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When I was just 20
years old, my parents had moved to Chicago and I had to live in their apartment
for the summer. Summer jobs in those days did not involve interning in a
profession where you hoped to make your career someday. Things were very much
simpler, and I think a lot fairer, too.
If you were looking
for a job in Chicago in 1977 you bought a copy of the Chicago Tribune. Then you
went through the 16 or 20 pages of want ads, and wrote down the sorts of jobs
you could ostensibly get. I ruled out things that involved driving to the
suburbs and I ruled out working in food service. I wanted something I could
walk to and make something over the minimum wage, which at the time was
something like $2.30/hr.
I applied one Monday
morning for two different jobs. The first was to be a cashier at the gift shop
of a North Side hotel. They said they would get back to me. The second was to
be a cashier and a stock-boy at a Rush Street Liquor Store called Bragno’s.
At just 20 years old,
I wasn’t legally allowed to work in a liquor store, but I had my older brother’s
draft card. I applied for the job and said to one of the two Bragno brothers
who interviewed me, “My name is Fred (my brother’s name) but everyone calls me
George.”
That didn’t seem to raise
any eyebrows.
I started that
evening, on the 4PM to midnight shift at $3.50/hr with 46 hours a week
guaranteed, meaning I got six hours a week at time and a half.
About a month into
the job a representative from Old Style beer—Chicago’s biggest-selling beer
came in the store and started shaking hands. It was the “Cuban Comet,” Orestes “Minnie”
Minoso, one of the greatest players to ever wear a White Sox uniform and a
member of the Cuban and Mexican baseball Halls of Fame. He’d likely be in the
American Hall of Fame too, but his skin color kept him out of the big leagues before
major league baseball integrated.
Minoso is one of only
two ball players in the entire history of major league baseball to play over
the course of five decades.
I thought of Minnie
because I’ve been talking lately to the great art director/creative director/strategist
Cabell Harris.
I’ve been seeing Cabell’s
name in the awards books for as long as I’ve been in the advertising business.
Like the great Minnie Minoso, Cabell has also had a career that’s spanned five
decades. And he’s still going strong. He has an enviable agency of his own now,called WORK Labs.
I’ve been intending
to have a proper interview with Cabell, but I’ve been busier lately than a
plumber clearing drains at a bearded man convention. Fortunately, Cabell’s made
my life easy. We’ll get to the interview, I promise, but in the meantime he’s
sent be some very important thoughts on the nature of work.
What is work? Why is
it important? Is it important? Why is Cabell’s company called WORK?
Most of these
questions are things we all think about. Especially when so much of work, to
steal a phrase from Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan,” is “nasty, brutish and short.”
Here are some thoughts from Cabell on the topic.
[By the way, it’s not
often I read something I really like. The acid-test of whether I like it or not
is this: do I send it to my daughters, to my wife, to the people I love? Cabell’s
writing below passed that test with hardly a second thought on my part.]
It's 5:01pm.
Your boss is out of
town. You are still at your desk. Why?
OK. This is
important. Your real boss isn’t the person with the company car. It's the
person staring back at you in the mirror each morning. You understand a job
isn't what you do, but how you do it. Your DNA has a strand dedicated to the
work ethic. It's an ingrained code of accountability that can never be
instilled through any employee video, seminar or retreat. You are wired with a
commitment to what you know to be true. And your boss is looking over his shoulder.
Your job isn't as
important as you think it is.
Your work, however,
is an entirely different matter.
You are not defined
by a job description. You are not defined by the title on your business card.
And you are most certainly not defined by your location on the management
chart. No. You are defined by the effort and pride that you put into your work.
A job is why the floor gets scrubbed. Work is why it is clean enough to eat off
of. Do not confuse your job with your work. It is much too important.
Where do you keep
your work ethic?
It can be on the end
of a mop handle or the end of a scalpel. Work doesn't care. Work only cares
about what's important; doing the job the right way. Work doesn't go for fancy
slogans. An honest day's work for an honest day's wages is all it needs to
hear. Work is hard-nosed. It will not be seated in the latest get-rich-quick
seminar. Work doesn't want to be your friend. Work doesn't want to be
glad-handed or slapped on the back. Work wants something much more important:
your respect.
A job will behave
like a job until told differently.
What is your job? To
sell insurance or paint houses or market pharmaceuticals? You know better. Do
not allow your job description to dictate what you do. Your real job is to
challenge the expected. To give the conventional way of thinking a swift kick
in the shin. Make your job more than anyone has ever imagined it could be. Too
many jobs are content to sit in the easy chair and fall asleep in front of the
television. Make today the day you give your job a wake-up call.
Is white-collar money
more valuable than blue-collar money?
Money isn't a true
measurement of anything that's important. A $100 bill is a $100 bill. It
represents nothing more than its face value. Whether it was earned by someone
sitting in a corner office on the 62nd floor in Manhattan or someone repairing
railroad track in Wyoming. The true value of money comes from how it was
earned. Was it acquired by cutting corners? Or by coming in early and staying
late? Money doesn't care. But you do. And that makes all the difference.
Do you still work as
hard when no one is watching?
How hard you work
isn't a function of anyone looking over your shoulder. It is a matter of pride.
Knowing that when your job is done, it will be done right. That is the beauty
of this responsibility called work. It isn't so much a job as it is a
philosophy. A code shared by everyone who has ever dug a ditch, worked on an
assembly line, or written a sales report. There is no secret handshake that
bonds us. Just a feeling of the right way vs. the half-assed way. You know what
camp you're in.
--
One more thing.
If you sit with
Cabell over a drink or chat with him on the phone, he’ll do what a lot of
art-directors do. He’ll say he can’t write. Diane Cook-Tench said that to me
earlier in January. As did Mark Denton.
The thing is writing isn’t
about being fancy or flowery or even mellifluous. Though sometimes people think
writing is more about style than substance. I disagree with that. The writing
that’s had the biggest influences on our lives and world has been simple,
powerful and direct.
If you think about
the great words off human history, whether in advertising, in the Bible, in
political manifestos or great speeches, they have something in common: They’re clear,
interesting and memorable.
As is Cabell.
More about him and
his work sooner, rather than later.
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