I work in the Metropolitan Building in downtown St. Louis. The Metropolitan is the tallest building in St. Louis and the second tallest in Missouri. It is 42 stories tall in the tower section of the building. It is listed as 593 feet. The next tallest building in St. Louis is the AT&T Center at 588 feet. For comparison the St. Louis Arch is 630 feet. I once rappelled from 150 meters (492 feet) which is a pretty good drop. I do not work at such lofty heights, but I am on the 7th floor of the non-tower portion of the structure. My cube is right next to the outside walls and thus the large glass windows of the skyscraper.
Once year they clean all the windows on the outside. For part of the building they use the stereotypical platform hung from two points. On my portion of the building the window washers strap on what looks like a climbing harness and hang from a single rope. Their buckets, utensils and whatever are hung from a belt around their waist. To move vertical they lower themselves on the rope, much like rappelling. To move horizontally they use a suction cup device. Thus they can clean several windows in one vertical line from the top.
I came back to my cube and saw that the top half of one window had been cleaned. The bottom half was still soapy. I did not see a window washer so I looked to the next window and saw some feet dangling below the blind. For reasons unknown, I had the urge to raise the blind which I did in one fast motion. My action revealed a gentleman dangling from the single rope. Since it was a cool day he had the hoodie portion of his sweatshirt pulled up around his face. Peeking out from the hood was a man 50ish in years with long hair and beard of white and gray colors.
Upon the quick, noisy raising of the blinds he exclaimed through the window, ‘You scared the crap out of me!”
There are two young ladies who sit on the same row with me, and we all begin laughing nervously. I’m sure hanging 7 stories high from a single thread it is not fun to have your stomach go flip-flop. I grinned at him in what I hoped was a sheepish manner.
He continued with his task, swinging horizontally to clean the next window. He lowered himself and returned to the window where I had raised the blind to clean the lower half.
He remarked, “I hate my job.”
I replied, “me too.”
good one