Free Boss Life by Paul Downs

solvent, and catalyst. These must be mixed in exactly the right proportion. Before the liquid finish hardens—about a fifteen-minute window—it must be sprayed onto the wood in an even coat. The spray gun and hose weigh about two pounds. They must be held out at arm’s length, at the proper distance from the wood, and moved at the right speed. Spray too little, and the surface looks dry and blotchy; spray too much, and the finish will drip and run before drying. We often modify the natural color of the woods with stains and dyes. Stain mixes must be measured with the same precision as the urethane. And everything must be clean—dust in the finish is unacceptable.
    The only way to fix a flawed finish is to wait until it dries, sand it off, and start over. Even if one tiny part of a tabletop is bad, the whole thing has to be redone, because a refinished section is never a perfect match for the rest.
    Eye of an artist. Knowledge of math and chemistry. Physical strength and endurance. Meticulously clean. Performs under strict time pressure. It’s unusual to find all this in one person. A good finisher is hard to find, and worth a lot.
    Dave Violi, my finisher, has unleashed his superpowers on the Company S table. At the end of the first week of March, we reassemble it for final inspection. It is magnificent. Everyone in the shop stops to admire it. And, without exception, the first thing they do is run a hand across the top. A perfectly smooth, even topcoat, with no dust specks or other flaws, has been applied to each of the three oversize top pieces. Dave is a master of martial arts, and his strength and agility made the difference. We have eight days before our client’s board members gather in their new headquarters. We need to get the table to the customer.
    Back when we made dining room furniture, I did all the deliveries myself. I learned a lot from watching a buyer’s first encounter with their purchase. Clients are very nervous on delivery day. Our sales process is designed to construct an image in the client’s mind of what the finished item will look like. Their hope that we will do a good job will be confirmed, or not, by the actual product. When I was doing delivery, I could make sure that everything went smoothly and that the client was pleased. Happy clients make the final payments. Unhappy clients cause delay and distraction while their problem is addressed.
    Google changed our market from local to continental. Our clients are now scattered across the United States and Canada. We have to ship a large, delicate product over long distances, as quickly as possible. Damage is a disaster. Our products are one of a kind, so we can’t pull a replacement part out of inventory.
    We have to trust strangers to transport and deliver our work without damage. Unfortunately, both truckers and installers vary widely in quality: some are careful and competent, and some are not. How can we find good people? How can we get them to take extra care? And what, besides paying them, could we do to make sure that they succeeded? I arrived at three methods: use middlemen to find the trucker and installer; redesign the tables for ease of shipment and assembly; and optimize packaging design. How does this work?
    First: the middlemen. Our volume of business is too small to impress a large trucking company, and we need to hire installers in places that we have never been to. So we use a freight broker for trucking and an installation broker for installation. Both firms take the parameters of our job and get bids from interested vendors. It’s their job to identify quality vendors and deal with them if things go wrong. The vendors get significant business from the middlemen, who represent lots of small companies like us, so they pay some attention. And we give significant business to the middlemen, so they pay attention to us. This is an instance where it is not in my best interest to shop around for a low