It's who you know...

"I'm sorry, but you're not old enough for the job". Today, I would love to hear those words, because at my age I'm considered too old for most everything. However, as a ten year old who desperately wanted a job delivering newspapers those words were tough to take. After all, I had a brand new bike, and I was almost eleven, which was just a year away from being the magical age of twelve, the minimum age to acquire a paper route.

So, like any budding entrepreneur, I looked for a way to break through the barriers. After all, I could ride a bike as well as anybody, and could I ever throw....oh yeah, I could throw a newspaper. What else was there to know?

I soon learned a lesson that has probably had more impact on my life than practically anything I've learned since. I had no idea what it was called at the time, but I soon figured out that it helped "break down barriers". Today it might be called "networking", or sometimes it might be referred to as "it's who you know". Either way, it's a way to get in front of the decision maker, a way to speak with the one who has the authority to waive some silly rule about a minimum age!

Come to find out, the Circulation Manager who hired all of the paper carriers, was a good friend of my older sister's boyfriend. Wanting to stay in my sister's good graces, her boyfriend offered to "put in a good word" for me at the newspaper office. A few days later I was called in, asked a couple of tough questions about my commitment, then "So, you're Darla's little brother". Done deal, hired.

I spent two weeks with the existing carrier who showed me the ropes, where to pick up the papers, how to fold and roll them, and of course the addresses of all 110 subscribers. I was fortunate to have the route in the same neighborhood where I lived, so I was already familiar with most of the people receiving the paper and it didn't take long to learn the route.

I delivered 110 papers every day of the week except Saturday, which was reserved for collecting from the customers. Collecting money was another learning experience, and one that taught me a lot about business. You see, with the money we collected we paid for the newspapers, bought rubber bands, carrying bags, plastic wrappers for when it rained, and then, we kept what was left, about a penny a paper. Of course that's if everyone paid their bill, and of course, not everyone did.

When you're ten or eleven years old you just assume that adults always do the right thing, so it was quite a disappointment when they did not. The cost of the newspaper was 35 cents per week, 70 cents for two, $1.05 for three weeks, then service was suspended. Amazingly, as soon as the paper didn't show up on the front doorstep, I would get an angry call and hear words that I shouldn't have learned until years later. I learned to be tactful, and explain that I could bring them a paper as soon as they brought their account current. In most instances that was all it took to collect my money.

As I mentioned earlier, I could really throw a newspaper. Blessed with a strong arm and the ability roll a newspaper really tight, I could put that paper just about anywhere I wanted. For those customers who always wondered why their paper was in the bushes, on the roof, or out in the ditch by the road, it's all about payback. It's not something I'm proud of now, but by golly if you made me work that hard to collect the money, then I made sure you worked just as hard to find your newspaper.

At the time it seemed to be the right thing to do, but I was only ten so what did I know?