What Job Did You Do Before Window Cleaning And Why Did You Change Career Path ?

[All Round Cleaning]

As per title , what did you do before you became a window cleaner and why did you change ?

If you didnt know already I was a welder / fabricator worked in the construction game had a very well paid job

and also had started up my own fabrication and welding business as well .

Was all going good until last july had a cardiac arrest and game over from then on in with the implant of my defibrillator

so couldnt go back to my trade .

spent the best part of nearly a yr trying to think of what to do until i eventually found window cleaning .

It suits me to a T as I can do as little or as much as I like as I know if im pushing myself to much

and if i'm having a bad day take it off . I still feel tired now and then but it takes time to build back up .

Well there is my story .

What's yours ?

 

[Masons]

Left school and 4weeks after my last GCSE I bought half my brothers round and here I am 10 years later.

I got my gcse's back and haven't used them or looked at them lol.

 

[mark m]

untill 1983 i was going to be a rugby star i thought i played in Twickham and England B and played over most of europe but a injury stopped that

1983 i started window cleaning with a mate at weekends when i could as i was still at school

1984 left school carried on window cleaning but my parents said i had find a proper job so in

1985 i went to college to train as a plumber i was still window cleaning after college and weekends

1989 i was fully trained plumber me and my mate had built up a very good round and he brought me out

i took 1 year out travelled europe and used to bounce in night clubs

1990 recession hit i was working as a plumber never really liked it and started window cleaning again

1990 -2000 got married and 2 kids and moved from Surrey to Dorset and started again

 

[chip]

Completed a yts at bricklaying and got a city and guilds, got a job at a fabricating place, bit of welding, bit of metal bending, bit of lining furnaces, window cleaned for about 18 monts, then worked for a sewer surveyer then went back to windows, but for myself this time, still lumbered with it till thus

 

[All Round Cleaning]

Wow guys some interesting stories there .

Thanks for your replies .

 

[Shaun1977]

I worked on doors for 13 year before I started also done but painting n decorating

 

[harunh]

1990-2006 - school - got bad gcses couldnt be bothered with school never done homework in my life and never will do either lol

2006-2010 - college

I done a lot of courses and no course interested me i done drylining and i used to mess about that much i failed i had no interest what so ever.

Then i done Uniformed services ( wanted to be a prison officer) haha then i dropped out.

Then i done I.T (dont know why lol) I got kicked of my course for messing about

And then last course was a level 2 access course to get me to a level 3 course then once i done that level 3 i could get in to university. I done well on this course /emoticons/smile.png but i failed because my attendance was so bad ! lol

I was a rebel in college lol

Throught out all this time i worked part time in my dads off license

2010-2011 - I used to work part time still in my dads off license, then i got another part time job as a call centre worker for a taxi company so now i had 2 jobs which i just spent on weed and drink all the time. and then midway through 2011 my dads off license got bought out by a housings association because they are knocking the whole housing estate down and building it new. so that left me a bit devoed.

start of 2012 - I was wanting to start a business that would help me and be good for me.... so on google i typed in starting a business for under 10K... and their was loads of businesses to go into.... i was really interested in mobile burger vans ect.... and also i was interested in mobile valeting which i was really keen to do... then window cleaning came across and when i seen the wfp in action i thought wow i could do that anyday !

So what i done was check the forums out and i knew this could work for me because..... to succeed in this business all you need is to be determined and business minded /emoticons/smile.png I had 2 pass my driving test and it toke me 2/3 months to pass it....... before i passed it i had my business cards ready which i had been editing and editing in those 2/3 months lol i looked up all the information every day on forums etc... and i learnt a lot about window cleaning without even starting up !

Lol..... here is a link to 1 of my posts on here when i first started up:

http://www.windowcle...-start-up-plan/

Now its been 8 weeks since i been trading and i got 80 customers /emoticons/smile.png could be 90 customers but i toke a few of my round due to time wasters bad payers and bad priced jobs etc.

