Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 385 October 8, 2004
MASTER THE TASKS YOU HATE MOST
Most men worry most about losing their jobs. We assume that
we are going to be healthy next week or next year, even when we
know that, eventually, we are going to decline physically to such
an extent that we will be forced to change our lifestyles. We
assume that our marriages will hold together. We take for
granted those things that are most important to us. Yet, being
mortal, we know that nothing should be taken for granted.
With respect to the source and size of their income, men
don't take everything for granted. The closer they are to sales,
the more they know that the consumers who provide their stream of
income should never be taken for granted. Consumers come and go.
They don't come and stay. A few do, but most don't. Attrition
is basic to the customer base.
The consumer's freedom to choose is what keeps the free
market so productive. Producers must constantly improve their
performance. The producer who takes his customers for granted is
likely to be replaced by another producer who is more attentive
to the desires of consumers. This is good for consumers, but it
is also good for producers. We are here on earth to add value.
We should strive to leave behind a legacy. Anyone who spent his
life as a net consumer of wealth missed the point.
In this sense, I disagree with Adam Smith. Contrary to
Smith, the goal of all production is not consumption. The goal
of some production is, but the wise man understands that the
percentage of his income devoted to consumption should fall over
time -- yes, even including the last six months of life, when
personal wealth is consumed at a very high rate, to the delight
of physicians and Medicare bureaucrats. The reduction of
consumption is what value-added living is all about. This is why
thrift is a moral imperative.
The salesman is at the front end of the stream of income.
He knows that it's a war zone out there: a war of service. The
further removed from sales, the more common is the attitude of
neglect. Sales are assumed. Income is assumed. The employee
isn't paid on commission. He draws a predictable paycheck. For
him, dealing with consumers is mostly negative. He gets paid the
same whether he deals with consumers or not. He prefers not.
Wrong attitude: value-consuming.
ED NORTON: MY MODEL
Those readers who remember "The Honeymooners" probably
recall Ed Norton's occupation. He worked in the sewer. What was
memorable about Art Carney's portrayal of Norton was Norton's
enthusiasm for his job.
Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden drove a bus. Ralph rarely
waxed eloquent about bus driving. Viewers would not have
believed him if he had. What is there to love about driving a
bus? But being enthusiastic about working in a sewer was
memorable.
For most viewers, the idea of working in a sewer is
repulsive. It's not like driving a bus, which is neither high
nor low on anyone's revulsion scale.
We need bus drivers. We need sewer workers even more. My
guess is that sewer workers in a free market economy are paid
more than bus drivers. The need is greater, and so is the
barrier to entry.
Norton impressed me as a teenager. Here was a man who
worked where the sun doesn't shine, yet he really seemed to like
his job. There was something inspiring about Norton -- not
heroic, but still inspiring. He had a job that almost nobody
wants, and which most people would prefer not to think about, yet
he was proud of his job. Carney did not make fun of the job, but
by playing the role enthusiastically, he made the character
funny. He could always get a laugh with some remark about
spending the day in a sewer.
I think of a line from one of Tom Lehrer's song-
introductions in the late 1950s. "Life is like a sewer. What
you get out of it depends on what you put into it." That was a
funny line because of the mental image it called forth. Sewers
are specific regarding what goes into them.
Then why was Ed Norton so proud of his job? Because he knew
that the job really was important. We don't think about sewers
until they cease working. Norton kept things working. No, he
wasn't a hero. But he did what was necessary to make the lives
of millions of urban residents pleasant. That was why Carney
could play Norton with such enthusiasm.
Carney and the script writers recognized the truth: the
viewers liked Ed Norton because we all understood that this guy
in a T-shirt and a funny hat represented what is great about the
human spirit. Norton knew how important his job was even though
he recognized how socially stifling it was. He was up front
about working in a sewer. He was saying, "It's my job. It's an
important job. I'm good at it. Every new day is a challenge."
Gleason could not have gotten the same laughs by focusing on life
as a bus driver. It took a sewer to get the laughs.
