My first question to each of my executive coaching clients, mostly small business owners, this past month has been the following: “What was your very first job, and what did you learn from that experience?”
The responses have ranged from shoveling snow in Chicago to working as a dishwasher in a restaurant and as a ride attendant at a Six Flags Amusement Park.The learnings have also ranged from becoming more responsible to comprehending the complexities of a professional kitchen to making trade-offs between work and school.
My first job was delivering the afternoon newspaper when I was fourteen. It was the Miami News, which folded not long after I retired from my position. I am certain there was no connection between these two occurrences. I would arrive home from school each afternoon and shortly begin to fold and wrap a rubber band around approximately fifty newspapers. I would then stuff the papers into the saddles on the back of my Huffy bicycle and off I went.
I started off delivering newspapers in nearby apartment complexes. This was not easy work, as I had to navigate my way through the narrow buildings on my bicycle, staying clear of large planters, sturdy light fixtures, and small children. Sometimes I had to park my bike and climb flights of stairs to deliver the goods.
Luckily, within several months I was promoted to a residential route with more deliveries and fewer obstacles. My aim improved gradually as I worked hard to throw the newspaper onto the driveway rather than into the cactus garden or fish pond. I actually became quite adept at pedaling my bike at high speeds while flinging the newspapers effortlessly thirty yards up the driveway. Unleashed dogs, speed bumps, and untimely afternoon rain showers were my biggest nemesis.
My learnings from this work were plentiful. The top three were as follows:
- Faster is not always better. My older brother had recently passed his driving exam (after three failed attempts) and volunteered one day to drive me on my paper route. This seemed like a great idea as I would cut my delivery time in half and double my time on the local baseball field or basketball court.
Our downfall, however, was thinking I should position myself on the hood of Mom’s Chevy Impala rather than in the comfy confines of the front passenger seat. About halfway through the route, brother Rick took a corner a bit too fast, and I slid off the front of the car onto the road, breaking my right arm. Needless to say, this did not qualify for a workman’s comp claim, and Mom did not find out about the nature of this injury until she was well into her nineties.
- Outsourcing is not always the best solution. One Saturday, I decided I needed a brief sabbatical from my paper route and asked a good friend to take over for a day. My friend had ridden shotgun with me several times on the route and knew it well enough to take over for a day.
My friend, without supervision or consultation, decided to dump all the newspapers into a local canal. He had stealthily benefitted from both my prepayment and lack of oversight. My customers suffered from the lack of news that particular day. The sad part was that not one customer complained about not getting their newspaper that day. This was an additional lesson in customer psychographics.
- The sale is not complete until you collect your money. While I believe that my customers generally enjoyed receiving and reading their daily afternoon newspaper. I found out early on that not all of them liked paying for this service. I was responsible for not only delivering the paper, I also had to collect their payments each month.
Most of my customers were good about mailing in their $6.25 each month. Others were not. Some would go to great lengths to avoid paying their bill despite my repeated efforts to collect. I am sure there were some who never intended to pay. This was a very important business lesson that I have kept with me until this very day.
I am not sure if there are still any young boys on their bicycles delivering daily newspapers. Sadly, the number of city newspapers has fallen dramatically in the last decade. However, this was a great learning experience for me at a relatively young age. And my right arm has never completely recovered from that tumble off the side of the car.
What was your very first job? What did you learn from that experience?