I Did NOT Steal Those Books In Chicago, But if I Did I Would Steal These

Dateline: August 31, 2011 in the Chicagoland section of The Chicago Tribune, headline reads; Janitor charged with stealing thousands of books from Lisle library, By Brian Slodysko, Tribune reporter.

“Security procedures at the Lisle Library will be evaluated after a Glen Ellyn man who worked as a late-night janitor was charged with carting off thousands of stolen library books”.

For the record, I have not been to Chicago since August of 2010; I have never lived in Glen Ellyn and have never worked that night shift at that library. To those reading this headline and just naturally assuming it was I are wrong. I never stole a book from any library and feel that this sort of crime is one of the lowest.

To keep the record straight, once I reported a library book lost and paid the library for it but I knew where it was all the time. After checking with Strand’s in New York City, the final authority on hard to find books, paying the library for this book was the only way I could have it.

Now that I have cleared up this late breaking news, cleared my own good name and made a confession of my one misdeed against any library, we can all now move on past all this ugliness.

It's not JUST the Devil in the Details

The details matter. They matter on a grander scale then we can imagine. Sometimes those details matter to those who we do not expect them to matter too.

I just read a story of Steve Job’s concern over a small detail. I will let you read that story here yourself:  Steve Jobs and the Google Logo Ambulance. The story immediately brought to mind a man who worked for me as a day porter in the headquarters of a large company. His name also was Steve.

This week I followed a conversation about the frustration of finding and keeping good help. I was in the business long enough to fix that problem for good and never had to advertise as all my competitors did.

My Steve was no genius and was in fact developmentally disabled. Steve took his job very seriously. Though he was finished with work at 4pm, one night I get a call from Steve at 11pm.

Steve was bothered about a spot on a faucet that he was not able to remove in a men’s room on the second floor. He could NOT rest and called me to tell me he was working on it but it really was bothering him.

Why the Web Matters and Why it Matters Even MORE Today

 A $50,000 per month janitorial contract with a 22% gross profit that came off a web site hit got my attention. With all the competition for accounts like this one, I was shocked. I built one of the largest janitorial companies in the US without knocking on a single door but I was still shocked. 

I was the guy that licked 5,000 envelopes when computers were the size of trucks. I learned how direct marketing worked, was successful at it, and then spent the next 25 years listening to people telling me that it didn’t work. (It just did not work for them because they were doing it wrong). 

The first chance I got to run out and buy a computer I bit the bullet and spent more than the car I was driving at the time. Then there was a way to talk to other people with computers over phone lines. Once again, I was there, we could type with a keyboard, and it would show up on the screen of the person on the other end of the phone line. No pictures, no sound just very plain type that looked like what telegrams used to look like. This was before Al Gore invented the World Wide Web. 

Last weekend I spent some time getting hooked up to something called Tumblr. One of the big stars there is Jenna Marbles. She is also one of the stars of Web 2.0. Everyone my age will look at Jenna Marbles whining about the girls she hates, why her cat is better than a boyfriend, advice on how to avoid people that she doesn’t want to talk to and how to trick people into thinking you look good (which is strange coming from a very attractive young lady in her early 20s) and dismiss her completely. Here’s the deal though, Jenna invites you to then comment or tell her what you, the viewer thinks and people do. 

Do you have a computer? Have you ever sent or received an email? Have you walked into any Fortune 500 company to sell janitorial services? Face it, in 2011 if you do not use a computer then you might as well get rid of your telephone. Oh and while you are at it, get rid of that new fangled floor machine too and then you can go back to the “good old days” when floors were polished by attaching rags to your feet. So the bottom line is your computer is here to stay if you are in the janitorial business. The internet isn’t a fad either, it’s here to stay. 

Jenna Marbles matters and so does Web 2.0 and here is why. Al Gore’s wonderful invention of the Web was not worth very much to the average person. Do you know who were the first bunch of Joe Averages who it did matter too? The fans of the Grateful Dead were the first to use Gore’s invention for their own purposes. Stoned out Deadheads found out that there was something called Mosaic (the very first web browser) and they used Mosaic to organize each other. Deadheads traveled around in brightly painted VW vans, following their favorite band. Jenna Marbles’ twenty something very public angst is today’s permutation of those stoned out Deadhead’s partying.

To those of you who say I am stretching a point, try selling any of your services to any Fortune 500 company or any government agency without first going to their web site and filling out a vendor registration form. You can stand in the lobby for as long as you like handing business cards to a receptionist and if you are not a registered vendor you are wasting your time. 

You started out with a web site thinking all it is supposed to do, is to act like a brochure. You PUSHING out your message in the form of a electronic brochure and hoping someone that can sign a cleaning contract will see it and spend the time to read it. Web 2.0 is here and your web site is only one small piece of any serious company’s presence on the Web. If you want to grow and thrive in this new electronic landscape, I really hate to tell you this but you are going to have to learn what Jenna Marbles knows.

Now you will not be able to say you have not been warned because I just warned all of you. 

How a Harvard Professor Convinced Me to Become a Full Time Janitor

I started a list of all the people that either had started their careers or had worked as janitors in the past and it is a very impressive list. World leaders, politicians and familiar entertainers all once worked in our industry. I wanted to be one of them, someone just doing cleaning work temporarily until I launched into a career of money, glory, and success.

My first cleaning job was in college where I started by sweeping and mopping the street in front of several of Miami’s most prestigious hotels. I had to work my way up to be assigned to the inside, mop the lobbies, and vacuum those fabulous waterfront nightclubs.

I had a dreadful time in college because it was there that I fell in love with learning and confused that with college attendance. I changed majors after a couple of years but in the meantime picked up a wife, a mortgage, and car payments. I got it straightened out by understanding college was to make a living and learning was a solitary activity one undertakes for a lifetime and had nothing at all to do with so called institutions of higher learning.

With the Price of Success Secrets Seriously Dropping

The price of the secrets of success is dropping. Once upon a time, the secrets of success were only available through accomplished role models of good character and success or in the books, they wrote. The internet came and the secrets of success began to leak out all over the web but they were secrets of a lesser quality. The biggest secrets should be more expensive or maybe the level of success determines the price but make no mistake about it, the price has gone right down the toilet.

In order to make a full disclosure, I too am a purveyor of secrets for a price but I figure what you save on Band-Aids make mine a good deal. My highest value secrets have left wounds and scars so buying my secrets are a bargain.

The secret selling business has grown right along with the janitorial business. More people today are selling secrets and it’s no secret there are more people selling janitorial services than ever before.