Why can't I keep my mouth shut

[Tango]

I spoke to all the local neighbours about it, and it turns out they dislike him as he’s a bit of a jack the lad.

I've dropped one recently who was clearly that type of character. His windows are a pain, his attitude is like that of Mr Gilbert from the inbetweeners (looks a bit like him too) and he was clearly finding monthly visits a menace - despite him wanting them! He was going to give me trouble at some point in the future so binned him before it happens.

I usually offer to do something for free like cleaning her window or front door. A lot of folk have too much time on their hands and are looking for any excuse. Silent tongue is the best tongue. ?

I got into the bad habit of doing the extra bits for some of my clientss - just to keep them sweet and keep them as mine.. Went to one house one day.. only a small place so my last barrel of water was adequate.. Finished front and rear windows... looks up and thinks to myself "Oh i could do that soffit and fascia while i'm here..." Got it scrubbed, grime was all loose, rinsing off and the bloody water run out half way through lol. Client was okay about it lol.. she said nobody looks up there anyway (yeah right lol) so i kinda shot out of there and left it lol. Rain rinsed off the rest and she's still a client of mine but i figured at that point that doing freebies is only gonna lead me into trouble no matter how good my intentions so i managed to stop myself..

Then he told me he used to be a professional boxer and then a trainer but you would never have guessed it

That's the thing isn't it, you can never tell who's who in the world of violence. It could be a council estate thug who's learnt how to handle himself or a well educated person who is a professionally trained fighter but keeps silent about it. I had a colleague years ago, nice guy but not many in the office liked him and thought he was weird. I got on with him okay and thought he was a great bloke but many of the women there would give him a wide berth - misunderstood type. Anyway you'd never think it but he'd ace'd karate and was a black belt and also had a degree in psycholgy yet was completely incapable of defending himself to the mental abuse of a load of women gossiping and bitching. Put him in front of a violent thug and the thug was screwed though.

I did a 2 days self defence course years ago with company called Maybo. The guy was a reformed prisoner and taught us some basic self defence (how to get out of being throttled for instance or deal with someone rushing towards you very quicklyn being grabbed old of by the arm etc). The most useful thing he taught us was literally how to get into someones head and turn their way of thinking. Not many of my colleagues found that useful but it has got me out of scrapes repeatedly over the years. I've had colleagues who thought i was **** at my job literally change their mind in a split second once they saw how i could defuse hostile situations - literally one of the best skills i've ever learnt.