The Coal in the Yard

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, at seven in the morning, when two carts arrive at two houses and find two very different mornings waiting for them.

Two masons come at seven sharp,
Same job, same price, same length of task.
One finds the yard still full of coal,
One finds it swept, the water drawn.
Same skill, same day, same honest men.
Which mason finished on the Friday?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two masons in the town I've never named, and their walls, in the old chorus, stood equally plumb. Each began a job on the same Monday, at a house of the same size, for a householder of the same goodwill.

The first arrived at seven and lost the morning.

Not through any fault of his own and not through any fault of the householder's. The yard where he needed to mix had a winter's coal in it, which nobody had thought to move because nobody had said it would be wanted. The water butt was at the far end of the garden behind a locked gate, and the man with the key was at work until six. The householder had gone out, having no idea she was needed, so the questions that arose at half past eight waited until half past six to be answered.

By Friday he was a day behind, and the last of the work was done in a hurry, and the householder thought him slower than she had expected.

And note that nobody had behaved badly. She had simply not known what would be wanted, because being a householder rather than a mason she had no way of knowing, and he had not told her, because to him it was so obvious as to be invisible.

The second mason sent four lines the week before.

We start Monday at seven. Before then, if you can: clear a space about the size of a cart by the side door for mixing, make sure I can reach a tap without going through a locked gate, and move anything you would mind being dusty out of the back room. If you can be about for half an hour at nine on the first morning there are usually two or three things to decide, and after that you can leave us to it.

It took him three minutes to write, and he sent the same four lines to everybody, changing almost nothing.

He arrived on Monday to a swept yard, a tap, and a woman who came out at nine, answered three questions in ten minutes, and went about her day. He finished on the Thursday.

And she told people he was quick, which was not quite true. He was the same speed as the other man. What he had done was arrange for the first morning not to be wasted, and the first morning is where nearly all the waste in any job actually lives.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Your customer cannot prepare for a job they have never done. Whatever you do not tell them, you will pay for on the first morning. And you will pay for it twice: once in the hours, and again in the impression, since the delay looks like slowness and the slowness attaches to you rather than to the coal in the yard.

The reason it goes untold is always the same, and it is the curse that runs through this whole trade. What you know is invisible to you. A mason does not think to mention water any more than he thinks to mention air, because in his world water is simply present, and it has never once occurred to him that a house might keep its tap behind a locked gate. Everything you have stopped noticing is exactly what your customer does not know, which is why the list must be written once, deliberately, by somebody prepared to state the obvious.

So write the four lines and send them to everybody. Space and access. Water, power, whatever your trade needs and assumes. What to move or cover. And the half hour when you will need a person present, named in advance, because a customer told on Friday that she is wanted at nine on Monday will be there, and a customer not told will be out, and the questions will wait nine hours for her.

And say what happens after that half hour, since the sentence and then you can leave us to it is worth more than it looks. It tells her the demand on her is small and bounded, which is what she is quietly worried about, and it is the same courtesy the first step letter asked of you at the other end of the job.

Two cautions. Keep it to four lines, since a list of fourteen instructions arriving before the work reads as a set of conditions rather than a help, and a customer who feels she is being given homework will begin the job irritated. And do not send it and then arrive having forgotten your own half of the arrangement, which is worse than not sending it at all.

Three questions, and think of your last job that started badly:

1. What went wrong in the first two hours? Write it down. It will be the same three or four things across every job you have ever done, which means it is a list rather than bad luck.
2. What do you assume is simply there? Water, power, a flat place, a key, somebody to answer a question. Every one of those is an assumption, and every assumption is a morning waiting to be lost.
3. When do you need them present, and have you said so? Name the half hour and the day, in writing, before the week begins. It costs nothing and it is the single cheapest hour you will save all year.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which mason finished on the Friday?

Neither, as it happens: one finished Thursday and one finished Saturday, and they worked at precisely the same speed. The difference was made the previous week, in four lines that took three minutes to write and told a woman what a mason needs and when he needs her, none of which she could possibly have guessed. He was not the quicker man. He was the one who did not spend his first morning moving another family's coal.

The verse:

You know what wants clearing and when,
And she has never done this once.
Send four short lines the week before,
And save the Monday morning whole.

Until next time. Go and write the four lines your customers need before you start, and send them with every job from now on.

P.S. There is a second benefit which arrives without being asked for. A firm that tells a householder what to expect before it turns up is a firm that has plainly done this many times, and she will conclude, correctly, that the work itself is likely to be handled the same way. The four lines are a small demonstration of competence before any competence has been demonstrated.

Also in the archive: The Six Weeks Before Starting, The Piano in the Parlour and Unless I Hear Otherwise.