Furore Fönsterputsare Outside Swedish Store

Vanessa Ileva, not a fan of amateur window cleaners

Swedish store 'sorry' for dousing beggar - A Swedish supermarket has issued an apology to a woman who was asking for money outside one of its stores, after a passerby reported that the woman was doused with water by the window-cleaning store manager. A Swedish passer-by witnessed the event and quickly wrote about his shock and outrage on social media. The post soon made the rounds online. The supermarket chain Hemköp on Friday said it had apologized in person to the woman in question. "Hemköp in all ways wants to express regret that Vanessa Ileva was doused with water in connection to the store manager at Stigbergstorget washing the windows without paying due attention," a statement read. 

Head of communications for the entire chain, which has 180 stores across Sweden, told The Local she made sure to have a translator with her so that she and Ileva would be able to communicate as well as possible. "She was very grateful that I was there and that we apologized, but I also wanted to hear how she had experienced the event," Maria Nobel told The Local on Friday. Ileva, 28, who worked in Spain before travelling to Sweden, yelped and started crying after the dousing, drawing attention from nearby florist Lillian Pekkari who walked over to comfort her. But the store manager showed up again, Pekkari told the Metro newspaper. "He came out again with a new bucket of water that he threw at the next window pane just as aggressively," she said.

People demonstrated outside the store.

When news broke of the dousing last week, several hundred people assembled outside the Hemköp store demanding an answer. The store manager was threatened and has since gone on sick leave, Sveriges Radio reported. Spokeswoman Maria Nobel declined to comment on how the furore had affected the store staff. "It's of course been stressful, but out of respect for them I don't want to comment further," she said.

The story hit a raw nerve with Swedes, many of whom have mixed feelings about the surge of people asking for money on street corners. Nobel added no further explanation to the conclusion of the internal review that the store manager had not shown "due consideration", but she said that Hemköp understood why the incident had sparked such attention. "Maybe because it's a hot topic. We understand fully why it caused such commotion," she said. "It was serious what happened and we take it seriously."

Also on Friday, the Metro newspaper reported that an Instagram account had been set up to photograph and register beggars in Stockholm, with the aim to highlight what "politicians don't give a f*** about".  And on Thursday, the Expressen newspaper also reported that a small Ica store in Fornåsa had put up a sign discouraging its shoppers to give money. "Please! Don't give the beggars anything," the post read. Local resident Sanna Käck at first didn't believe the news and headed off to the store to check that the reporter hadn't been fooled by a photo montage. Surely a company wouldn't tell its customers what to do, she thought. "I couldn't believe it when I saw the sign with my own eyes," Käck reported back to Expressen.

Previously, the store manager said he concentrated on the window he was cleaning and that he splashed water on Vanessa on purpose.

Hemköp apologizes to Vanessa: Vanessa Ileva was doused with water when she was sitting & begging outside Hemköp on Stigbergstorget, in Gothenburg has now received a personal apology from the chain store.  Hemköp investigation into the incident is complete and shows that the store manager was negligent when he washed the windows.

According to several eyewitnesses, the store manager poured water on Vanessa and the story of what happened spread quickly in social media. I have personally met her.  I listened to her experience of the event, and we take her experience of discomfort seriously.  Then I asked for apology on behalf of the company, says Maria Nobel, Communications at Hemköp, saying that Vanessa was grateful for the excuse.
The incident occurred last week. How is it that you're sorry now? Because we have made an independent investigation of the incident which is now complete.  The investigation shows that the store manager has been negligent when he washed the windows, and that Vanessa has been soaked by water when he washed the windows, says Maria Nobel.

The store manager was taken out of service since his family was threatened after the event.  Maria Nobel says that now he is on sick leave. It is unclear whether he will work as a store manager at Stigbergstorget in the future. What happens after sick leave is at this stage unclear, says Maria Nobel.
Previously, the store manager said he concentrated on the window he was cleaning and that he splashed water on Vanessa on purpose. If I splash water on another person, I am so terribly sorry, it was definitely not my purpose, he told Metro last week.

Window Cleaning Magazines

Window Cleaning Business Owner Issue 19, click the picture to take you there.

Window Cleaning Business Owner Issue 19 - Get it now here! Never a guy to shy away from the lens, Lee Burbidge gets skinned for issue 19 - Including "Confessions of a rainwater harvester." "Dressed for business." "Why save water?" "Golden Nuggets of business tips & advise." "Going social as a window cleaner," & much more.

