Wednesday Weblog for 2022 |
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Classic: This edition is an update of a popular 'classic' Weblog that generated positive comments. If you've already read this story, you can visit our Archive to find other editions that you may have missed by clicking this button.
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Quote of the Week:
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin
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So, for 100 weeks in a row, I've sat down at the computer and let my fingers fly away and translate my thoughts to words.
Thanks for reading, whether this is your first Weblog, or you've read all 100. Every time you open the email or click on a social media platform to read, it is a compliment. In today's busy world, there is too much to read and too much not worth reading, so when you choose me, I am flattered.
At the top of the page there is a link to the Archive, that contains all 100. Some of you might wonder what the most read or viewed Weblogs have been. I'm damn proud to say that last October's Boston Marathon edition called Damn Proud, was viewed more than 5,300 times on LinkedIn.
An All Nighter with Larry Bird recently broke the 1,200 mark and A Little Red Towel consistently reaches similar numbers.
This week's offering first appeared in December of 2020 and is repeated by request, and because it is likely 'new' to the majority of readers.
Special thanks to Carlton Knox, wherever you may be, for providing me with a quote I've used a million times.
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Ok, it might not really be a saga, but it sure sounded good in the title, don't you agree? The story is about my experience as a paperboy and how I learned about Accountability and Excuses in a land long ago and far away. |
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Paper Route
By the time I was a ten-year-old I was ready to have an afternoon paper route. For those younger than 50, before the internet and social media, before cable television and email, EVERYONE got their news in something called a ‘Newspaper.’
You may have even seen photos of something called the ‘Front Page’ of a newspaper? Boston had seven daily papers. Five in the morning and two in the afternoon. Local towns also had daily papers. That's a lot of crossword puzzles.
You had to be responsible to have a paper route, as well as have an interest in generating extra spending money, and when a paper route came open, because, for example, a 13-year-old was retiring from the business, there was a flurry of applicants for the news distributor to interview. I got the job for one of those routes. At ten years old.
The process I followed was: I hopped on my bike after school, rode the two miles to the news distributor, picked up a bale of newspapers, cut the string, folded the papers, and stuffed them in the basket on the front of my bike, and started the trip to delivering 40 newspapers in a couple of hours. They gave me one of those classic newsboy bags, but I liked the bike basket better.
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Revenue Model
In those days, you got a quarter per customer per week from the distributor, in exchange for delivering the paper six days. The Sunday paper was only a morning edition, so no delivery from the afternoon team was required.
You didn’t mind the sixth day, which was Saturday, because you rang the doorbell and, utilizing skills you had acquired "trick or treating" on Halloween, when it opened you announced “Collecting” in a firm voice. They gave you a buck for the subscription for the week, and if you were good that week, they might give you a dime tip, with big spenders laying a quarter on you. Some people didn't tip at all, and there was an urge to let's say 'modify' the service, but nothing that I acted on.
With 40 papers to deliver, you could make $10 from the news distributor and $5-$6 from tips. Let me tell you, a ten-year-old with $15 a week was in the upper income bracket of most my age in my town.
But this is where the accountability part of the story comes in.
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First Day on the Job
The outgoing paperboy took me around and showed me which houses got the Boston Traveler, which got the Boston Globe, which got the Quincy Patriot Ledger and who got the Christian Science Monitor. It was like a matrix, although I didn’t know it at the time. If Excel had been invented, it would have been a lot easier. Papers on one axis, Streets on another. The entire route was probably 2 miles and twenty streets with one to three subscribers per street-it was an afternoon paper, and we finished the 'transition day' just before dusk.
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Second Day on the Job
I didn’t have the efficiency of the outgoing boy, and it took me longer. It got dark. I couldn’t recognize the houses or the numbers as easily as he could. I remember trying to read details in a little book while sitting on my bike under a streetlight. I got home late. I wasn’t 100% sure that I had delivered all the right papers to all the right houses, but I knew I was close.
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Third Day on the Job
This was the day I learned that close wasn’t good enough. Several people flagged me down and wondered where their paper was the day before, why they got the wrong paper or why they got a free paper. This was going to be harder than I thought.
Fourth Day on the Job
I did it right by day four, and breathed a sigh of relief, until my Dad got home. He indicated to me that I needed to mimeograph (copy) a half sheet of paper with my name and address, phone number and note on it, and give it to each customer when I collected for the first time on Saturday. The note said:
“I am your new paperboy, and I am responsible for delivering your paper every day. I promise that it will be dry and on time. If you have any problems, call me and I will fix them.”
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Lifetime Lesson
And that’s the day I understood what being accountable was all about, because once I handed them that paper, believe me, I felt accountable in a whole new way. I owned 'it,' I was accountable.
The money was a great benefit to the job for a ten-year-old, but the lessons learned from my parents lasted a lot longer than the money.
They lasted a lifetime. I learned about accountability but I also learned about excuses, because that piece of paper I handed to each customer, took them away. But we all forget, and years later when a 22-year-old kid called me out, I remembered in a more dramatic fashion, how people react to excuses.
Excuses
What sets people over the edge more than anything else is excuses. No one likes them, no one wants them, and everyone claims they don’t use them: they use "explanations." In the real world if you have to explain what didn’t happen that was supposed to happen, you can call it an explanation, but everyone else is calling it an excuse behind your back.
How can this double-meaning be so pervasive? Here is my theory, and it is simple: we all judge ourselves, and we do so based on our intentions. When we judge others we do that based on their actions. Think about that for a minute. Judging ourselves based on our intentions has words like I was going to...I intended to…I planned to…I thought… I believed…I felt.
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Called Out by a College Kid
As a young restaurant manager, I had a great employee who was attending Boston College Law School, and he called me out because his pay check was short. When I gave him an excuse for messing up his check, he looked me right in the eye and gave me a lesson I've never forgotten when he said:
“Excuses are for beginners and losers. Which one are you?”
Sometimes it is easier than other times but owning it and owning up to it eventually feels better and makes you a better person, leader, and employee. I owned up to it with the paper route at 10 years old, and I've slipped up plenty in my life, and still do, along the way, but I always eventually remember that excuses ARE for beginners and losers.
Next time you are in a discussion and you hear yourself saying ‘I meant...’ or any of the derivatives, stop and think about it: are you judging yourself on your intentions? Are you making excuses? Are you a beginner or a loser? If you are not either, don’t make excuses and own it, whatever ‘it’ might be.
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Postscript
That paper route, and the lessons, were transferred to my younger brother Brian after me, and then he passed it to our younger brother Paul, after him, who passed it along to our younger brother Chris after that, and then we ran out of brothers, it may have even gone to my sister Susan somewhere along the way? Probably 15 years of service to families in Braintree and each one of them had a Doherty name, address, and phone number on a little piece of paper they were handed on a Saturday by their paper person.
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To submit your advice simply reply to this email and send it in. There is no guarantee it will be published, but I'll do my best to get the best ideas included. Even if it is not published right away, keep looking for it. |
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From Jim in Florida
I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it is true:
Hard work pays off.
If you want to be good, you have to
practice, practice, practice.
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Surprise Photo at the End: Playoff Time in Boston |
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Joe's Positive Post of the Week |
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The Roll Call of states and countries where readers reside: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC, Wisconsin plus Canada, Spain, Conch Republic, Australia and the United Kingdom |
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Ed Doherty
774-479-8831
www.ambroselanden.com
ed-doherty@outlook.com
Forgive any typos please.
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