The Lock He Did Not Take Away

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town a door that would not lock was not an item for a list. It was a woman lying awake listening to her own yard, and it was mended on the Tuesday or it was mended by somebody else.

Two locksmiths in one town, the same files and the same bench.
Both were sent for on a Tuesday to doors that would not fasten.
One lifted the lock off, wrote it in his book and promised it by Friday.
One kept a shallow drawer of springs and wards under the seat of his cart.
Same hands, same charge for a mended lock, same three miles each way.
Which of the two took more money out of that one Tuesday?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two locksmiths in the town I have never named, both of them good at the work, each with a bench, a vice and a tray of blanks.

The first was the more particular workman of the two. He held that a lock is mended properly on a bench in a good light, with the whole of it stripped and laid out, and he was right. When he was sent for he took the lock off the door, wrapped it in a cloth, wrote the house in his book, fitted a bolt for the meantime and promised it by the Friday. He was never once late in eleven years.

And yet. Of ten locks he carried home one autumn, two never came back to his bench at all. One belonged to a shopkeeper who could not be shut up loosely for three nights with a quarter's stock inside, and who bought a new lock from the ironmonger on the Wednesday rather than lie awake. The other belonged to a household where a son had a go with a file on the Thursday evening. Neither of them thought ill of the locksmith. They did not think of him at all. They had a difficulty on the Tuesday which had to be settled before the Friday, and it was. Nor was that the whole of the cost, since every lock he took away was ridden for twice, a full morning spent on a job that paid for half of one.

The second locksmith came at it from his own book. He sat down one wet January and went through two years of work, and what came up off the page was dull as ditchwater. He was not mending a variety of locks. He was mending the same four patterns over and over, those being what the builders in that town had hung on every door for thirty years. The same springs broke. The same wards wore.

So he made up a shallow drawer, no deeper than a man's hand, that went under the seat of the cart. In it were springs and wards for the four common patterns, roughed-out blanks, staples, screws, a small vice that would grip a doorpost, and oil. From that spring onwards he finished seven jobs in ten standing at the door, inside the half hour the householder was giving him anyway. Where a lock was beyond him on the step he said so and took it away, exactly as the first man did, and nobody minded.

What he had not expected was the rest of it. Standing in the passage with the lock turning sweetly under his hand, he was asked about the back door, the window fastening and a chest upstairs. He was paid on the spot, with the work visible, so his book held almost nothing to chase. And no shopkeeper of his had three nights in which to go and buy a new lock, because there were no three nights.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A customer wants the thing most at the moment she shows it to you, and every step you put between that moment and the work being done takes a little of the wanting away. The first locksmith did not lose those two jobs by being dear, or slow to answer, or careless. He lost them by having three days in the middle of his method.

Consider what is in those three days. The want was made by a nuisance, and a nuisance is loudest on the day it is noticed. By Friday the bolt has been got used to, and a job that is no longer urgent joins the queue of things to be seen to sometime. Then there is the substitute, since a householder with a problem in front of her and a gap in front of her will find another way through, and the other way is very often cheaper and worse. And there is your rival, who needs no cleverness to take the work, only to arrive inside your gap. This is the same arithmetic that makes a reply sent in four minutes a different offer from the same reply sent on Thursday, carried forward past the enquiry into the doing.

There is also a part of this that never appears in your prices and should. Two visits are dearer to the customer than one at the same money. She must be in twice, arrange the morning twice, and hold the matter in her head between the two. None of that is money and all of it is cost, and she pays it to you. The man who takes it off her has lowered his price without touching his figure, which is the only way of lowering a price worth having. The second journey is also unpaid work you have given yourself, as we have said before of the attendance a small job quietly swallows.

Note too that the drawer was not an act of imagination. It was read off two years of his own book, which is what kept it small enough to carry. A short list of jobs makes up most of your work, and that list, rather than the catalogue of all you can do, decides what rides in the van.

Two cautions. This is about the steps you impose, not the ones the work requires. A decision that deserves a week is spoiled by being pressed into an afternoon, and you are removing your own waiting rather than the customer's. And the ability to begin today must not be bought at the price of the work. A drawer stuffed with stock you use twice a year is money standing idle in a cart, and a man who promises to finish at the door and then botches it has managed to be both hasty and wrong, which is worse than careful and slow.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. How many separate steps does my commonest job take? Count them on paper from the first enquiry to the money: the call, the ride out, the looking, the written price, the waiting, the chasing, the second ride, the doing, the bill. Most trades say three and find seven.
2. Which one step can I take out this week? Not all of them, and not by working faster. One. The usual candidates are the second journey, and the week between the agreement and the start.
3. What would need to be in the van to finish seven in ten at the first visit? Decide it from last year's book rather than from memory. If four jobs are most of your year the list is short, and it fits in a drawer.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which of the two took more money out of that one Tuesday?

The second. He rode out once instead of twice, finished the lock while the householder stood there, was asked about two more doors and was paid before he left the step. The first did the better bench work and gave three days of it away to an ironmonger and a son with a file.

The verse:

The careful man took off the lock
and promised it by Friday;
the other brought the springs along
and had the money Tuesday.

Until next time. Go and count the separate steps in your commonest job, and strike one of them out before the week is over.

P.S. Where the gap cannot be closed it can at least be named. The weakness of by Friday is not the three days, it is that by Friday is not a time and nobody is expected at it. Give the day, the hour and the name of the man coming, written down and left in her hand before you drive off.

Also in the archive: Twice Up the Same Ladder, The Six Weeks Before Starting and The Buttons and the Book.