05 Sep My First Few Jobs and What They Taught Me (Paper Route, Restaurants, Big Box Retail), just work a little harder than everyone else.

One of my favorite podcasts asks each of their weekly guests the same four questions at the end of each show. One of those questions is, “What was your first, or worst job you’ve ever had?”  I always think about answering that question and what I’d say.  Today, I get to think it out loud and share the lessons I learned that helped shape my work ethic and career trajectory!

I’m going to lead with my worst job ever to just get it out of the way because it is super quick, easy and there isn’t much to say about it.  The year is 2005 and you are walking through the mall with your eyes at the ground avoiding eye contact while hearing the following question, “Hey, are you happy with your phone plan?” or “Hey, would you like a free phone?”  Yes, I was that guy, selling cell phones from an off-brand little shack at the mall.  We slung T-Mobile and Verizon phones and it was the absolute worst job I ever had for two simple reasons.  1.  The technology system for their point of sale system was absolute trash.  2.  Their training was worse.  I started as a seasonal worker and left before the season was up, I think it’s the only job I’ve ever had that I didn’t give a two week notice to.

My first job was a paperboy, which I can’t say I loved but I loved the money.  I got started by helping a friend out on his route and he’d pay me a bit, it wasn’t much so I asked why he did it.  I learned you made your money from collections, not the weekly pay check.  So, each month you spent however many days it took door knocking to get payment for the newspaper.  Looking back I wonder why they didn’t just invoice their customers up front and if they didn’t pay, don’t deliver, but I didn’t think to ask the question back then.  Once I learned how it worked, I got hired on and picked up a route that was roughly four to six square blocks.  I’d come home one day a week and there sat a massive stack of papers, some plastic bags if it was potentially raining, and rubber bands if it wasn’t.  I’d sit and organize the papers while watching afternoon tv after school, forget about homework, I had money to make.  I’d get all set up and load on this mega heavy bag that could get me through about two blocks, then I’d bolt home and the next two blocks worth I’d chuck papers from the street.

I received my first paycheck and I knew it would be small, but it was basically nothing.  I think I made something like $1.15 cents an hour and at the time I think the legal minimum wage was $5 or something like that.  I knew tips and collections were how you really got paid but it was a tough pill to swallow getting that tiny check and having to wait for the opportunity to collect and collect tips.  The end of the month came, and my collections roster arrived with those who had not paid yet, but it also had a column that mentioned how much people tipped via other payment form.  I was shocked at how few people tipped when they prepaid, I took note of and memorized those non-tipping houses.  I made sure their paper was always on the door step, never on either side of it, and if they were outside, I shouted a hello or complimented something about their home.  What kind of seventhgrader thinks this way? I was weird at a young age.  I don’t know why that was my plan, but it worked.  My tips doubled the next month off that list of pre-paid customers and didn’t even have to door knock to get it.  The remainder of the customers that didn’t pre-pay were my responsibility to collect from, again, what an insanely inefficient process.  I didn’t recognize it at the time but there were about fifty different ways they could have done better at such a simple collections process even pre-internet and pre-debit card.  I would door knock, pray someone answered and if they didn’t take note that they didn’t answer so I knew to return again and then if they didn’t answer it would get turned over to the paper collections team.  I did well with collecting for the same reason I improved my other tips, I just got people to like me by complimenting their home, lawn, garden, car, clothes etc.  Fun fact, my math teacher who must have despised me at school because I was a terrible student and didn’t really care became one of my better tippers.  The end of the month came, and I had made something like three times the amount in tips and collections as my buddy and other paper boys.  They would ask me how I did it, and they were always shocked to hear how simple the answer was, sadly they didn’t heed the advice and they continued to earn a fraction of what I did.  What did I learn? Treat people well, make them feel good, do a consistent job, and be a significantly higher performer than your peers without putting in significant additional effort.  I had to do everything they had to do to get the basic check with minimal tips, I just did everything a little bit better and with consistency and I had more money by a long shot each and every month.  I wouldn’t do it again, but I’d let my son do it if it were an opportunity that presented itself!

