I think there are days for all of us when I wonder why we do it.
I worked for the Volunteer Services Overseas for 10 plus years. I got disillusioned when it finally dawned on me that the biggest problem, especially in Africa, is not insufficient aid from the West, but tinpot dictators, corruption and theft mixed in with fast food companies, pharmaceutical companies and powdered baby milk companies who all have their hands in each others pockets.
But no one's allowed to say that.
I came back to good old blighty to be shocked at how greed and avarice had become a virtue to be sold in the market place as 'Captains of Industry' if you get who and what I'm talking about.
Fed up, I decided to be a slob on the dole as those that seemed to do that always had enough money. They seem to always go on nice holidays and get council houses for free. Being a mug I was honest in my UB40 application and got sent for a job on the railways. Being a bigger mug I did as I was told at the interview and got the job which I couldn't then turn down as I'd get no benifits.
So a few years passed and I ended up driving trains for again 10 years plus untill one day some poor bugger topped themselves in front of mine. I then became a liability to the privatised company and I was hounded out of a job and won hands down at an industrial tribunal.
All that I was awarded under the Thatcher scheme (which was changed 2 weeks after my case) was the maximum payout of just £7 000 which just about covered my debts incured due to months and months of having no income but still the bills came in.
Then me and a friend, the both of us being broke, decided to have a go at window cleaning. That was 4 (or is it 5) years ago.
My point is that life is full of problems. That is how it works and when I think I'm having a hard time, I remember back to some of the things I saw working for the VSO. There is nothing worse than seeing a mother cuddling a dead baby that has been dead for a few days that died all for the want of what we take for granted. Or seeing the bodies piling up at the side of a road because some ruthless person has a grudge. Or a village wherein every female aged 5 to 90 has been raped and all males slaughtered while those so called leaders in the West decide on the best course of action but take 5 or so years to do something that makes no difference. I've been in the middle of it and a few times have thumped tv reporters just because they want to get the best angle on it and judge veiwing figures and how they look above all else.
Now I am a w/c and I think I'm doing ok. I don't worry about the tax man, council tax or anything else to any real extent other than as a surface worry. I loose no sleep over any of it. If I have a roof over my head, warmth and food then that is what matters. Everything else is just an addition.
So window cleaning? I think it's a great job.
Like Dave posted, I don't know why I wrote all that.
Cheers
Ross
