We’re not mailmen, for God’s sake

I braved the madness that was the blizzard of 09 – until Fox 8 labels the next minor snow storm the ‘Official Blizzard of 09′ – and ventured to downtown on Saturday to see ‘Rent’ featuring the original Mark (Anthony Rapp) and Roger (Adam Pascal). I’m glad I did; I have seen Rent before, but not with a cast as stellar as this. (Side note: thanks to the city of Cleveland for not plowing one bloody street. It looked like a parking lot.)

On my way to catch 77, I passed a mailman stuck in a huge snow bank, shoveling his way out so he could get in and drive three feet to the next nearly buried mailbox and deliver what I’m sure was a compelling handful of bills, Gold Clippers and direct mail cards (do people still do those?).

I asked myself why he would do this – why he would want to do this? Then I realized it’s because that’s his job. Save the ‘rain, sleet, snow’ jokes; they just have to do that. They have to deliver the mail. As Newman said, ‘the mail; it never stops!’. Every day they have to do the same thing – every day. Over and over. It conjured up memories of the famous Dunkin Donuts commercial.

It was at that moment that I realized something very important – thank God I’m not a mailman. Could you imagine? Doing the same thing every day? We’re in marketing people. We better not be doing the same thing every day. And if you are you need to take a look at your drive, your passion, for what your client does and more importantly what you do.

The world doesn’t let us do the same thing over and over. There’s always breaking news. A better way to communicate something. More and more clutter that needs to be researched and experimented with. More people to talk to; less people doing more jobs to talk with – that need your help. We work in a great field, this ‘marketing’ that we’ve chosen. Make it count. Do something new. Do something different. Don’t accept normalcy – on the first try anyway. Push yourself and your client. Make yourself do something different from the previous day. Every day.

After all, we’re not mailmen. I mean, mailpersons. Sorry. I forgot The Burger tests very well with female postal workers, 34 – 45. Shout out!