WCBO, Issue 18. Click the picture to get it now!

Window Cleaning Business Owner 18 - Own it now! Your 2014 Map To Success - This edition is all about getting you on the road to riches in 2014. How do you do it? What steps have you taken? It's all about getting everything in order for the big rush & coming season. Do you have everything planned? Employees? Hiring? Do you have a marketing calender? Have you planned your service offerings or your operating budget? How about tools? Is your vehicle ready to go? Have you analysed your pricing structure & put together your safety calender? All this & more in this months WCBO (Window Cleaning Business Owner magazine). Did you get caught out in 2013 with your pants down? WCBO tracked & highlighted your endeavors during 2013 with Issue 17 so that you could go & make 2014 the best.

Australian Window Cleaners Tied Up In Red Tape

Frustrated: Business owner & window cleaner Selwyn Jones says burdensome legal requirements are harming his small business and others like it.

Contractors struggle with red tape: "Tradies" and other contractors are struggling to cope with requirements to pay for separate registration processes on work safety inductions for each of the hundreds of sites they cover. Window washer Selwyn Jones, of C-Thru Window Cleaning, said he had to submit dozens of pages of paperwork and fees of up to hundreds of dollars for each of his employees at each site they attended.

"I spend most of my time doing inductions because every company has its own course and its own individual requirements," he said. "Every petrol station, every bank, every nursing home, they all have their own inductions, and companies are now charging us to do their induction courses." A nursing home whose windows he had cleaned since it was built had charged him $49.50 for a site induction, he said, and a major retail store had asked for $800 for the right to clean its windows for two years.

Ideally, he said, there would be an industry-wide accreditation scheme similar to the construction industry's white card. "There has got to be somewhere you can go to get your orange card without all these inductions, all these requirements," he said. "It's not about window cleaning; it's about killing small business with red tape and bookwork."

He also mentioned the costs of WorkCover and police clearances as imposts on small business. Member for Hammond Adrian Pederick said such issues were on his radar, and on the small business commissioner's as well. "He believes the codes under workplace health and safety need review, and that's the position of the Liberal Party," he said. "I certainly think there's space there to have a card that lets them visit similar sites over a period of time."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced last week Federal Parliament would hold a "red tape repeal day" within the month to remove more than 9000 individual regulations in an effort to save businesses $1 billion per year. "As Sir Robert Menzies once said, "we want less forms and more reforms"," he said. "We are doing this to make your life easier and our economy stronger."

Window Washer Fall & Rescue Chicago

Companies arrived to find a window washer that had been working over a steel grate that covered the space. An angle iron which supported one side of the grate gave way sending the worker down into the hole.

Window washer falls in Deerfield: A window washer fell about 20 feet through an iron grate to the concrete floor. He was washing windows and stepped on the iron grate which gave way and caused him to fall into the concrete vault.

Firefighters rescue window washer in Deerfield: A window washer who suffered serious injuries after falling into a deep hole in Deerfield Tuesday was rescued by firefighters who raised him out in a rescue basket, officials said. The 47-year-old man was washing windows at the Arbor Lake Centre office building at 1751 Lake Cook Road when he stepped on a grate that gave way, causing him to fall into a 20-foot-deep ventilation shaft, according to a news release from the Northbrook Fire Department. Although the man was conscious and alert, he suffered multiple injuries.

Rescue workers lowered a ladder down to treat the worker, and removed broken grates blocking the 3-foot-wide shaft. Because the 3-foot-wide shaft was too narrow to carry the worker out, a technical rescue team with members from various fire departments used a special hook, rope and pulley system to lower a rescue basket into the shaft and lift the patient out, the release stated. Paramedics then took the worker to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Deerfield Police are investigating the incident. 

Northbrook technical rescue: Northbrook units were called to 1751 W. Lake Cook Road in Deerfield before 11AM today for a worker that had fallen 15 feet into a concrete well alongside a building. Companies arrived to find a window washer that had been working over a steel grate that covered the space. An angle iron which supported one side of the grate gave way sending the worker down into the hole. A TRT response was requested. Firefighters in the hole stabilized the patient and packaged him in a stokes basket while rope techs setup rigging to hoist him to ground level.

Northbrook Tower 12 is over the concrete well where the worker fell.

A ladder is placed over the hole for the team.

The ladder is secured in place.

Firefighters on the ground provide equipment to the firefighters working with the patient.

The stokes is pulled up from the hole.

The angle iron supporting the grate broke free from this ledge.

A view into the area where the worker fell.

