Four Doors Either Side

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, on a terrace where one house in fourteen has just been painted and thirteen have not.

Two painters finish equal work,
Same house, same street, same summer's end.
One packs his ladders, goes his way,
One knocks four doors before he leaves.
The paint is equal on both walls.
Which street was painted by the spring?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two house-painters in the town I've never named, and their work, in the old chorus, was equally clean. Each spent a fortnight that summer painting a house in a long terrace, and each did a fine job of it.

The first packed his ladders on the Friday and went home, as any man would.

What he left behind was the best advertisement he would produce that year, standing in a street where a hundred people passed daily, and he had done nothing whatever to attach his name to it.

So the neighbours admired the house, which they did, and said the frontage looked well, which it did, and had no idea who had painted it. Two of them meant to ask and did not, because asking requires catching the owner at the right moment and remembering to raise it. One asked eventually, in November, by which time the answer had softened into a name half remembered.

He had spent a fortnight in that street, on ladders, in plain view of every household in it, and had treated the whole thing as a job rather than as a fortnight of standing where his customers live.

The second painter did four small things and none of them cost him an hour.

Before he began, he knocked on the two houses either side and said what he was doing, how long it would take, and that he would keep the pavement clear and the noise down. That is a courtesy, and it is also an introduction.

He put a plain board against the railings while he worked, with his name and where to find him, and took it away when he finished.

On the last day he knocked on the same doors and a few more, said the job was done, mentioned what it had cost in round terms, and said that if anybody on the terrace wanted the same he would be working in the district until October and could do them at the same rate for the scaffolding being up.

And he wrote the address in a book, so that in six years, when that paint began to want doing again, he knew exactly where to write.

He got three more houses on that terrace before the autumn, and the fourth came the following spring, and every one of them was won by a fortnight of work he was doing anyway.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

The work you are already doing is standing in public. Whether it says your name is a decision you make. Every job happens somewhere, in front of somebody, and the people nearest to it are the likeliest customers you will ever meet: they have the same houses, the same problems, the same weather, and they have just watched you work for a fortnight. No advertisement you could buy would place you so well, and most trades let it pass entirely.

And the reason it passes is that a job feels like a private arrangement between you and the person paying. It is not. It is a fortnight of visible evidence in a street full of people with the identical need, and the only question is whether anybody in that street can find out who you are without going to the trouble of asking.

So take the four steps, which are dull and take an hour altogether. Tell the neighbours before you start, since a courtesy is also an introduction and buys goodwill you will want if the work is noisy. Put your name where the work is while you are doing it, and take it away afterwards, since a board that lingers is litter. Speak to the same doors when you finish, because that is the day the work looks its best and the change is visible. And write the address in a book, since your work has a life and will want doing again, and you are the only person who knows when.

Two things worth adding. The offer to the neighbours should be honest and specific rather than a vague availability: while the scaffolding is up, until October, at this rate. And it is the finished job rather than the promise that does the persuading, which is why this is the cheapest form of the witness statement there is: the evidence is standing at the end of their own road.

Three questions, and think about your current job:

1. Who can see the work you are doing this week? Name them: the neighbours, the other trades on site, the customer's colleagues. Every one is watching you work and has no way of knowing who you are.
2. What do you say on the last day? Write the sentence: the job is done, here is roughly what it cost, I am in the district until this date and can do the same. Say it to four doors rather than none.
3. Where is your book of addresses? Every job you have ever done will want doing again, and you know the interval better than the owner does. If you have not written them down, you have been giving that work away to whoever happens to be passing in year seven.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which street was painted by the spring?

The one where a man knocked on four doors. Both painters left an equally good house behind them, and one of them left it anonymously, which is to say he left an advertisement for house-painting in general and for nobody in particular. His rival did the same fortnight's work and then spent one hour attaching his name to it, and the terrace did the rest, since the strongest thing you can show a person is the same job, finished, on their own street, on a house exactly like theirs.

The verse:

You stood a fortnight on that road,
In sight of every door in it.
Then packed your ladders, took your load,
And left no name upon the thing.

Until next time. Go and knock on the two doors either side of your current job, and knock again on the last day.

P.S. Ask the customer first, always, and accept a no without argument. Most people are pleased to have their house admired and some are not, and a painter who puts a board up against a householder's wishes has traded one street's goodwill for one afternoon's advertising, which is a poor bargain in a town where everybody talks.

Also in the archive: The Baker's Thirteenth Loaf, The Mason's Witnesses and The Yellow Wheels.