seen in the wall street journal

[jenk]

Hm. Anyone done window washing?

Seen From a Washers' Perch:
The Monotony of a Desk Job

In the 1961 Broadway hit "How to Succeed in Business," window washer J. Pierrepont Finch gazes longingly from his perch at scenes of corporate life framed by window panes. Ultimately, he fulfills his American daydream with a desk job of his own.

Four decades later, the reverie of desire has traded places: Now office workers are just as likely to covet window washers' jobs. The washers, for their part, seem happy to go no closer to a cubicle than a 10-foot squeegee. The world of World Wide Wickets, the corporate object of Mr. Finch's desire, has lost much of its luster.

[...] "When you work in an office, you become like everybody else," says Mr. McLoughlin. "I will not become like everybody else."

As his arms move back and forth across the glass, Mr. Stauffer loses himself in his work -- "Irishman's Tai Chi," another washer calls it. "There's a lot of thinking time up here," Mr. Stauffer says.

Inside the windows he is washing, workers at Kemper Insurance's claim department go about their Friday tasks. One of them, Senior Claim Analyst Curt Lackore, ponders Stauffer's life outside the glass.

"Sometimes I wish I was a window washer," says the young office worker, sitting in a pod of four workers with his back to the window. "Barbecuing is the closest thing to a manly thing I do right now."

Senior Claim Analyst Glenn Ferry, who sits a few cubes down from Mr. Lackore, says he used to go drinking with a couple of window washers. They never lacked for "female companionship," he says. "There's an aura about them."

Usually young, fit and tan, and dangling right in front of our computers, window washers often attract advances from admiring workers. (The vast majority of window washers are male.) A common tactic is to flash flirtatious notes -- or even telephone numbers -- to window washers passing by. Once, says Mr. Stauffer, a woman flashed him part of her anatomy. (These days, energy-efficient reflective windows make such consorting a lot more difficult.)

Window washers say they respond to such solicitations as professionally as they can under the circumstances, although a few take advantage of their mystique.

"Believe it or not, most of the women I meet are through cleaning windows," says Kirill Semenov of Pacific Window Washing. "It's strange because when I meet women outside my work, they're kind of disappointed to hear I'm a window cleaner."

It's the glass barrier itself that emboldens some office workers -- stuck indoors and always minding their manners -- to let loose, says organizational psychologist Morton Shaevitz of La Jolla, Calif. "Offices are restricted, controlled, ordinary and predictable," Dr. Shaevitz says. "The fantasy, which the window washer represents, is unpredictable, outrageous and fun."

Other times, the window washer is invisible. Mr. McLoughlin says he has dropped in on many a steamy tryst. "It's usually after 5 p.m.," he says, "when all hell's let loose."

E-mail me at cubicleculture@wsj.com.