. 11 attacks. When Mr. Foster submitted his unconventional design, according to an article in The New Yorker, the first question the building owners asked was, “How are you going to clean those windows?”
Why let a little practicality spoil an otherwise perfectly good plan?
posted by cenoxo at 3:57 AM on November 18, 2013


I'm a working man in my prime. (YouTube)
posted by GrammarMoses at 4:43 AM on November 18, 2013


The description of a man just doing his job and doing it well is sort of beautiful, but also a little unbelievable. For what the article says about his route and his scheduling to be true, every one of his clients would need to be on exactly the same window washing schedule at all times. It's possible he's enough of an in-demand master of the craft that he can demand his clients all follow a monthly schedule or something, but it just seems unlikely. I want to believe, I'm just not sure I do.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:11 AM on November 18, 2013


The description of a man just doing his job and doing it well is sort of beautiful, but also a little unbelievable.

Yeah, I've not read the whole thing but this jumped out at me...

It’s warm work, climbing up and down a ladder all day long.

Hmmm you see, you don't see window cleaners up ladders now since an EU directed banned working at hight unless there was no way around it. What you see are guys pulling a little machine on a trailer that pumps water up to the end of a squeegee on a long pole or just the pole squeegee that's used to clean upstairs windows. Like this.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:03 AM on November 18, 2013


Wow fearfulsymmetry, talk about taking the magic out of life. I've never felt more American in my disdain for regulation than just now.
posted by dame at 8:19 AM on November 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


I used to work graveyard in a hotel and one of my favorite parts of the shift was when the maintenance guys would sweep through the lobby to wash the glass. They could soap the doors in two or three quick swipes, then squeegee it all off in one long serpentine stroke down from the top left corner to not quite the bottom of the pane, then a hard-to-describe tilt into the corner that actually involved moving one end of the squeegee backwards a bit, then over and up with the squeegee tilted to direct the runoff into the still-wet area, down and up and down again and finally across the bottom to catch the tiny area where they'd had to backtrack to reach the first corner. They both had towels tucked into their back pockets in case of drips or spills which I never once saw them use. I've tried following the same pattern when cleaning windows myself, and can sort of do it, but I always end up using too much water and that corner flip thing is really hard to do properly.

Every morning at 3:30 am I'd sit outside in my booth watching these two bored-looking middle-aged Guatemalan dudes do their perfect synchronized glass-and-soap dance routine, working their way across the lobby's worth of windows in about ten minutes flat and then moving on to wherever they moved on to next.

Then I'd count the minutes in my head until the first guest would push a door open with his hand on the glass like a dickhead instead of using the handle like a civilized human being.
posted by ook at 8:39 AM on November 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


jacquilynne: "The description of a man just doing his job and doing it well is sort of beautiful, but also a little unbelievable. For what the article says about his route and his scheduling to be true, every one of his clients would need to be on exactly the same window washing schedule at all times. It's possible he's enough of an in-demand master of the craft that he can demand his clients all follow a monthly schedule or something, but it just seems unlikely. I want to believe, I'm just not sure I do."

What's so hard to believe about this? People don't look outside, think, "Hmm, dirty windows...", and demand a cleaner show up today. They either pay for a regular service, or do it themselves.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:16 AM on November 18, 2013


I did this for years in an upscale touristy little town (Saratoga Springs, NY). We primarily did commercial property and got a reputation for doing display windows without knocking anything over. It was surprisingly lucrative and overhead was non-existent. After the pole and squeegees all we ever bought was dish shop and paper towels.

Back in the day, quick cash was the name of the game and window washing was perfect. No questions asked, no receipts required. Scheduling was easy. Every month or so (you know, when we needed cash for... uh, stuff) we would just turn up and do the windows. Dirty or not. Nobody ever balked.
posted by cedar at 1:03 PM on November 18, 2013


What's so hard to believe about this? People don't look outside, think, "Hmm, dirty windows...", and demand a cleaner show up today. They either pay for a regular service, or do it themselves.

Sure, but some people are going to pay to have them washed in the spring and fall or quarterly or monthly, etc. Clients move and die and new clients start up. The article paints this very zen master picture of a traditional situation unchanging over time that I think is more artistic license than literal fact. It's a pretty picture, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:12 PM on November 18, 2013


Oh crikey, I have been thinking of hiring a window washer, but winter's coming, and is there any point?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:42 PM on November 18, 2013


...winter's coming, and is there any point?

Do it. You need all the light you can get this time of year.

Then I'd count the minutes in my head until the first guest would push a door open with his hand on the glass like a dickhead instead of using the handle like a civilized human being.

Various jobs I've had involved keeping glass doors clean, and invariably I'd be washing one when someone would put a hand print on--usually because glass doors are a PITA to push open without doing so. Most folks apologized right away--to which I replied, "Job security!" in a cheerful tone of voice. Never failed to raise a smile, and 's true.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:05 PM on November 18, 2013


« Older How to open a can after the apocalypse   |   June Oswald Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments