DEFINE "HARD WORK"

Today I was listening to Public Radio, as is my wont.  All of a sudden the topic of hard work came up.  The host of the program was interviewing people who had achieved something great along the way of life.  The one that grabbed my attention was the biography of a woman who has conquered white slavery and become a tenured full professor at UCLA.  When she finished her story, the host then went on to introduce an expert on the effects of hard work on the human body and in the human mind.  Fortunately, I had arrived at a point just 100 yards away from my destination, so I missed the whole thing, except the inane introduction.  It did, however make me think.  I cannot remember if I ever paused to talk about my philosophy of work, and precisely, hard work.  Let me run a search to see if the "hard work" label occurs in the "365 Thoughts..." universe.  I'll get back to you.
[5 minutes later] Brace yourselves...62 hits in the search for "hard work."  Wow!  I didn't think anyone could say so many things about "hard work" as that.  That equals 11.524% of the time I have written on these pages, I talked even just a little bit about "hard work."  How could I do that?  I know that I am not afraid of hard work.  Jiminy Cricket, I could sleep next to it all day and and wake up happy.  However today I did get a little philosophical about it.
Ready?  Here we go.
Age 12 -- Cleaning the sluicing brook behind the auto body shop
Age 14 -- Working on the tobacco farms (2 Summers)
Age 17 -- Working on a construction site (I know, I was an illegal) Trust me, by any  
                 definition, that was hard work
Age 18 -- Working in a print shop specializing in comic books and in cheap $0.25 
                 pornographic (text only) pocket books (worked there for 5 Summers)
I was in the seminary in the farming country of New Hampshire and we pitched in to perform the maintenance and farming tasks that had to be done.  Yes, some of it was dangerous...lumber jacking, for example; slaughtering cattle and a host of other stuff that goes into the maintenance of a 1,500 acre property and a full service farm.
Talk about hard work?  So far I have only mentioned categories that are generally conceded to be "hard work."  But remember, I am a polyglot with a masters degree.  So, I have a different definition of hard work than you'll find in John L. Lewis's note books. Nevertheless I venture into other classes of "hard work."
Decision making based on an abundance of education and a penury of experience.  Learning a foreign language so that you can help other people make conscience decisions without leading them astray.  Managing a $ 1,000,000 budget of tithe collections to the liking of your parishioners and the strict expectations of your boss.  When you were 30 years old, full of P... and vinegar, did you ever try to talk some serious truth to the 60 year old, crusty codger who didn't give a sweet flying fig how much education you had?  Friend, That is HARD WORK.
Then, I got older.  Then I had to remember the "hard work" that I had done when I was 30.  I have to tell you, those 60 somethings who had to listen to me when I was 30 were doing hard work.  I was a handful...in fact, a whole bushel basket full.  Now, I am even older than that and I work for a company in Europe and I have to meet European deadlines from California, and they are set by those European 30 somethings!  Hey, amigos, I'm here to tell you that it is hard work even though I don't even have to comb my hair to go to work.
Interestingly enough, I haven't mentioned the two years that I drove a medical transport van over mainly city streets.  250 to 300 miles per day.  
How about the airport mini-van to transport passengers and their luggage to and from airports?  16 to 18 hour days six days per week...Sunday I took a break and only worked 8 hours.  


See?  There are many definitions of hard work.  Physical, mental and emotional.  
None of the three can escape the three forces that cause the work to be hard.
Short, but powerful intensity (weight, risk, probable consequences).  Long, continuous demand for engaged involvement.   Disciplined maintenance of smooth, collaborative human relationships to provide high quality outcomes.


All three of these clumps of reality can be deleterious to your health if they are not managed well.  I know, first hand.  Hard work did not kill me, but my gluttony for it nearly did.  Don't let it do it to you...don't do it to yourself.  Because I learned my lesson, you won't have to cry at my funeral.