The Lost Art Of Window Gazing

Play School was a British children's television series produced by the BBC which ran from 21 April 1964 until 11 March 1988. The opening sequence for Play School during its run, the first being "Here's a house, here's a door. Windows: 1 2 3 4, ready to knock? Turn the lock - It's Play School." Many older window cleaners will remember the long running series & featured in the story below by John Holton.

Between Here & Home: The lost art of window gazing (By John Holton) - I stumbled across my old school reports in the filing cabinet the other day, including one from my Year 8 science teacher, who wrote, “…if John spent as much time attending to his work as he does staring out of the window, he could achieve anything”.  Sorry Mr Campbell. It wasn’t your fault. My gaze has always been drawn to the hole in the wall. I was the kid mesmerised by the arched window on Play School.

There’s still nothing quite like sitting in the window of my favourite café, sipping tea as life goes on around me; travelling by train with my nose pressed against the glass, the world blurring; wandering the streets of any town at night; the glow emanating from windows; lives playing out behind glass. It’s hard to believe, amid our cities of steel and glass, that window glazing has only been the norm, for the working classes, since the mid-19th century.

Though in 1696 there were enough glazed windows in British homes for William III to introduce a window tax. It made staring out at the world an expensive business and caused some householders to brick up their windows. It seems the aristocracy have always found ways to feather their nests from the necessities of life – air, water… a view. I’m guessing the king’s vista remained unimpeded.

Staring out the window, as Mr Campbell demonstrated, often gets bad press. But some of the world’s most important ideas wouldn’t have happened without some serious window gazing. Literary critic Burton Roscoe said, “Few can ever understand that a writer is working when he’s staring out the window.”

Poet Billy Collins put it more lyrically: The birds are in their trees – the toast is in the toaster – and the poets are at their windows… The clerks are at their desks – the miners are down in their mines – and the poets are looking out their windows… Of course, he’s not just poeticising about poets, but anyone who creates.

Architects, engineers, designers, even scientists, are among history’s most revered window gazers. Indeed, Einstein described his Theory of Relativity with the image of a traveller staring from the window of a moving train.

I was at the launch of Bendigo’s stunning art gallery redevelopment on Saturday, and while all the new spaces are beautifully conceived, the Frances & Harold Abbott Foundation Gallery in particular captured my imagination. It has a spectacular, high corner window that looks upon a stone wall and the trees of Rosalind Park; there are glimpses of Peter (the rabbit sculpture) and, if you look at the right angle, eerie reflections of passers-by. It shares its space with the work of Del Kathryn Barton and Patricia Piccinini, but that window is a work of art without peer.

It’s a perfect view of our changing city. I know I’ll stare from it often.

Robinson-Solutions Finishes Off Mole & Jersey

Click this picture to take you to the show.

The Mole and Jersey Show Episode 18. Season Ender - Guest host... Me! Really! I think Michael & I talked for around an hour, but for your viewing pleasure it was cut down to around 8 min's before your eyes glaze over. The interview actually missed the deadline for the last show. It just happens that after the interview Michael decided to call it a day! Was it something I said? ....the guys are taking a small break for a few weeks & will be back in April. Own a small business? Are you a pressure washer? Maybe you are starting or own a pressure washing company. Well sit back, watch the last episode in this series or here on YouTube, and learn...

The Segments:

4:40 Marketing Madness...Bait & Switch

11:05 Jerseys Junk.. AquaTap

16:45 The Chop Chop... Some guy in Spain

24:45 Fail of the week

28:48 Top 5...... Alex's top 5 & others

Funny link from the show: Window Cleaner Robs Neighbour Bookies With a Pruning Saw

Wagtail & Aquatap get a mention as well.

Top Two Window Cleaning Vids Of The Week

Ooops.. well the interview took place, just not in time for the show!

The Mole and Jersey Show Episode 17. Guest host Justin Bieber. Own a small business? Are you a pressure washer? Maybe you are starting or own a pressure washing company. Ooops.. well the interview took place, just not in time for the show! You get Justin Bieber instead. Well sit back, watch, and learn...

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The Segments:

4:15 Marketing Madness...Timing

10:57 The Chop Chop........No one...Really

12:08 Fail of the week

15:56 Top 5......The top 5 best things about being married to a small business owner.

Lots of problems.

Lee Burbidge's Crazy World Of Window Cleaning: Fantastic show from WCM-TV courtesy of Lee Burbidge of the Window Cleaning Magazine of the UK below..

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