My Father
George Schultz
To tell the truth, my father was never close to being a financial success. When we lived in Metuchen, my family struggled just to live at the poverty level. However, this was not for the lack of hours that my father worked. He worked various low paying jobs like delivering newspapers, security guard, flower delivery, hardware store clerk, gas station attendant, sporting goods clerk, finance company manager, car battery deliveryman, door to door salesman, and rent-a-car company manager. Often, he worked a combination of two or three of these jobs at the same time.
My dad worked long hours - but never kept a job for long. He pretty much was spinning his wheels without getting anywhere as his jobs never paid well. I am not sure why, but my father never able to come up with a good plan to change our family’s situation. I know he tried hard and wanted different, but it just was never to be.
However, he did push two of my brothers and I into working hard. I sold doughnuts, greeting cards, and plant seeds door-to-door before I was ten. I also mowed yards, raked leaves, shoveled snow, painted garages, swept floors in a store and just about anything else for an extra buck. When I was twelve, I would get up at 4AM to deliver morning papers with my father, go to school until 3PM, work my afternoon paper route until about 5:30PM, and then wash dishes at a deli until 9:30PM. At 16, I had a car newspaper route of over 200 customers that covered 77 miles in the morning; worked on a construction site swinging a sledge-hammer driving 3′ pieces of rebar through the holes in concrete parking lot chalks) during the day; was a cook at Colonel Sanders at night; and pumped gas on the weekends. I had to quit Colonel Sanders when my hands were so raw from swinging a sledgehammer all day — that they constantly bleed. To this day, I am restless if I am not working.
Had my father not made me feel that it was normal to work hard - I would have not been conditioned for the long hours with little pay that comes with starting a business in a competitive industry. I have tried to push my children to work hard so that they too have a good chance for financial success in the real world. However, my wife and children do not understand the whole reasoning behind my desire. I hope that growing up with their money, clothes, cars, maids and yardmen will not keep them from obtaining the basic work ethic skills required for financial success.
Shortly after I turned 17, I joined the military. My father took me to the airport and before I got on the plane he said something like “Son, any idiot can do four years of military service. Anyone who can’t stick that out is less than an idiot.” I found that the military during the Viet Nam era was not the place for a hippie like me to be. After about a year, I wanted out. However, every time I would consider finding a way out, my father’s words would echo in my head. About two years after I enlisted, the Viet Nam “Conflict” ended and the military needed far fewer GIs - so all kinds of deals were cut for those wanting out. Had my father not said what he had - I would have certainly jumped at those chances and missed some valuable experience from the military plus, my VA Education benefits. I eventually served 3 years active duty, but was seriously injured in December 1974, and allowed to trade my final year of active duty for two years of active reserve (weekend warrior). I firmly believe that his words have caused me to see things though more often than not.
The lessons I learned from my father were to get my ass out and learn how to support myself, and to stick it out in the military — which in turn has taught me to stick it out when the going gets tough. I have also learned, thorough observing my father, that working hard alone will not cut it. You have to identify a career that pays well, and then formulate a reasonable and intelligent plan for you to achieve success in it.