MLM -- AN INTERESTING APPROACH TO LIFE

It has been a long time since I attended an MLM [Multi-Level Marketing] presentation.  I must admit that in the nearly 40 years that I have attended these presentations I have been unable to find any serious changes in the approach.  What struck me this time was that the approach has turned out to be somewhat distasteful to me because it ignores some rather basic human tendencies while trying to entice people with baser instincts.  It reminds me of the professional athlete syndrome that usually courses through the veins of many younger people.
Professional athletes make it all look so easy.  They run, they jump, they catch, they throw. They win and they lose, but it all looks so easy.  The young person in an age-appropriate setting does the same thing and younger siblings just know that they will do that too someday.  The desire to be a professional athlete dies hard in some people.  I know.  It died hard in me.  I have told you the story that it took an honest coach's plain talk to make me come to my senses.
It came home to me then, that many think they can, but can't, or won't. So many do not have the raw talent, others have the talent but don't pound it into full reality because all they look at is the glamor, the fame and the money.  Crrrash!
You got the picture.  MLM is like that.  
I am fairly confident that many of you have been to a presentation by Amway, Avon, Mary Kay or someone else, maybe even Fuller Brush! :-).  At first the presentations strike you as being really great and the concepts put forth are so clear and the objectives that they describe appear so easy to achieve.  The beginning of such an endeavor for so many people starts on a high and withers and dies because the reality rarely matches the hype.  That is an easy way of putting it.  The more realistically profound way I think is this:
It is wrong-headed propaganda.  The one that I attended the other night was some of the same and I realized what was happening.  I was hearing a recording of the same stuff that I had heard 40+ years ago.  It always starts with the assurance that all you have to do is to dedicate 10 or 12 hours per week and before you know it the money will begin to roll in.  The math matrix that appears on the screen suddenly morphs into a pile of money bags and the listener is left with the impression that this is fruit from 12 hour weeks.  The copies of the large monthly residual income checks start to appear and before you know it the temptation to say "yes" is too great to resist.  But, wait, wait!...
Remember that you still have a day job.  Remember that you still have your family responsibilities and a ton of other things.  The most difficult reality to confront is the fact that for the most part, you and I do not have the training that it takes to be a good salesperson.  That is the key to the whole commitment.  Multi-Level-Marketing is more than anything direct, hard-driving sales work combined with training your partners for success. Ask any professional sales person how much effort and savvy it takes to be successful and you will walk away convinced that 12 part-time, easy going hours will never translate into $10,000 per month.  That is the insidious part of the approach...It does not put the accent on the bedrock foundation of success, which is nothing but hard work along a professionally defined line.
I have nothing against Multi-Level-Sales organizations, per se.  I am just expressing my wonderment at the amount of time that it took for me to realize how warped the recruitment approach is.  Serious industries spend a lot of time training potential sales persons.  Not more than about 15% of the trainees make it through the training and fewer than that become successful.  None of them sooner than five years into it.  This is well-known truth.  Yet the MLM people keep hammering away at the "easy money" approach.  
I am not going to let you down.  I'm going to share a secret with you that will perhaps surprise you.  Here it is anyway.  It's not rocket science, it's common sense career preparation.
1. You  take charge.  Don't wait to be invited.
2. Study.  If only on Google.  Spend some time informing yourself about MLM companies.
3. Make a list of about 10 questions that you think are the tough ones concerning any  job. 
              Pick your three favorite companies 
4. Find a successful person in each of your three picks and ask for a one-on-one meeting.  [not more than 60 minutes]  No product demonstration this time.
5. You drive the agenda.  No fluff.  No B.S.  Work.  What does it take to be successful in the company?  Ask each one of your ten questions.  Take notes.
6. How much real money will it cost you, out-of-pocket on a month to month basis to make yourself self-sufficient in 12 - 15 months.  Don't leave anything out.  Phone, gas, fast food, samples, monthly product buys, stationery, stamps, Internet, printer ink, etc...you get the point.
7. Support team, training, etc.
8. Be polite. End the meeting on your terms.  Promise to get back to the individual within 5 working days.  If the individual calls you after two days, politely say that you're still considering your options.  Remember, you're in charge.  It's your life. When you do call the person, tell the truth.  Yes or no, up or down. 
9. If you have one company chosen, you have no doubt developed more questions.  Call the person to whom you spoke and ask for one last meeting.  This is the time when you ask for the product demonstration along with the opportunity to meet a colleague of the person whom you interviewed the last time.

When you request this meeting, you might want to tell the person that this is the last meeting before your final decision.  It is also polite to announce that there is no one else in the running for your services at this point.  Have the meeting.  If you want to join, say so.  Make an appointment for a sign-up session and a short orientation.  You'll be on your way.

Sound like a lot?  Yep.  Look at it this way.  It's your investment.  Knowing what you put into it will make you work harder at making it work.  After all, it's your life, not M-L-M's.  Right?

Yes, there is good money to be made in this field.    Serious money for serious, hard working, smart people.
God bless you.

