Don Draper - Window Washer Till The End

His window-washing career continued right until the tragic end of his life.

Don Draper 1925 – 2014: The carousel ride is over - With Mad Men’s last season (sort of) kicking off April 13, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to speculate on the demise of its main character (oh, come on, you know it’s coming).

Loyal father, loyal-ish husband, boozy grandfather, Donald “Don” Draper lived a full life marked with stellar ups and downs. Little is known about the early life of Don Draper, besides the fact that he fought in the Korean War and absolutely did not die and then have his identity stolen by another man.

Draper rose to prominence in advertising as creative director at the firm Sterling Cooper (later to be renamed Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Holloway Ginsberg Romano) and was responsible for some of the greatest ad campaigns ever, such as Kodak’s “It’s a Carousel, Like Life, I Guess” and Clearasil’s “Oh God Your Face.” Many of these campaigns won prestigious Adverty Awards.

Draper continued to have great success until the 1980s, when he began to lose his magic touch, starting with the campaign for Colgate Frozen Dinners. His now infamous slogan, “Give Yourself a Good Reason to Brush Your Teeth,” sunk the product line and managed to actually drive sales of Colgate’s toothpaste down as well, as he insisted the toothpaste be rebranded as being only for use after a Colgate Frozen Dinner.

The campaign that finally ended Draper’s long advertising career was for Coca-Cola. Looking to spike their sales, Coca-Cola enlisted Don to come up with new product ideas. In one of his first meetings with the company, Draper took a drink of the classic cola and immediately spit it out in disgust, unused to consuming non-alcoholic beverages. He told Coca-Cola that they needed to start over and came up with the idea for New Coke, which was originally 65% rum. Due to U.S. Food and Drug Administration demands, that was reduced to 0% and New Coke flopped. Don Draper’s slogan, “Coke is Garbage,” also did not help regain customers when New Coke was fully abandoned.

His window-washing career continued right until the tragic end of his life.

After his dismissal from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Holloway Ginsberg Romano, Draper left his fourth wife and moved to Cupertino, California, taking a job as a window washer. Like he did in the advertising world, Draper rose through the ranks quickly, winning several Windowy Awards for his speed and trademark creativity in window washing. He eventually made partner and the company he worked for was renamed Buscema & Sons & Draper.

His window-washing career continued right until the tragic end of his life. On March 28, Draper was washing the 14th floor windows of Apple, Inc. headquarters, when he took notice of the meeting happening within. Apple staff were brainstorming the upcoming ad campaign for their new wearable computer, the iWatch. Draper, probably seeing this as his chance to re-enter “the game,” began banging on the window, shouting, “Just Watch Me!” over and over again at the top of his lungs. The people inside the room were stunned and fled, just in time to miss seeing the platform holding Draper and his trusty bucket, “Deeandra,” give way, resulting in his fatal fall.

Donald Draper is survived by his seventh wife Olga and a lot of kids. He was 89.

Homage To The Entrepreneur Window Cleaners.

Be very conscientious about doing an excellent job. Your dedication will help you better acquire business customers on a regular basis.

 Never have Entrepreneurs been so sexy. Young people everywhere who have tried working for someone else, realize the freedom & energy from being your own boss empowers your destiny. Put as much in as you get out! Window cleaners in general look for internet resources on a daily basis for peer reviews on products, trends & applications to take their businesses to the next level. Window cleaning hasn't stood still since the advent of the water-fed pole & other cleaning related work. Homage to the window cleaning forums & a special "hat tip" to Window Cleaning Resource in the USA, having just surpassed a six thousand (6000) membership, congratulations.

You need self-employed people around you or to converse with, for several very good reasons. First, employed people will struggle to understand you. If you have a bad day, you need someone to say “Yep, I know what you mean, that happpens to me too. It’ll be OK” rather than “Don’t worry, you can always go out and get a job”. I don’t have anything against employed people, by the way. It’s just that it’s a different way of thinking and you need at least a few people around you that think like you do.

Second, your perception of ‘normal’ comes from the people around you. If you’re the only self employed person you know, you’ll feel like a risk-taker who has recklessly leapt off the career ladder into a working wilderness. If you have a circle of self-employed people to interact with, you’ll (OK maybe eventually) feel like it’s an alternative career choice that has loads more possibilities for interesting and rewarding work. After all, it’s working out for them so why shouldn’t it work for you? If you have been in business for over five years, well done...

The U.S. Small Business Administration has seen lots of small businesses come and, unfortunately, go. According to the SBA, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. The following are reasons for small business failure:

1. Lack of experience
2. Insufficient capital (money)
3. Poor location

4. Poor inventory management

5. Over-investment in fixed assets
6. Poor credit arrangements
7. Personal use of business funds
8. Unexpected growth
 

Gustav Berle adds two more reasons in The Do It Yourself Business Book:
 

9. Competition
10. Low sales

In his inauguration speech, President Obama paid homage to entrepreneurs. The path to greatness, he rhapsodized, has been paved by "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things--some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

Almost three years later, it's clear he was spot on. Entrepreneurship has been one of the precious few bright spots in a terribly gloomy economy, and this new generation of entrepreneurs, both intentional and accidental, has taken it upon themselves to keep things chugging along. At the same time, starting a business gained serious cool cred.

Consider American Express' slick ad campaign featuring Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard; foursquare's founders as models in glossy Gap mag ads; and the cults of celebrity surrounding "the Zuck" and the late Steve Jobs. Even A-list stars like Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga added headlines to their clip files from startup-centric blogs like TechCrunch and Mashable.

"Entrepreneurship has become sexy in a lot of ways," says Clay Newbill, executive producer of ABC's Shark Tank, which features people pitching their dreams to a panel of deep-pocketed investors, including Mark Cuban.

Entrepreneurship has never been more practical, either. According to the Kauffman Foundation, 565,000 new businesses were created in 2010--the most in 15 years--as many new 'treps were forced into it by the downturn. "Young people know that there's a high likelihood they'll have to make it on their own," says Thomas Knapp, associate director at the University of Southern California's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. USC has seen a 13.2 percent year-over-year increase in students taking entrepreneurship courses at the school.

Window Cleaner Reflects On Twenty Year Career

Window washer reflects on 20-year career: With a squeegee in his right hand and an applicator in his left, Ben Appleton can clean a window in a matter of seconds.

Appleton, of Fulton, has been washing windows since he began working for Shepherd’s Company back in high school. He’s been with the company for about 20 years and now mostly oversees the window routes, though still washes from time to time.

Just as windows come in all shapes and sizes, so do the window washing jobs that come Appleton’s way. He has washed windows at small homes and businesses and has done jobs that require poles or lifts, such as the Columbia Public Library. He’s cleaned windows at the Faurot Field press box at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He’s also worked on the Lake Regional Health System in Osage Beach, which had about 2,000 windows to clean.

More on Ben, here.

Ben Appleton washes the windows of Aflac near Walnut and Eighth streets. Appleton has been washing windows for 20 years.