My second job will always be something I look back on fondly, which may strike the reader as odd because I was a dishwasher in a Chinese food restaurant, and I didn’t even have one of those big industrial sprayers to spray the dishes clean.  I actually had to fill up a deep sink with soap and water, wear gloves, use a scratchy sponge to hand clean the leftover food spills off the bowls and plates, then transfer them to the rinse basin and finally the sanitizer water basin.   Let us not forget however, when that first detergent sink got dirty eventually, I had to stick my hand up past my elbow to pull the plug and drain it.  Anyone I’ve ever known that has been a dishwasher had one of those big spray nozzle hose type faucets that blasted the dishes clean, not me, and not my fellow Chinese food dishwasher comrades.  While the work was fine and the sink thing was nasty, the reason I loved it was because the owners of the restaurant were the face of the business, they meant business, but they treated their employees like family.  They treated us fairly while expecting the absolute best from us.  They paid us slightly over minimum wage but not by much.  I think I made $5.10 an hour when I started at fourteen years old and I left there making $6.75 and thought I was on the path to riches.

My goal was to move up over time and get promoted within the restaurant, I wanted to be the best dishwasher for the front of house customer dishes that came back dirty.  I expected to get promoted to the back of house dish washer which only washed the equipment, bowls, knives, etc. that we used in the back of house to prepare food.  This was a much cleaner job if you can even call it that, and on the weekends, there was one of each type of dishwasher but on week nights you jockeyed both stations as the workload was manageable.  Eventually I was promoted to the fry cook where you had to be fifteen years old and have done well at the previous jobs you were entrusted with, have a great attendance record, and a desire to grow.  Attendance was always intriguing to me as most of my peers lived within a seven-minute bike ride and managed to be late to work.  This is where I first learned the saying early is on time, on time is late and late is unacceptable, but I also learned too early is too early to punch in, “If you punch in more than six minutes early I have to pay you for ten, if you punch in five minutes early I have to pay you for five.”

The owners never told me all of that, it was just something I had observed as people got hired, and then either promoted, fired or quit.  I loved being the fry cook, it was fast paced, it felt significantly more important than dishwashing, but it also was a job that led me to bring dishes back to the dishwashers from time to time throughout the night.  While I wasn’t their boss or even their leader, I remember doing little things for them along the way when I came back to dish drop my tools and utensils.  If I could, I brought the current stack of front of house dishes that weren’t full enough to require but why not lend a hand? If the back of house sink wasn’t full yet I’d rinse the chicken wing batter out and directly down the drain, so it didn’t make a full sink of detergent water nasty.  Once in a while, I’d reach in and pull that nasty plug to remind those guys and gals that I was once there and could still do it.  I learned a lot of little things in that job and the power of doing things the same way every time, with consistency and getting good results.  There were little things like how long you let things fry before lifting the basket, long enough to let the batter start to fry but not too soon that it is going to cause food to stick together and fry as one.

At the Chinese restaurant I watched the owners do really simple things over and over again, and not apologize for good process.  A good example I have is sweeping a restaurant floor.  Naturally when we sweep any floor, I think most people do their best to sweep their way out of the room, that is pretty standard.  However, we tend toward our body and work ourselves out of the room.  The problem with this is that when you pull the debris toward you, often little bits get left behind and you have to walk through your newly created pile or dirt line to reach the items missed.  The owner taught me to edge everything first and then sweep from my toes out away with multiple quick strokes to get the floor clean.  The owner took the time to make sure I swept the floor his way because it was tried and true, and took the time to show me how the clean the dishes properly (but didn’t invest in the sprayer), he showed me how the fryer process worked, why it worked and how it impacted the customer. He demonstrated front of house customer service that was second to none.  He knew nearly every customer that came in by name, this wasn’t some tiny town of a few thousand people, there were twenty-four thousand people in this town, and he knew the majority by name. Working at that restaurant I learned there is a way to do things, there is a reason for process, and consistency pays off dividends.  My next goal was to become a waiter and start earning those well sought-after tips. Unfortunately, we moved across town and I had to quit.  That was my first W2 hourly job, and it lasted maybe fifteen months after school and on weekends, looking back eighteen years it’s amazing the little lessons and take-aways I had from it.  Sadly, the restaurant has since closed upon the owners’ decisions to retire and the inability to find a buyer.  For a very small second I considered what it might look like to buy and operate that restaurant, and it didn’t take long to realize I’m going to let the memories be memories and remain fond instead of ruining a great thing.

