The UAE has some of the world’s tallest buildings (including the tallest, the Burj Khalifa) but also some of the world’s oddest-shaped tall buildings.

Few of us think much about how the thousands of windows in those skyscrapers are cleaned, but a member of The National’s business staff explained the process in a piece today.

And it is both fascinating and terrifying — for those of us who don’t like the top of a 10-foot ladder.

Here is the story, by Lucy Barnard.

And here is the photo gallery.

I usually like the “I never thought of that!” stories. Like who washes the windows of skyscrapers.

Or how difficult it becomes when buildings are round … or tilted … or are wavy. We have examples of all of that, in the UAE, either in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or both.

So window cleaners have to be even braver than the guys who go up to fairly straightforward buildings like the Empire State, because the conditions are weird, and often unique to that building. One buildin, pictured in the gallery, is shaped rather like a fat nickel — almost perfectly round, and only a few feet wide. How do you wash those windows?

Carefully, I imagine.

Luckily, the guys who do this are paid fairly well. (Taking into account that I would not/could not do it for any sum of money.) Our reporter indicates that some are paid 25,000 UAE dirhams a month (about $6,800), but some earn as little as 1,500 dirhams (about $400).