My parents bought a farm equipment dealership when I was nine. One of my first jobs was filling the pop machine there.
The pop machine was a rectangular box with Pepsi on the top panel. It stood half again taller than I did at that time. Back then a 12oz Pepsi product which included Mountain Dew (bottled by Clem and Lem) cost you 15 cents. With another nickel, you could buy a handful of peanuts from the Lion’s Club peanut dispenser on the parts counter. What a refreshing combination!
So the rule was that we keep the pop machine filled, especially during hot weather. My older brother and I had several jobs over the years at the equipment dealership, but the pop case, as we called it, was a top priority. Dad secured our top notch service with one small incentive:
“Boys, keep that case full and when you fill it, take a pop for yourself free.”
Free was great news because at first working at the dealership sweeping and emptying trash did not pay anything. I’m here to tell you that’s exactly what we were worth, or less!
Our parents had grown up during the Great Depression and thought three square meals a day was pay enough for work that benefitted the family.
The Jobs Get Better… Sort Of.
We eventually were given more responsibilities (I’m sure because of our stellar performance with the pop case) and quickly began making the big money. It paid 35 cents an hour and included mowing the ditch with a mowing scythe. A mowing scythe, for those who don’t know, is a torture device designed with the purpose of humbling any young man who thinks he is pretty tough.
Additionally, we were privileged with cleaning and repainting Gleaner combines. This was the late 60s, and the farm economy was so bad that some machines took up residence on our family’s equipment lot. In some cases, we cleaned and painted those same combines two years in a row. The cleaning process included S.O.S. pads on the side panels of the machines. Talk about fun!
Lawn Care Extraordinaire!
As our finances began to explode, Dad gave us our next entrepreneurial adventure. Dad ordered two brand new 19” push mowers and sent us out to find our fortune in our quaint Midwest town.
Older folks made up our clientele, and some of them would set the price for you. No kidding! One older gentleman named Clarence was a stickler on having sharp mower blades. Our transportation was our bicycles, so we would ride the bikes over to Clarence’s house which was about a mile away from where we lived. Clarence would always bend down and check our blades to see if he thought they were sharp enough. If not, we would have to drag the mowers back to town and sharpen the blades at the dealership, then drag the mowers back out to cut Clarence’s grass.
Nelly lived across the street from Clarence, but she was different. She did not care much what her lawn looked like. As a matter of fact, she would not let us mow it when it needed it. She would call when it was way too high and you could barely get the mower through the grass. She also had a habit of dropping the price she paid us because she told us we were not doing a good enough job. My brother and I were ashamed to admit to our parents that we were being penalized for doing a poor job, so this discounting went on until Mom found out. Mom, as our greatest advocate, promptly fired Nelly as our customer. It still makes me smile.
The Value of Good Customer Service, And of Serving Good Customers
We learned a lot during that time about keeping the customer happy. Also, we learned to do our prep work so that we could produce more when it came time to perform. Perhaps most importantly, we learned that you should never take advantage of anyone just because you can. Some of your customers will teach you things and some will cheat you. Learn from the teachers and fire the cheaters.