I had a job at a Pizza Restaurant for a few years that I’ll probably highlight in another post as it was my first job that I moved into a supervisory role, I even had my photo on the wall with a “Shift Manager” title below it. But we’re going to jump ahead to Big Box Retail where I really began to hit my stride and learn the early formative lessons on sales, management, leadership and frankly being a man.  I grew up with no dad in the house and all girls until my brother was born seven years after me. It can be challenging to find truly good leaders in retail sometimes, I don’t mean to knock the industry, but it’s the reality.

I was fortunate to have two different, but excellent leaders, to the day I thank them for their influence on me.  I didn’t know I was a salesman when I started in box box, I was actually perplexed as to how I would figure it out, but fortunately for me, sales is just a lot of question asking, listening and then solving a problem. Oddly, I was good at those things without really having realized it which I first began to learn in my final interview.  “It is great to meet you.  My OPS Manager likes you; my TV Sales Manager likes you, which means I like you.  I just have one final thing to ask of you, sell me this stapler,” he pushed a stapler across the table.  I paused for a minute and then went on with a formal greeting, asked if he’d shopped with us before and what he was after today.  He said he was looking for a stapler.  I just remember asking him what he was going to use it for, and then even though there wasn’t more than one stapler in the room I just made up facts and features about imaginary ones that were smaller travel size, bigger for legal thick contracts or potentially industrial, we decided it made sense to buy the classic swingline on his desk.  (Yes, I hear it, somebody stole your stapler, love you Office Space fans.)  He lit up with excitement once we came to a conclusion, the only thing I didn’t know was that I could have sold him an extended warranty on a stapler, had he asked for a car stereo I would have known to ask and offer, who knew you could sling a warranty on a stapler?  He offered me a job and emphatically told me that was one of the best ever stapler sales he’d ever experienced as that was something he asked everyone who had little or no sales experience in an interview process.  This man was the Store Director who ran the entire store through his team of managers, he handed me off to the Home Theatre department to begin selling Home Audio, until Car Stereo had an abrupt vacancy just three hours into my shift and I was immediately transferred to the department I had sought after anyway.  I later found out the department manager didn’t want me previously, in a pinch, and post stapler story, he wanted to give me a shot.  Spoiler alert, we’re still friends to this day nearly fifteen years later.

I had great training from this militant leader when it came to business but when it came to having fun, he would have fun.  He was a Marine, he was loud, he was in tense, I once actually dropped something when he came around the corner because he actually scared me.  He was insistent on the simplest of difference makers, an example being instead of saying, “Welcome, can I help you with something?” We’d say, “Hey, what brings you in today?”  It may seem subtle, but the amount of people that say they’rejust looking in response to the former is significantly higher than those to whom you ask the latter.  When we asked what brought them in, they’d open up, “I’m thinking about a new stereo” or “You know my TV is getting old and I’m trying to get an idea of what I might want.”  For some reason it drew their defenses down and got them to open up and tell a story.  Often, we uncovered people were actually ready to buy that day, but we were their first stop, we converted them to buyers, and they didn’t look at a second store.  It was a classic piece of any good sales process which is listening, asking pain, driving into what that pain was or is caused by, and providing the answer to solve the problem as close to their budget as possible.  If you were caught saying, “Welcome, can I help you with something?” Or offering a two-year extended warranty and not starting at four-year to be prepared to step down to a two year, you can guarantee it would be brought up at the first free moment.  We did weekly one on ones which most employees at any job or career want to have. People want to know where they stand and we always knew where we stood and eventually, I was able to help train our new people and do their early one on ones with them because I had been a part of one weekly without fail for a couple years.  This was by far the most fun job I have ever had, while learning a ton that has continued to apply to my current role and future path.

When I think back on these three key jobs I had in my early years and really dive deep into the lessons (there are so many more, perhaps I’ll do a deep dive in a series at some point), I realize these lessons that stuck out but other times I’m looking back on tough moments that I didn’t understand in the moment and find myself thinking that’s what he was getting at, that’s why I let the team down there.  I’d encourage everyone to take advantage of every opportunity regardless of where you work or what phase of your career you are in.  Look closely at why things are done the way they are done and do them the way they are supposed to be done as long as it works with consistency.  I’d encourage you to look back at any of your key jobs you’ve had during your more formative working years and ask yourself what you did or didn’t learn, and you just might uncover or learn something.