YMCA Window Washers & How To Sparkle On The Job

One way to get experience in the job market is with hands-on experience. Shelby Marse, 19, of Montgomery, washes windows at B's Auto Parts in Newburgh on Friday. She works for a window-washing franchise that's part of the YWCA of Orange County's program to teach nontraditional job skills to women.

Group trains women for jobs - YWCA helps promote trades that pay more (New Windsor). Shelby Marse sees window washing as a way to a better life. The 19-year-old Montgomery woman has been working since July for a Fish Window Cleaning franchise operated by the YWCA of Orange County. The business is part of the organization's efforts to provide workforce opportunities that may lead to higher-paying jobs than those traditionally open to women without college degrees. “A young woman who doesn't pursue higher education goes into child care, health care for $8 to $9 an hour,” said Christine Sadowski, YWCA executive director, “while a young man goes into skilled labor” and earns much more. The employment path, she said, starts when girls baby-sit while their brothers mow lawns. “Some women are unhappy in those jobs,” Sadowski said. “And we want to show them that there are other possibilities.”

On-the-job learning: Marse is thinking she might like to run her own business someday. In the meantime, she said, she's learning new skills washing windows, as well as making more money than she earned in a supermarket bakery. “I'm working with the public more than I did before,” Marse said, “so I've learned about customer service: dealing with very nice people, aggravated people, all different sorts.” She pointed out the five windows and the doors she'd be washing at a restaurant on Route 32.

“I love it because I'm independent,” she said. “I make my own hours. The more (window) jobs you have, the more money you make, so you want to get as many jobs as possible.”

Targeting single mothers: The YWCA has also begun a free eight-week program funded by the United Way that offers discussions about skilled trades that women might consider. It includes an introduction to using hand tools and working from ladders. Volunteer guest speakers include women already engaged in nontraditional jobs and labor-union representatives. One class is now held at the YWCA office at 484 Temple Hill Road. It may expand to different locales, depending on demand.

A key group that the program aims to reach are low-income, single mothers. “They can't take four, six years to get a career,” while a paid apprenticeship might work for some, said Danielle Marse-Kapr, coordinator of the workforce program and Shelby Marse's sister. The YWCA, she said, wants to make women more aware that there are options available to them. “Either they don't realize it,” Sadowski said, “or don't know how to go about it, or that they don't feel comfortable, but by and large these are not jobs we put before women as career choices.”

How to sparkle on the job: You've probably seen the dude in downtown Raleigh, single-mindedly and unobtrusively doing his duty. On the other hand, maybe you haven't seen him because you, like most others, look right through him the same way you look through the window he is washing. On a recent afternoon, my buddy Blind and I sat outside sipping coffee and marveling - yes, marveling - at the attention to detail the man was exhibiting while washing the windows at the Morning Times coffee shop. After he'd made them appear flawless to the average eye, he did something unimaginable in today's society, which rewards mediocrity and slipshoddiness: He washed them again. Only then did he step back to admire his handiwork. It's impossible to imagine Michelangelo feeling any more pride after finishing his 16th chapel than showed in window washer Kevin Spencer's face after he'd finished that window.

Satisfied at last with the window's luminosity, he sheathed his squeegee and prepared to climb onto his mountain bike. "Say, homes. You got a minute?" I asked Spencer before he pedaled away. During the course of our conversation, I learned that Spencer, 59, uses the unlikely pulpit provided by cleaning windows to "introduce people to my love of the Lord." He is also, at times, a one-man employment agency. You know those dudes you see shuffling around downtown, hummin' and bummin' all the live-long day for spare change? Spencer said he sometimes gives it to them when they ask, but more likely will suggest where they can get a job.

Honorable work though it is, does anyone grow up with the goal of cleaning dead bugs off windows? Spencer didn't. In a life that has had as many twists and turns as he uses when scrubbing the squeegee across dirty windows, Spencer went to college to become an engineer. "I hated washing windows" as child, he said. "My mother was always trying to get me to wash the windows. I'd do anything to avoid it." When he started washing them for a living, he said, "I called my mother and told her. She couldn't stop laughing."

He got into the business in 1984 when he met a man in Chicago. "He was in the ministry, and he told me he had a business. He asked me if I had $20. I said 'yes.' He said 'You're in business, too.'" Spencer said he bought a squeegee and a bucket and the minister gave him a list of 20 stores that needed their windows cleaned. He said he has cleaned windows in Chicago, for the Baltimore Public Schools system and at the Pentagon, among other places. He now has clients all over Raleigh, in Cary and Wake Forest.