SHORT FAT AND UGLY; DEAF & DUMB; DOWN & OUT, etc

 

You're not going to believe this, but I am indeed going to reconstruct the post that was swallowed by Google Blogger thereby ruining the continuity of an important part of my "365 Thoughts..."
I decided that rather than get totally downtrodden about the whole thing, I would just sit down and record the events contained in the previous post.  After all, the truth doesn't change, just the human description of it does.  I will be the only one who will know which relation of it is actually better.  Or was?  It was 1977.  I had left one way of life behind and was starting a new one.  Some would say that I was in a career change.  Call it what you will. I was forty years old, married and had to have gainful employment.  So I did what I had done several times before.  I started knocking on doors and asking for work.  Along the way, a relative of mine who had a friend who had a relative with connections who happened to know of a company that was in the process of looking for help in the Personnel department.  It was meant to be an "entry level professional,low management" opportunity.  It required a college degree [check], willingness to work long and hard [check], good English skills [check] and the ability to type [check?].  I got a call from the connections and was told to report for an interview at 6:30 AM the next day, Wednesday.  The interview lasted for over an hour and I will not bore you with the gory details.  At around midday, I got a phone call telling me to report for a boardroom interview at 9:00 AM tomorrow, Thursday.  I arrived in plenty of time.  The next morning, Friday, I was told by telephone, that I should come in by 11:00 AM to listen to the job offer.  I went, I listened, I accepted the job of Factory Labor Recruiter, $850 per month, salary.  The heads of the department were busy that day so they told me to report for work at 7:00 AM the next morning.  I did tell you that the next morning was Saturday, right?  Oh, by the way, they did tell me that a sport shirt was fine for a Saturday.  Real lax, laid back place!  I went.  They told me what they wanted.  Two hundred minimum wage factory workers by the end of the month.  It was now the 5th!  They explained all the "qualifications" that the best candidates should possess.  No previous employment in a unionized company; reliable transportation; good command of the English language; internal referral.  This one was important because it would make the person less flaky if there was a built-in fear of offending a friend or relative. Got that?  Good.  Then they show me my office.  They had cleaned out the janitor's supply closet to accommodate the new recruiter.  True story.  No writing on the application.  Find a way to mark the good ones, but do not mark the application.  No problem.
OK.  We have an ad in the newspaper for three consecutive weeks with the headline "Assemblers needed.  No experience required."  Be here behind your desk by 6:00 AM. on Monday.
---------------********************--------------------
I got there by 5:45.  There were over 100 people lined up with applications in their hands.  The security guards had been passing them out.  I had been told, "you have to make up your mind in 30 seconds and the whole time you spend with anyone should not consume more than one minute."  So I got behind my desk and started the process.  15 years of hearing confessions came in handy in this situation.  Oh, yes, I hear some very compelling 30 second stories, believe me.  I had been told that the wave would peak at about 1:00 and be but a ripple by 4:00.  So it was.  I was tired but had the presence of mind to make appointments with the stragglers for the morrow.  4:05 PM the Man comes in.
"Well, who ya gonna call?
"Call?  Who, me?  I gotta call someone?"
"Whadya think we gotcha here for, yer looks?"
"Ah, that, no.  But...I...Ahhh..."
"Call the ten best and get them in here by 8:00 AM tomorrow and J... will get them ready to get to work.  Start with first shift people."
He turns on his heel and disappears.  He couldn't stand it in the broom closet, I guess.
Ten best?  Best at what? No experience needed.  So I made up my own description.  I scratched my head, put on my thinking cap and called the best, as I remembered them, of course -- Best looking -- Best dressed -- Best referral -- Best penmanship -- Best country or state of origin -- Best handshake -- 
It was the only way I saw through  the challenge of getting through ten pounds of paper, calling and making offers to people to start work in a few hours.  I was trying to get home before midnight.  It worked.  I did get ten to accept offers of employment with the promise to report by 8:00 AM and I did get home by 9:30 PM.  Much, very much to his credit, the boss only left when I left.  He and I are still friends.
This went on for a month, I kid you not.  We hired more than 200 employees in that month.  I learned a lot.  I don't remember it all, but I know I did learn plenty.  One thing that I learned is that we never know exactly to whom we are talking.  The stories that appear in the post entitled It's Neither as Good Nor as Bad as it Appears illustrate exactly what I mean.  
I occupied that broom closet with pride for nearly one year.  Many good and Godly things took root there, for the Company, for the people who transacted business there and for me.  That broom closet was my Church (confessional and pulpit included), my sitting room, my classroom and my consultation studio.  It all happened exactly 34 years ago.  It is no farther away than my grey head.  I visit it often.