Start Early, Stay Late
Brought Frankie to work again today, for the second time this week.
I didn’t even have to work in the city. This time of year the industry is slow, so my schedule is much more flexible. Frankie really wanted to head in, once again working a full day and overtime.
I did it as much for him as for me. I enjoy to see my life through Frankie’s eyes, to take the crowded ferry and the subway, to walk up a bustling Broadway from Herald Square to my offices on 37th Street. Then when the day is through, to walk down to Union Square to hit Forbidden Planet.
As the sun sailed over the city and it crept closer to quitting time, Frankie told my Admin, Christi Shingara (Best Admin Ever, by the way), that he was not ready to go home. He was willing to stay late, even all night.
“Just like your Dad, huh,” Christi said.
That is one measure of the man or woman, there reputation for hard work and willingness to put in the time necessary to succeed.
Whenever you can, be the first one in the building each morning when they unlock the doors and then the last to leave.
Too many young people starting out just do not want to put the time in to get ahead. Unless there is absolutely no room for promotion and you are just in a temporary position, put the time in, work twice as hard as the guy next to you and three times as hard as the gal next to him.
Then, when they kick you out of the office, go home and work some more.
Weekends?
Seriously.
If you don’t have work to bring home, which you should, you need another job. Ask your mother. When she met me, I was working for a magazine, editing a nightlife guide/reviewing bars and clubs several nights a week, hustling freelance gigs, AND going to night school at Columbia.
Weekends, I was tending bar either in Gravesend or down in Bay Ridge. And, I brought my laptop to the bar to do work during lulls in the night. I ate standing up and I ran myself silly.
But after work, I still had time to head down to the Wicked Monk to meet mommy and all my friends and drink and dance until the early morning, drag myself home, sleeps for a few hours and do it all over again.
In five years I was working on this seven-day schedule, I took off less than 20 days, and those included Christmas and Thanksgiving. The other holidays, I worked, including tending bar during some harrowing News Years parties (once, for a party of 200, of the other two bartenders, one was arrested and the other sent home when he showed up bombed).
Life is hard and you are meant to struggle, so struggle and scrap and fight and keep heading forward, harder when they push you back.
Success rarely happens overnight and almost never to those who sleep in, show up late, and leave early.
Unless, that is, if you are ridiculously talented. Then, you have responsibility to work even harder to fulfill the potential of your gift. But you will likely be so passionate about your work you’ll be driven.
Life is about struggle and strife. But it is easier to accept the nasty curves life throws you, if you know you tried your damnedest. Go down with your ship if you must, but do so fighting, and if it is to be, let life beat you. Never surrender.
But you know what, it gets easier, because the harder you work, the broader your shoulders will grow and the heavier the load you can carry.