Greg Hatem, who owns the Morning Times building and several other downtown buildings that benefit from Spencer's work, said Spencer has been working for him a long time. "He's great," Hatem says. "Not only does he do a great job, but he has such positive energy. He's one of those people that makes you feel better after you see him." Spencer is divorced. So how, I ask, do the honeys respond when he tells them what he does for a living? "I tell them I'm self-employed. I'll take 'em out to dinner to one of the restaurants where I clean the windows," and in the course of the meal mentions his association with the place. Some, he said, are ready to split immediately, while others are impressed with his initiative. Still others, he said, ask if they can wash windows with him. Men: That's when you know you've got a keeper - when she offers to join you cleaning dead bugs and grime off windows.

There is another notable downtown squeegee-wielder threatening Spencer's livelihood, possibly undercutting his fee. Is Spencer worried, I ask? Nah. "He's not a nice guy. Even if he gets the job one time, they don't want him back. He's not friendly. I'm very friendly. Attitude," the window-washing sage concluded, "has a lot to do with everything you do." I'll bet Michelangelo felt the same when he finished the Sistine Chapel. So should we all.

Home Owners Attitude To Window Cleaning

Housekeeping is pretty easy, with the correct attitude: by John Agnew. A friend told me that she hired a man to wash her windows, and my ears pricked up. She has a three-story house with numerous windows, unlike my one-story house, but window-for-window, I can match dirty with anyone. If you take pride in your dirty windows it's so much easier to accept the situation, so it's all about attitude. Anyway, this got me thinking about my windows, and I'd rather not. Even thinking about them leaves me feeling tired and cranky.

I asked Kathleen, my favorite daughter, what she did when she thought about washing windows. “I lie down and wait until it passes,” she said. I thought that was quite astute, even if not original. She is obviously her father's daughter. When Alice thought about windows she asked our yard man to do them, and of course paid him extra. He was very agreeable and did other jobs for us, as well. Alice asked him to remove the Christmas lights from the shrubbery once, and after noticing that the strings were badly tangled he took clippers and cut them into manageable lengths. “Those lights weren't any good,” he explained. Alice laughed too hard to get upset. I hasten to add that the lights were unplugged when he attacked them, which was probably to my credit.

My mother was unlikely to hire anyone to wash windows when she had two perfectly healthy and unemployed children hanging around the house. She came from the farm and had much more positive feelings about “do it yourself” than we did. I don't know if my sister washes windows today, but she irons everything, including tee shirts and fitted sheets, so I wouldn't be surprised. When you lose your appreciation of the value of your leisure time, this manifests itself in many ways. I've avoided that pitfall.

My experience washing windows and mowing the lawn as a child explains my resistance to doing those things as an adult. I may be a slow to learn but I'm quick to remember. You can't fool me, when it comes to those accursed activities. You can use euphemisms to describe the work, you can hide the tasks behind anything you wish, but I'll sniff it out and think of something else I need to do first.

My friend said that if you dilute “Dawn” detergent and work slowly, it leaves no streaks - as if I would want to know this. I told her I would keep that in mind. I like to mollify her, as she might repeat herself until she gets an acceptable response from me. Sounding sincere is a learned attribute, just like having pride in your dirty windows. These things don't take long to learn, and they are really good time-savers, later on.

She is likely to ask me about any progress in the window-washing department, and that is another problem. I don't want to lie, since I have a reputation to maintain, but when you put your reputation up against washing windows you realize how ephemeral a reputation can be, and wonder if it is even worth defending. I recently went to two funerals in eight days (Old Guys like me tend to do that) and not once did I hear the departed extolled for washing windows. Do you think St. Peter asks about your windows? He does not, and I have that on good authority. Put something in the collection basket every week and you get a pass on windows.

I have a maid, Luciana, for a few hours every two weeks, a policy Alice instituted and I gladly continued. Luciana bends over and reaches up a whole lot better than I, so I just stay out of her way. She puts things away more than I tend to, and in more diverse locations, but searching for them beats pushing the vacuum cleaner. Self-propelled vacuums are better than the old kind, but you still have to drag it out and set it up, another task I learned to avoid, way back when. I'd like to ask Luciana if she “does windows,” but I'm afraid I might frighten her off, and I just can't face that. I'd rather lie to my friend. Who wouldn't?