Life really is like a sewer. What Norton put into the sewer
-- enthusiasm -- is not what the rest of us put into it. That
was why we loved Ed Norton. There was a kind of greatness about
him. It was the kind of greatness we all should have, but don't.
THE BARRIER TO ENTRY
In every job, there is some aspect that most people don't
like. This constitutes an occupational barrier to entry. It
reduces the supply of competitors for the job. This is what
keeps paychecks high.
Some jobs are inherently foreboding. An obvious one is
skyscraper construction. Most of us don't like heights. Walking
along a girder 40 stories up is not what I would want to do for a
living. But for those people who develop the ability to walk a
girder without being bothered by several hundred feet of empty
space between them and the ground, they enjoy a barrier to entry.
There is not a long line of applicants trying to take their jobs
away from them.
Other jobs require some peculiar skill that hardly anyone
else possesses. Brain surgery is one. Rocket science is
another. The rarer the skill, and the higher the consumer
bidding for its output, the higher the wage.
A wage earner's competitive edge begins with his ability to
overcome the main barrier to entry. It may be a college degree.
It may be passing an exam. It may be walking along a girder
without looking down. Whatever it is, the employee had better
cultivate it and master it. He had better become an expert in
the field. This is what keeps the wolf away from the door.
A repulsive barrier should be embraced. Ed Norton should be
our guide. If a person can look at the worst side of his job and
cultivate an enthusiasm about it, he is way ahead of the
competition. He has mentally overcome the barrier. More than
this, he has made the transition to becoming a professional. He
has celebrated the barrier as his own. He even defines himself
by how well he overcomes it.
This is a difficult lesson to learn. There are tens of
millions of skilled workers who have never made the transition
from mere overcomers to enthusiastic adeps. They hate some
aspect of their job. They regard it as a burden, a thing to be
endured rather than mastered. Their attitude keeps them from
becoming masters. Yet mastery is what distinguishes the premier
performer from the journeyman.
They are Ralph Kramden. They should be Ed Norton.
I'm not sure who my favorite actor is, but I know who my
favorite character actor is: William H. Macy. His portrayal of
Tick Tock McGlaughlin in "Seabisquit" was a classic performance.
He stole every scene he was in. His enthusiasm for his work is
obvious. Occasionally, he gets a lead role. My favorite is
"Door to Door." It was a made-for-TV movie. It was a Ted Turner
production.
"Door to Door" is based on the life of a real person, Bill
Porter. Porter has cerebral palsy. He can barely walk. Just
getting from here to there is a challenge. Yet he decided that
he is going to become productive. He applied for work as a door-
to-door salesman. The company's sales manager of course turned
him down. But Porter offered a challenge. He said he was
willing to take the worst territory in town, which was Portland,
Oregon. What had the manager got to lose? He got the job.
The movie is about Porter's 40-year career. He walked 7 to
10 miles a day. Nothing stopped him. The rejections, the bad
days when he sold little or nothing, the derision: nothing
stopped him. The director could have included the rainy days.
After all, this was Portland. It wasn't necessary.
"Bill Porter is a remarkable man," Macy said. "I think there
are millions of remarkable men and women who, against some
formidable odds, get up every day and go to work. You never hear
about them. I've always been attracted to stories that talk
about the ordinary Joe who, without thanks and without fanfare,
does his job and touches so many people along the way." Macy's
comments about Porter could be taken as studio puffery, but his
portrayal of Porter made it clear that he believed what he said.
The movie closes with a sales pitch: "If you have a stubborn
stain, go to www.billporter.com." Yea! Here is a movie about a
salesman, and it tries to get us to buy something! Ted Turner
really isn't all bad. (He also produced "Gettysburg.")
