Hello fellas. Just quitting 24 year career in I.T. to work the glass.

[JamaicaGingerCakeMassacre]

Just thought I'd say hello, folks..

Title says it all really, although you could say the I.T. career is quitting me, seeing as I'm on medical leave and unlikely to return. Despite being a braniac I could never settle in the corporate world and after decades of cyclical burn outs, bad depression and what not I find out age 49 that I am autistic and have had lifetime undiagnosed ADHD.

I count myself lucky, though. I have a beautiful wife and daughter and some good savings. A very good friend of mine has been a window cleaner since 17 (and is wealthier than every software engineer I know, and barely works) and offered to show me the ropes and I took him up on it. TL;DR is I think I find more satisfaction from having my own little slice of the world and working away on it, and doing something which moves my body, where I can see an instant connection between effort, skill and outcome than I do sitting in the endless round of banal Microsoft Teams meetings with soul-dead timewasters achieving nothing. Plus I get fresh air. I do something tangible. I talk to real people in the real world. I get to use squeegees.

I'm just starting out. Some work in Hartlepool. Some in... Warsaw (yes, Poland). I live here and travel back and forth.
Look forward to getting to know some of you over the coming years. Sorry if the post is not appropriate. As I said, I'm autistic!
John

 

[P4dstar]

Just thought I'd say hello, folks..

Title says it all really, although you could say the I.T. career is quitting me, seeing as I'm on medical leave and unlikely to return. Despite being a braniac I could never settle in the corporate world and after decades of cyclical burn outs, bad depression and what not I find out age 49 that I am autistic and have had lifetime undiagnosed ADHD.

I count myself lucky, though. I have a beautiful wife and daughter and some good savings. A very good friend of mine has been a window cleaner since 17 (and is wealthier than every software engineer I know, and barely works) and offered to show me the ropes and I took him up on it. TL;DR is I think I find more satisfaction from having my own little slice of the world and working away on it, and doing something which moves my body, where I can see an instant connection between effort, skill and outcome than I do sitting in the endless round of banal Microsoft Teams meetings with soul-dead timewasters achieving nothing. Plus I get fresh air. I do something tangible. I talk to real people in the real world. I get to use squeegees.

I'm just starting out. Some work in Hartlepool. Some in... Warsaw (yes, Poland). I live here and travel back and forth.
Look forward to getting to know some of you over the coming years. Sorry if the post is not appropriate. As I said, I'm autistic!
John

Nothing wrong with your post John, not inappropriate at all mate. What's the plan with the cleaning in two countries then? How's that going to work?

 

[JamaicaGingerCakeMassacre]

Hiya.
Reasonable question! I live in Warsaw and will be making a stab at seeing what the trade is like here, mainly looking for shop-front work. No idea if it'll work out but I hope so. Also trying a few of the posh housing estates out of town. Not building my hopes up as things are.... different here. I've only seen a couple of window cleaners *ever* in Warsaw and they were a total shambles. The office block next to my house has their poor cleaners climb out the 3rd floor windows and half balance on the AC units to try and do a reach-around with a bit of tissue paper and a sprayer - it's utter madness! - and they do that for half a day for every single window. Health & Safety is not "a thing" here. Will they pay me to do it with a WFP? Probably not tbh but I may as well ask.

I'm originally from the North east and have friends/family there and would like to fly over for a period each month, stay with them and work my round in the north. That way I get to see my loved ones and where I'm from and do some of the work I enjoy. My friend in Hartlepool has been in the business decades and I already am transitioning some work off him. He's showing me the ropes! Long live Ryanair!
Cheers

 

[P4dstar]

Hiya.
Reasonable question! I live in Warsaw and will be making a stab at seeing what the trade is like here, mainly looking for shop-front work. No idea if it'll work out but I hope so. Also trying a few of the posh housing estates out of town. Not building my hopes up as things are.... different here. I've only seen a couple of window cleaners *ever* in Warsaw and they were a total shambles. The office block next to my house has their poor cleaners climb out the 3rd floor windows and half balance on the AC units to try and do a reach-around with a bit of tissue paper and a sprayer - it's utter madness! - and they do that for half a day for every single window. Health & Safety is not "a thing" here. Will they pay me to do it with a WFP? Probably not tbh but I may as well ask.

I'm originally from the North east and have friends/family there and would like to fly over for a period each month, stay with them and work my round in the north. That way I get to see my loved ones and where I'm from and do some of the work I enjoy. My friend in Hartlepool has been in the business decades and I already am transitioning some work off him. He's showing me the ropes! Long live Ryanair!
Cheers

Between sort of 2016-2020 everyone seemed to want to be a YouTube star. This forum even used to have its own celebrity window cleaner. That seemed to work out well for the US guys, not so much for the UK guys. The US guys were interesting and exciting, the UK guys weren’t. Had you been doing this back then I would have suggested you make a YouTube Vlog, I genuinely think it’s going to be interesting.

Europeans don’t seem as fussed on clean windows as we are. In Hungary a couple of years back the only window cleaner I saw looked like the local crack head.