What a wonderful world …

At the Air­port last week, had some time to kill before my con­nec­tion so I decided to get a shine. (At this point let me say that a shoe shine is one of THE best things you can ever do. Some­one fusses over you, it’s cheap, there’s imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion, and your shoes look great.)

For rea­sons that escape me, the shine indus­try is mostly pop­u­lated by old black men. It makes me won­der where they get new guys to appren­tice and where they go until they get old. Many of them have a cer­tain wis­dom all their own, so when pos­si­ble I like to talk to these guys and get their take on life, not to men­tion heal dressing.

So, last week, this guy pulls out the metal shoe holder deal and I climb on up. He goes to work and we start talk­ing. After we get through with the sports stuff, even­tu­ally he asks, “You work for commission?” 

“Well that’s the way it’s sup­posed to work”, I reply. “Some­times I work for a com­mis­sion statement”

“I think every­body ought to work for com­mis­sion” he says. “Makes every­body work harder and get in line with the bosses.”

Shocked, I shout; “Every­body work on com­mis­sion! Wow, that’s my mantra! I have that tat­tooed on my ass.    Do you read Sales Swamis? It’s a really great blog writ­ten by real sales people”

Actu­ally I didn’t say any of those things and I don’t have a tat­too on my ass, but that is my mantra and if I did have a tat­too, that’s what it would read, and if I did yell some­thing in an air­port that’s what I’d yell.

Every­body should work for com­mis­sion. (Prob­a­bly take both cheeks — I have small cheeks — but I digress)

“I worked in a liquor store for $106 a week”,  he told me. “I didn’t care if peo­ple bought any­thing or not and I was just an ass to these peo­ple, some­times I just napped in the back. ‘Cause it didn’t mat­ter I was still gonna make 106 bucks a week.   Now, I get paid on how hard I work plus the tips, I have a good job,  I’m happy , been doing it for 25 years and put 3 kids through college. “

Get­ting paid for his efforts had changed his life and the future of his fam­ily,  Heck, those 3 kids would prob­a­bly be appren­tice shoe shin­ers at that secret place they go until they’re 60.

Imag­ine…  what a won­der­ful world it would be if every­one was paid on the effort they put in:

The lines at the gro­cery store would fly as the check out lady couldn’t scan you fast enough.

The call cen­ter peo­ple, paid on how num­ber of calls, peo­ple they talked to and helped, would answer on the first ring, could quickly fig­ure out if you spoke Eng­lish or Span­ish and would be help­ful and kind.

Think about it, mar­ket­ing would cre­ate tools you need and could use; self serv­ing press releases become things of the past.

Prod­uct delays almost never hap­pen and they have the fea­tures your cus­tomers need

Expense checks are never late and emails get returned.

Oh sure, there’d be draw backs. You could never talk your way out of a speed­ing ticket. But on the other hand crime would drop because the cops would be paid on the num­ber of arrests they made. (Makes an inter­est­ing dynamic,  since being a crim­i­nal is already a straight com­mis­sion job)

The GDP would go up 10% overnight. Peo­ple would leave jobs they hated (because they would starve), do what they loved and would pros­per, the reces­sion would disappear.

Thou­sands of jobs would be cre­ated for accoun­tants and book­keep­ers since some­one will have to track all that com­mis­sion.  They too, of course, would be on com­mis­sion.  Sort of a com­mis­sion, commission.

Taxes would drop because peo­ple would make more money and wouldn’t want the gov­ern­ment to take it all. Politi­cians would be exempt because the last thing we want is those guys moti­vated to do any­thing. Gov­ern­ment employ­ees still wouldn’t work on com­mis­sion since they are always way behind.  Can you imag­ine the IRS on commission?

But the best part of all is with more money fly­ing round, peo­ple would travel more, which would scuff more shoes.  than in turn will cre­ate a demand for more shine ‘em up stands  and old black men would have more oppor­tu­nity to share their wisdom.

Clearly the world would be a bet­ter place.

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