"Door to Door" is a movie comparable to "Stand and Deliver,"
another TV movie about a man who could not be stopped, Jaime
Escalante, who taught calculus in a Los Angeles barrio high
school, or "The Marva Collins Story," a 1980 TV movie about a
teacher who got fed up with the public school system of Chicago
and started her own private academy in a Chicago ghetto. (I wish
Hallmark would finally issue this film for rental. It was the
best TV movie I ever saw. It starred Morgan Freeman and Cicily
Tyson.)
The message in these three movies is the same. There are
rotten aspects to most jobs. The goal is to overcome these
barriers and make a career out of overcoming them. Take them on.
But know when to quit, too. Collins got around the public
school's bureaucratic barriers by setting up her own private
school. She chose new barriers: how to get ghetto parents to pay
for their children's education, how to deal with local
regulations, etc. But her real gift -- her ability to teach --
was a barrier to entry that was not repulsive. That was what
inspired her to deal with the bad stuff. Like Bill Porter, she
has a website: www.marvacollins.com. It's worth visiting.
MY SEWER
I write newsletters for a living. The main barriers to
entry are these: (1) the ability to keep people turning the pages
or scrolling down; (2) the ability to persuade them to read the
very first letter; (3) meeting every deadline.
I have farmed out barrier #2, which I can do and have done
in the past. But I prefer to work with a specialist in the new
field of e-mail publishing. He gets the new subscribers and
mails out the letters. Then I keep the readers awake. (Yes,
there is attrition. Spam-blocking software is a big factor.)
In short, my job has no repulsive aspects for me. But my
calling does. My calling I define as "the most important thing I
can do in which I would be most difficult to replace." My
calling is writing long, footnoted books that hardly anyone
reads. I give them away on-line. Here is an example:
http://www.demischools.org/acts.pdf
This book is relatively short: about 100 pages. It deals
with an old question: "Was the New Testament church communistic?"
The answer is no, but it takes some doing to show why.
Download it. Go to page 95. There is my sewer. It's the
index. I hate to index.
Researching is OK. I was trained to do research. Writing
is fine. I enjoy writing. Proofreading and re-writing are fine.
It's like polishing a car before putting it on the lot. But
indexing? What a pain!
You're thinking: "Can't computers do an index?" The answer
is: "Not a decent one." Look up the word "church." Look at all
those entries: "allegiance to," "allocation," "Antioch,"
"approval of." On and on it goes. There are 18 entries. A
computer would produce a list of dozens of pages. The reader
would have to look at every page. In some cases, "church"
appears several times on a page. It would take the reader so
long to find what he is looking for that he would quit looking.
The computer-generated index would become useless.
So, I have adopted a rule. If there are more than six
entries for a word, I insert a secondary reference, i.e.,
"church: allegiance to," "church: allocation," "church: Antioch."
I find that I make 4 to 6 index entries per page of printed
text. A 100-page book requires 400 to 600 entries, with about 60
entries on a two-column page. I take 100 standard sheets of
white paper and use a paper cutter to cut them into eighths. I
use one sheet per entry, like mini-note cards.
I go through the book, writing down entries. I alphabetize
the entries. I then type them up. I print out the preliminary
index: quadruple spaced. Then I re-read the entire book, looking
for words that I may not have written down the first time. I
keep checking the index to see if I wrote down the word. In
probably 20% of the cases, I missed a word. In other words, 80%
of my time spent checking the printed index is wasted. I insert
missed entries by hand. Then I re-type the index.
It takes me about an hour, total, to index ten pages. A
100-page book takes 10 hours. I devote 10 hours a week to my
calling. It took me a week to index Acts.
Unfortunately, Deuteronomy is about 1450 pages long. I'll
get to it when I finish indexing Romans.
If you want to help me find typos, download Romans, a mere
215-page book.
http://www.demischools.org/romans.pdf
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WHY BOTHER?
Who will use an index? These people:
Someone who is looking for information on
just one idea or fact. He will not read the
entire book.
Someone who has read it, but who forgets
where he read one idea or fact. This
includes me.
Someone who is making a decision about
whether to buy or print out the book. The
index shows him what the book covers.
