My worst summer job: Chris Hadfield on drumming up business for a waterski school

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\u0027I still go water skiing every single morning. I went this morning with my dad. He’s 87 now and he still drives the boat\u0027

So there was this Ontario travelling waterski school at the time, and if there was enough local appetite for lessons, they’d come to your lake in a fancy boat with a trailer. Stag Island has only about a hundred cottages, but we really wanted them to come to us anyway, so my job was to drum up enough business to make it worth their while.

I’d post flyers on the ferry and in our teeny-tiny convenience store. Mostly, I just walked and walked — there were no cars on the island and I was too young to drive anyhow — like a door-to-door waterski lesson salesman. I had a little clipboard and a money bag with a zipper. I’d make lists of names and reschedule the no-shows and get the money and try to keep it all organized.

I’d talk up the teachers — Herald and Sheldon, Olympic-level skiers as far as I was concerned — to convince people that they really should better their waterski skills. I had no real sales technique and no idea what I was doing, but it wasn’t a hard sell really. There was never much going on the island, so people were usually pretty excited that something was happening. The harder part was collecting the money. They didn’t get to ski until they paid.

I don’t even remember what the lessons cost, to be honest. I’m a bad accountant. You know what I learned that summer? I don’t like accounting and I don’t want to be an accountant. So I didn’t try too hard. I worked just hard enough to get the names I needed and no more. It wasn’t physically arduous, like the farm was, which I appreciated, and it didn’t take up the whole day. It was hours as required, just do the work and you’re done.

 

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