Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Window to the soul
On Sunday, I decided on a whim to drive to Central LA to visit Amoeba Music to pick up yet more CDs. Absent-mindedly though, I forgot to fill up my car with petrol (or gas as it’s called here) before hitting the highway. Upon realising my oversight, I made a quick exit off the highway to hunt for a petrol station.
After slaking the thirst of the gas-chugging monster, I decided to take it upon myself to use the provided squeegee to clean the horrendously dirty windshield and side windows, which were threatening to obscure my vision and cause an accident.
I’d barely started when a soft voice spoke up from behind me, “Hey man, can you help me out with 50 cents? I’ll do your windows for you.”
I turned around and saw a black guy who looked about 40,50-ish, with traces of grey running through his close-cropped hair and moustache. Though his clothes weren’t in the best shape, his once-white T-shirt was neatly tucked into his tattered jeans, which had generous patches of old motor oil or grease stains. The frayed edges on his shoes barely held them together, but they were still very much in service. From his barrel-chested, ham-bicepped build, he could have easily passed off as a boxer, though generally speaking he had a rather benign air around him.
I wasn’t in a hurry, and my windshield and windows WERE filthy, so I replied, “Yeah, why not?”
He picked up the squeegee I left on the bonnet and got down to work. Gripping it with both hands, he proceeded to wet the windshield generously with soap water and remove it with careful, measured strokes. His slow but firm movements resembled those of taichi, and from the sense of purpose reflected on his face, you would have thought that he were painting the sequel to the Sistine Chapel, except that his job was much more down-to-earth. Before the dirty water managed to drip much further, he deftly wiped it up with a paper towel to prevent it from soiling the bodywork, though in this case the bodywork wasn’t a very pretty sight to begin with.
After he went one round with the squeegee, he then took out more paper towels and repeated the soap water procedure with the same approach, meticulously wiping each inch of glass to a spotless shine and scraping off avian excrement (ok ok, birdshit). As he did this, he proceeded to wax lyrical in a slow drawl about his philosophy towards cleaning windows.
“I been doing windows a looooong time man…I may be old fashioned, but I still like using these paper towels to get a good shine to these windows, you know what I mean? My friend gave me a squeegee once, but it can’t give you the same shine like paper towels man. I know it takes a bit more time…”
In the middle of his philosophizing, he stopped to greet the gas station manager with an exchange of familiar greetings. I guess he must be a familiar face around here.
As he went another round doing the windows and carrying on about his style of window cleaning, what struck me most was how much pride he took in what he was doing. It may not be much of a career choice for most people, but he still maintained a level of dignity in his speech, dressing and actions, which is more than I can say of some people I know. His meticulous work ethic is something we don’t see much in todays’ disposable society, in an age of major financial screw-ups and engineering disasters. He may have been doing a lowly, mundane job for pittance, but he did the best job he could, with pride.
Of course there’s a lowlife in every profession, and in this case they’re known as squeegee men. Though I have no personal experience with them, it would seem to me that they’re more thugs than anything else. I’m guessing that they probably won’t do much more than splash water on your windows and demand a fee for that.
Though this might seem a rather trivial observation, if you look at it in the perspective of this whole internship being an introduction to the working world, this window washing guy was showing me a lesson too.
When I think back about some of the people I’d worked with in National Service, school projects, music etc I remembered that there were some of them who could have greatly benefited from better work ethic. Being on the receiving end of shoddy work and mopping up after half-hearted jobs is something I hate and try to avoid inflicting on anyone else. Incompetence or incapability is occasionally excusable under mitigating circumstances, but negligence and laziness don’t go down too well with me. After 3 years in NUS doing countless group projects, some stellar and some downright disgusting, a guy doing my windows demonstrated something that some more educated people are incapable of.
When he was done, I handed him 4 quarters and he flashed a crooked but grateful smile, with a simple word of thanks. Though it was more than he asked for, I drove off all the richer for 5 minutes more at a gas station and some change.
After slaking the thirst of the gas-chugging monster, I decided to take it upon myself to use the provided squeegee to clean the horrendously dirty windshield and side windows, which were threatening to obscure my vision and cause an accident.
I’d barely started when a soft voice spoke up from behind me, “Hey man, can you help me out with 50 cents? I’ll do your windows for you.”
I turned around and saw a black guy who looked about 40,50-ish, with traces of grey running through his close-cropped hair and moustache. Though his clothes weren’t in the best shape, his once-white T-shirt was neatly tucked into his tattered jeans, which had generous patches of old motor oil or grease stains. The frayed edges on his shoes barely held them together, but they were still very much in service. From his barrel-chested, ham-bicepped build, he could have easily passed off as a boxer, though generally speaking he had a rather benign air around him.
I wasn’t in a hurry, and my windshield and windows WERE filthy, so I replied, “Yeah, why not?”
He picked up the squeegee I left on the bonnet and got down to work. Gripping it with both hands, he proceeded to wet the windshield generously with soap water and remove it with careful, measured strokes. His slow but firm movements resembled those of taichi, and from the sense of purpose reflected on his face, you would have thought that he were painting the sequel to the Sistine Chapel, except that his job was much more down-to-earth. Before the dirty water managed to drip much further, he deftly wiped it up with a paper towel to prevent it from soiling the bodywork, though in this case the bodywork wasn’t a very pretty sight to begin with.
After he went one round with the squeegee, he then took out more paper towels and repeated the soap water procedure with the same approach, meticulously wiping each inch of glass to a spotless shine and scraping off avian excrement (ok ok, birdshit). As he did this, he proceeded to wax lyrical in a slow drawl about his philosophy towards cleaning windows.
“I been doing windows a looooong time man…I may be old fashioned, but I still like using these paper towels to get a good shine to these windows, you know what I mean? My friend gave me a squeegee once, but it can’t give you the same shine like paper towels man. I know it takes a bit more time…”
In the middle of his philosophizing, he stopped to greet the gas station manager with an exchange of familiar greetings. I guess he must be a familiar face around here.
As he went another round doing the windows and carrying on about his style of window cleaning, what struck me most was how much pride he took in what he was doing. It may not be much of a career choice for most people, but he still maintained a level of dignity in his speech, dressing and actions, which is more than I can say of some people I know. His meticulous work ethic is something we don’t see much in todays’ disposable society, in an age of major financial screw-ups and engineering disasters. He may have been doing a lowly, mundane job for pittance, but he did the best job he could, with pride.
Of course there’s a lowlife in every profession, and in this case they’re known as squeegee men. Though I have no personal experience with them, it would seem to me that they’re more thugs than anything else. I’m guessing that they probably won’t do much more than splash water on your windows and demand a fee for that.
Though this might seem a rather trivial observation, if you look at it in the perspective of this whole internship being an introduction to the working world, this window washing guy was showing me a lesson too.
When I think back about some of the people I’d worked with in National Service, school projects, music etc I remembered that there were some of them who could have greatly benefited from better work ethic. Being on the receiving end of shoddy work and mopping up after half-hearted jobs is something I hate and try to avoid inflicting on anyone else. Incompetence or incapability is occasionally excusable under mitigating circumstances, but negligence and laziness don’t go down too well with me. After 3 years in NUS doing countless group projects, some stellar and some downright disgusting, a guy doing my windows demonstrated something that some more educated people are incapable of.
When he was done, I handed him 4 quarters and he flashed a crooked but grateful smile, with a simple word of thanks. Though it was more than he asked for, I drove off all the richer for 5 minutes more at a gas station and some change.
# posted by BloozeGit @ 8:58 am 