An author does not know who these people are, what interests
them, or what they are looking for. So, he has to spend many
hours creating an index that will be useful to people of many
interests and goals.
I hate to index because the work is tedious. It is
uncreative. It takes a lot of time. Rare is an author who likes
to index. But an author who refuses to do a detailed index is
lazy. He has not gotten knee-deep in his sewer.
In the bad old days, indexing upset me so much that my wife
would not allow me to index at home, from the day that I got a
separate office. I needed time driving home to cool off from the
misery of indexing.
These days, I don't mind it too much. I regard this change
in my attitude as a mark of my emotional maturity. It took a
quarter century for me to make the transition.
How did I do it? I finally stopped concentrating on the
boredom involved and the value of my lost time. I began thinking
about how much more useful the book will be for the reader if
there is a detailed index. More people will be able to find out
what I have written on this or that. More readers will be able
to refresh their memories.
In short, I focus on how much better off the reader will be
with the finished product. I think about the value added by the
index.
By becoming consumer-focused, I have been able to overcome
my mental barrier. This barrier was personal: overcoming my
boredom. But it is also a barrier for the reader if I refuse to
produce a comprehensive index.
Ed Norton is my model. I think about him when I get tired
of indexing. What the reader gets out of my books is influenced
by the ease with which he can scoop out what he wants and ignore
the rest.
Norton was proud of his job. I have learned to be proud of
my indexes. My pastor once told me that he always appreciated my
indexes, even before he met me. But most readers take an index
for granted. This is especially true today, when most readers
assume that a computer can generate an index. An index is in the
background, ignored, until the reader wants to find something.
A writer gets little applause for an index. But a writer of
non-fiction books should not be looking for applause. He should
be looking for readers, and through the readers, influence.
If readers forget details, and cannot overcome their
forgetfulness by means of an author-supplied tool, the influence
disappears.
CONCLUSION
What is your sewer? What mundane or even repulsive aspect
of your work keeps you from enjoying what you do? Ask yourself
these questions:
1. "Is it a barrier to entry that keeps out
my competitors and therefore makes me
more money?" Count your blessings
2. "Is it something that makes my work
significantly more useful to the final
consumer?" Your job is to serve
consumers.
3. "Is it something that makes my
performance stand out in comparison to
my peers?" Promotions are worth the
extra effort.
4. "Is it something that only I recognize
as a distinguishing feature of my work?"
Do you care?
5. "Can someone else do it better at a
price that I am willing to pay to farm
out?"
If your answers to #5 is yes, farm out the work. You will
do better in whatever remains. But if the answer is no to
question #5, then you will have to use #1-#3 to motivate you to
master the sewer, and by mastering it, take pride in it. People
learn to accept that which they do supremely well.
The toughest question to answer is #4. If only you can see
the results, then you probably should stop doing it. Find a way
to do the work without this aspect. Do an end run around it.
Get it out of your life.
There are some things worth doing well that only you
perceive. They give you a sense of personal accomplishment. I
typeset my own books. I spend a lot of time hyphenating words at
the end of a line, so that the spaces between each word on a line
are uniform. Most readers don't care. But I care. I want each
line to be gap-free. Aesthetically, I am repulsed by lines with
big gaps between words because the typesetter was too lazy to
hyphenate a long word at the end of a sentence. I invest
valuable time in hyphenating words. I do it for me, not for my
readers. My name is on the book, and it had better look right.
On the other hand, I have come to live with a failure of
WordPerfect for Windows. The footnote numbers do not always line
up evenly, top to bottom. WordPerfect for DOS did not have this
problem. I have come to live with this failure because, by
typesetting my own books, I retain control over everything except
footnote vertical alignment. The trade-off is worth it.
You should strive to become a master in your job. Don't
stay in any job in which your desire to excel in it is not a
personal fixation. Find a way to get out.
Your sign of mastery is your enthusiasm for doing the sewer-
related task better than anyone else can, or else your ability to
farm it out.
In other words, the mastery that counts is self-mastery.
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