Like many offices, ours has a bunch of windows and of course
the outside ones have to be cleaned every once in a while. I think ideally, we
aim for quarterly, but realistically it’s a bit less. And that’s kind of a
relief, because it’s a big ordeal.
How many people does it take to wash windows? Well, I don’t
know the total because I was just with one of the two teams. We had one on the
ground to do the windows that were accessible by ladders, but I was working
with a team of two responsible for the ones that required dangling from a rope
over the ledge. One of those guys was the spotter, of sorts, and one guy was
the window washer.
 |
| Not the guy, but close enough. |
In addition, one of my guys was somewhat supervising (he
came and went between the two teams) and our regular window washer was also there.
He’s one of the guys who does the inside windows regularly and I guess he was
there for quality control or something.
And then there was me, so that brought the total of the
ropes team to four. I was there because of the location of some of the windows,
and I was there from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., so it was a long day standing on the
roof watching a guy wash windows.
The actual window washing didn’t take long. I timed one of
the latter windows at 27 seconds, but I was there for seven and a half hours.
But that’s not to imply the guys were dilly-dallying. It was
a fascinating to watch the window washer in action.
He was like Spiderman, but a Spiderman serious about safety.
The guy, who was maybe in his late 20s, had a harness with all these climbing hooks
coming off it, each with a specific purpose. He was deliberate about how he hooked
up all his wires, hooks and clampy things, taking his time and being very
meticulous before lowing himself down the wall.
In all, it probably took an average of 10 minutes to do each
window, with less than one minute being the actual sponge-and-squeegee part. He
had this awfully long rope, which he doubled up. Watching him roll it up at the
end of the day was entertainment in itself because it reeled it in, made sure there were no twists in it
and looped it around his shoulders for storage, then twisted it into a knot for
easy carrying.
He scouted the roof for the little safety hooks, the ones
designed exactly for the purpose of allowing people to hang off the walls. I
saw this earlier in the summer, too, when the guys power-washed the roof. But Spidey
was in a class all his own. Watching him tie knots was mesmerizing, and trying
to figure out what all the implements were hanging from his body was a game in
itself.
He has a couple of things that looked like compasses in giant
Vice-grippy-ish sort of things, and
another thing that I could tell you were supposed hold in your hand, kind of like
a squirt gun, but it didn’t have what would have been a muzzle, just so weird
tube sort of thing. Turned out, these were pulleys he’d clamp to the rope to
help him climb up and down. I don’t mountain climb and really don’t rappel down
cliffs, but it seemed like the kind of stuff you’d use for that.
Except that’s fun. (Or at least is to a certain breed of
thrill seeker.) This was work, and I cannot fathom how someone would wake up
and say to himself, “You know, I want to be a window washer when I grow up. And
not just any window washer, a high-rise one.”
Our building isn’t that high, but it’s far up enough and
solid enough on the bottom to make it hurt if something went wrong. This guy
was no dummy. He was absolutely methodical in his prep work, starting from a
long survey of how to rig up his ropes. It wasn’t just a “hook it there and
slide down” thing; he used multiple anchors at various parts of the roof. I’m
sure it involved math in the same way that playing pool does – tie this here to
leverage that, then run this other thing through here.
I don’t know how long it took him to perfect his method, or
how he learned. He had an assistant with him who was a bit older so I wondered
if he’d apprenticed to a degree, but I couldn’t ask. First of all, the window
washer spoke absolutely no English and I can only say good morning, good
evening and thank you and count to five in Turkish. Second, the assistant didn’t
speak. It took me awhile to catch on to this; I thought the grunting was just
to get the window washer’s attention; the anguage of a longtime partnership.
But eventually, I realized the older man couldn’t speak, like an Avox in “The
Hunger Games.” He communicated by grunting or making a noise with his throat
and was pretty good with sign-ish language. When he made some motions in my
direction, I had no trouble figuring out that he’d asked if I lived in
Istanbul.
Anyway, watching them work together was engrossing. I’d
brought along my Florida State beach chair to chillax in, but I never bothered
with it. I was utterly fascinated with watching Spidey ease himself over the
wall, load up with the bucket, sponge and squeegee and then slowly, a bit at a
time, lower himself to the window. Then, if the window was big, he’d keep
himself from swinging back and forth by smacking a giant suction cup on the
window and holding it while he went to town in the window.
Less than a minute later, he’d do some rearranging of his
clamped items – yes, while he just hung there – and the little Vice-grippy pulley
would emerge and he’d attach them to the rope. Pulling out what looked kind of
like a big nylon dog leash, he stuck one foot in it and then, as he slowly moved
the pulleys up the rope, the rope would raise the leash and his foot, mimicking
him climbing steps. Once he got to the top but before he pulled himself over,
he’d deliberately hand over the sponge/squeegee bucket to the other guy and the
do some fancy clamping and unclamping, plus removed this handy nylon sheath
that he wrapped around the ropes where they touched the building, which kept
them from fraying.
The whole production really was interesting to watch. The
guy, young as he was, was a complete pro. Even at the end, he took a couple items
the assistant had tucked in there back out so that he could refold them in a
certain way.
I really like working with the facilities crew on the
weekends, but usually I want to jump in and do some of the work. I like that
kind of stuff, though I’ll leave the window washing to Spidey. I really was
jealous when they power washed, and when they tore down the wall they pretty
much had to hold me back. I like to try to guess how they’re going to go about the
work, like which tools they’ll use to do the job.
We had a big part on some kind of air conditioning thing
replaced not that long ago, and the unit was on the roof. The part was huge,
like lifted-by-crane huge. It was interesting to watch the crew guide the new
part in, because it was going a couple floors up on the roof – which has lots
of electrical-type stuff on it – and being hoisted by a crane whose driver
could not see the roof. There were a couple guys hands-on on the roof, another calling
the shots and another relaying the shots over the radio to the crane driver. It
went in without a hitch.
Today, I couldn’t even pretend to help, although I think
Spidey was amused at my presence. Through one or two other people, I asked a
couple questions about the equipment because it baffled me. (I thought the
suction cups were kneepads.) But I really couldn’t help, so I took a knee and
weeded the roof. And although that must sound a little weird, the roof has
these concrete (I guess) square blocks and, either on purpose or not, weeds
sometimes spring up between them. Once the team was out of the area where I had
to keep a constant eye on them, I sat down and did some weeding.
I miss this kind of stuff, and it makes me want to buy a
house.
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