Ideas and Execution

Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything.

In December 2017, I applied for a job as Executive Director of the local Main Street America program in Aberdeen, Washington. They hired someone else and by about May of 2018, he and other locals were telling me he wasn't really qualified for the job and I was being eyeballed as his replacement.

So I got strung along for more than two years without them ever letting him go or offering me a position. This was absolutely not just me being a flake and fantasizing I would get a job I had no hope of getting.

This was local movers and shakers telling me repeatedly I might yet get the job and actively trying to position me to take over the responsibilities of this position. So for two years or more, I tried to research how I would solve the local problems, which included an extremely large homeless population for such a small town. 

Then in May 2020, not long after the COVID-19 pandemic caused locals to cancel all meetings for the foreseeable future, I quit my local community development work and I grabbed a Reddit for Aberdeen, Washington and I began thinking about how to "pivot" my existing body of research into for-profit businesses.

One was the link above, a site called Eclogiselle, where I hoped to do community development work as a consultant. Another half-baked idea I had was connecting locals with well-paid seasonal work in Alaska to try to reduce the homeless problem.

Some homeless people basically just need a job. They are frequently misfits in some fashion and haven't had the support they need to figure out how to sort their lives. 

I had at some point answered a question on r/homeless from someone looking for a job where they could work all the overtime they wanted to put together enough money to get back into housing. Most people were suggesting dangerous jobs in combat zones and things like that.

I suggested Alaska canneries because in probably 2002 I sat next to a guy on a long bus ride who was coming back from such a job. So I knew from talking to him:

1. They have trouble filling those jobs.

2. They have so much trouble keeping people to the end of the season, they pay bonuses -- including air fare home -- if you stay until the season ends.

3. They will let you work all the overtime you want because they are ALWAYS short staffed.

It's physically hard work under cold, miserable conditions but it's not actually dangerous. You are handling frozen fish in a cold facility and it's exhausting, but no one is shooting at you or trying to blow you up.

After World War II ended, after a brief stint back on the farm, my Daddy went back in the army because the work was easier than farm work and life in the military was a good life so long as people weren't shooting at you. So I understand both perspectives here as to why people will walk away from something grueling, but I also have that "not shooting at you" line emblazoned in my brain.

Cannery work is short-term, not every single day of your life like farm work. And it pays pretty well if you work overtime and make it to the end of the season.

So I remembered that Reddit discussion and I felt some people would be willing to do that once or occasionally to try to make their lives work as something better than being homeless. 

And I imagined if I was Executive Director of the local Main Street America program, I could call Alaskan canneries and say "Hey, I have high local unemployment and it's my job to fix stuff like that. You have trouble filling those jobs. Can you tell me what I need to know to competently prescreen people so I can try to help you get qualified candidates?" And as Executive Director I could also talk to other organizations in town about "Send me people in need of work with thus and such characteristics. I may have something for them."

And then in May 2020, I quit my local community development work and that summer I emailed the local Main Street America program and officially told them I am not interested in the job anymore. So I'm trying to figure out how I would make this into a for-profit business when I no longer have "I'm Executive Director of a local community development organization." as my means to find potential employees or to explain why I'm calling.

So that fall, maybe September 2020, I picked up or created several Alaska Reddits. I picked up some abandoned Reddits by some event Reddit held to get moderators for abandoned Reddits and I created at least one Reddit for a place with an important fishing port that seemed to have nothing currently on Reddit.

I have moderating experience. My life is online. I figured I would post stuff to these subs and learn about these places and make friends and maybe eventually ask someone how best to get in touch with local canneries or something like that.

I'm thinking I'll be NICE and do unpaid work as a moderator for these small towns, they will get to know me and like me and that will help me bridge this gap. Because Alaska fishing ports that handle BILLIONS of dollars in fish annually are TINY little towns with only a few thousand people.

And all of Alaska took an instant and intense dislike to me bordering on pathological serial killer levels of hatred and stole ideas from me without crediting me and GLEEFULLY pissed all over me and gave me all kinds of SHIT for being an outsider taking over ABANDONED Reddits to do UNPAID work as a moderator for these towns.

I ultimately gave some of them away and outright abandoned the ones I failed to give away rather than continue putting up with this GARBAGE.

This is the kind of thing people mean when they try to tell you Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything.

I think it was a very sound idea. I wanted to help people get jobs who needed jobs and help people fill jobs who had trouble filling them and I basically would like to set Alaska on fire for how I was treated.

No matter how good the core premise is, anytime you deal with actual reality, the weather or the people or any number of things can just make it go completely sideways and if you cannot solve THAT, you don't have a viable business.

And after getting thoroughly burned for completely innocent activity, I don't think you could pay me enough to want to have anything to do with these people ever again. So as far as I'm concerned, that idea is DEAD in the water.

And in my experience, people who just read something I wrote on the Internet and imagine they will steal my ideas end up botching the execution. 

They don't really understand what I had in mind, even if I'm literally trying to provide instructions adequate for them to follow it and hoping they will handle it because I'm just one person and have health problems and just wanted the small town I was living in to get better and didn't really care too much if I got credit for it.

And I'm absolutely not trying to do that here. I'm not remotely trying to explain any level of detail of what I had in mind, in part because I don't want either Alaska or Aberdeen, Washington to in any way benefit from my writing. 

FYI: If you are in Alaska, I believe Aberdeen, Washington should probably be declared a Superfund site and you would be FOOLS to hire people to handle food processing who are in Aberdeen.

Unless you like being physically ill for no apparent reason and having your business shut down by health and safety inspectors. 

Then, hey! Sounds like A Plan! Go, you!