My target when i started was 100 customers in 3 months /emoticons/smile.png so am really happy how everything is going /emoticons/smile.png/emoticons/biggrin.png

Lol

 

[M.K Cleaners.co.uk]

Kicked out of school at 15, Got a job on the side cleaning windows. Ive been doing it ever since

 

[Paul]

Left school joined the army served 13 years un places such as Bosnia, kosavo, Iraq, Afghanistan, NI, had enough of seeing mates getting killed and being very close to getting killed myself also not seeing my wife and kids very often so left the army got a job with a couple of windys seen how much they were making so decided to go it alone /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[Dodger]

Nearly joined army at 17, decided against that as have a fear of bullets.

Worked down Pit 2 yrs, hated it.

Factory as warehouse supervisor 5 yrs.

trained in business admin.

DJ since that and still am.

Not as interesting as some other lads stories but there ya go.

 

[simon]

school

centre lathe turner in shipyards

worked for step dad as tree surgeon

various labouring jobs

2yrs travelling round israel & greek islands in a drunken frenzy

moved to london for crappy labouring jobs

security in a sex shop in soho

chicken ranch in scotland

home for more labouring

helped a mate on his w/cleaning round saw the possibilities worked for another lad for 9mths then brought some work off him 10yrs ago

 

[Taylor]

I left school when I was 15 and started a printing apprenticeship and worked there till I was 29.

Then I bought a window cleaning round and have not looked back for the last 5 years.

My motto is anyone can clean windows but only a few will succeed in running a window cleaning business

 

[Posh]

Roofing & furniture spraying. Went self employed in 1982-1989 landscape gardening. Interest rates rocketed & worked dropped. Got a job in factory made supervisor working 3 shifts. 2008 decided had enough of shift work saved for 6 months walked out of job spent 2 months canvassing & started from there. Am very surprised i got to where I am so quickly as not the most clever & organised person in the world & will never be a millionaire but it gives me a decent living when it stops raining.

 

[Dodger]

Oh yeah thanks for reminding me posh, did some labouring for a roofing contractor for a few months as well.

 

[harunh]

Good story lads lol

 

[MikeJP]

Ive done some **** jobs:

Debt collecting

Tree surgery

Gardening

Worked for the NHS

Office work

I went for the Army from school but was medically rejected so I pretty much coasted through life for a while not having a clue!

 

[longtonion1]

13yrs in the navy, pensioned out coz of injury on active service in the gulf

went to work for bentley motors as an engineer , hated working indoors, started window cleaning part time fridays / sat mornings

Built it up from scratch , canvassing, bought a weeks work etc, now sevice 400 customers monthly

 

[All Round Cleaning]

13yrs in the navy, pensioned out coz of injury on active service in the gulf

went to work for bentley motors as an engineer , hated working indoors, started window cleaning part time fridays / sat mornings

Built it up from scratch , canvassing, bought a weeks work etc, now sevice 400 customers monthly

Well done buddy , did the army help fund your training when you got pentioned off ?

 

[laddergarder]

I studied computer programming for three years at college, but decided it wasn't for me. At the time I was working part time in woolworths, so put myself in for any overtime I could get, and was soon offered a full time job, which was 30 hours a week, earning often under £700 a month, I worked my way through there management training scheme, and was signed off as an assistant manager, I was eager to earn a bit more money, but they started to mess me about, and I was just so fed up with it.

I wanted to earn more money, and I didn't like how I was treated, so I started looking else where for work, but I quickly realised there really wasn't much in the way of full time work, for someone with little qualification. So I though of window cleaning, and it all really just went from there. I starting cleaning windows part time, while I was still in woolworths, I was working stupid hours between the two jobs, but I was doing well, and making a decent wage. Soon the window cleaning was making me more money that the job in the shop.

Then just when I was thinking about plucking up there courage to go full time at the window cleaning, Woolworths went into administration. I was terrified, I never had anywhere near enough money in reserves that I was hoping to have, plus it was January, and I though the summer would have been a better time to market.

Turns out any time is a good time, I doubled my round that year, and was looking to employ someone to help me out a year later. Then my brother in law actually quite his job to come and work with me, and it all just went from there really.

 

[harunh]

laddergadder thats very good mate

 

[Matty H]

I was a male stripper :-x