Healing Holistix

The Window Cleaner.
(Working for CCL Ltd in Palmerston North)1962

The company’s government contract for commercial cleaning included a tall building with sash windows. The easiest way of cleaning the outside of the windows was to sit on the window sill facing inwards, slide each window down on your thighs and spray and squeegee until it was finished then slide that window up while you finished the other. My co worker , Alan and I parked the company van and carried our cleaning equipment, squeegees and buckets up three stories in a building devoid of lifts to start at the top of the building. Soon we were happily cleaning away but after a few minutes Alan called to me and pointed down to the street. Way down below we could see a little, portly man holding a Gladstone bag, looking up at us, but he didn’t respond when we waved to him so we just got on with the job. We finished the job after another 15 minutes and were just packing up our gear, ready to move to the next floor, when the man appeared at the door of the office we had been working in.
“I’m from the department of Labour. I noticed that you weren’t using a safety harness. Why haven’t you chaps got a safety harness?” he asked. We explained that we did have a harness but the building had no anchor points to hook onto- not even a radiator to wrap it round.
He pondered that for a while as he looked around the office then he disappeared downstairs and we thought we’d seen the last of him.
As we carried our gear out of the ground floor entry door and as we were loading it into our van he reappeared and waved us over.
“I’ve had a thought,” he said, “if you carried one of those 56 pound weights with a handle on top around with you - you could clip your harness onto that!” His pleased expression with his inspiration faded when I pointed out that I weigh considerably more than 56 pounds and if I fell out of the window the weight would follow me out and finish me off on the pavement.
“Good point!” he said and wandered off , Gladstone bag by his side and a sad look on his face.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Eeeks!!!! Great life story Michael! :lol: Torre.

The other most useless statement is "The cheque is in the post"

What's a cheque?? ( oh hang on , I paid a guy for some firewood the other day. I said would a cheque be OK?" When I had found my chequebook the last cheque was dated 2011! For firewood!)

It is good that you hadn't burnt your cheque book in the interim, Michael. After all it originated from wood.