How Robert Herjavec’s summer stacking boxes shaped his future in business

Lengthy earlier than Shark Tank and

Dragons’ Den

, investor and entrepreneur

Robert Herjavec

was an aimless teenager contemplating if and when he ought to pursue increased schooling. Within the meantime, Herjavec’s father — a blue-collar Croatian immigrant who labored lengthy onerous hours at Toronto grocery retailer Dominion — pulled a string to get his son a

summer job

. Right here’s what stacking packing containers taught the chief govt of Cyderes about his future in enterprise. As informed to Rosemary Counter.

After I was 17, I used to be saying issues like, “I don’t want college. I simply need to go into the actual world and generate income.” My dad was a millwright who labored on machines at Dominion, the outdated grocery retailer. I feel he thought, You assume life’s that simple? Come to work with me, why don’t you?

My dad helped me get the job however earlier than I began, he warned, “It’s best to by no means take a job only for the cash. Go get a job the place you be taught one thing.” And I’m like, “Dad, that’s ridiculous! This job pays a lot!” My solely job could be to load packed packing containers into the again of vehicles.

I labored like eight or 9 hours a day, and though it was throughout the day, it was at all times darkish as a result of I used to be deep behind a large 18-wheeler. It was darkish and dusty in there. Packed packing containers got here down a conveyor, in a short time, they usually’re all totally different sizes and styles. As quick as you presumably are you able to’d should resolve find out how to stack them as effectively as potential. I’d should assume, Right here’s a sq. one and there’s a rectangle developing subsequent so the place ought to I put it? The job truly made me actually good at Tetris.

If the packing containers got here sooner than you would load, you’d should go and press a button. Then the supervisor would come over and say, “What’s the issue right here? Work sooner!” The entire of the job was not to do that. This solely occurred a few times to me.

I turned associates with the child loading the truck subsequent to me. We bonded over how onerous this job was and the way a lot we liked complaining about it. He was additionally Croatian, so we had tons in frequent. Anyhow that man was Victor Dodig, now the CEO of CIBC (Canadian Imperial Financial institution of Commerce). We see one another on a regular basis and each time we go, “Oh my God, keep in mind the vehicles?”

I can nonetheless hear the clickity-click, clickity-click of the conveyor belts

I keep in mind all of it as clearly as yesterday. I may even nonetheless hear the clickity-click, clickity-click of the conveyor belts. Generally you keep in mind the onerous issues in life extra as a result of they mould you greater than the straightforward issues. And it was so onerous. My palms could be soiled and my physique was at all times sore. On the finish of the day, I’d be completely exhausted.

The job gave me an immense appreciation of people that do bodily labour, particularly my dad. For years he’d been sweeping flooring and loading vehicles and doing no matter it takes regardless of how onerous it was. I noticed how onerous life might be and realized to respect anyone and everyone who works for a residing. Not that there’s something unsuitable with that sort of work, it’s simply not for me. I’m a hard-working man, however very comfortable. I admit it.

Two weeks in, I wished to stop. My dad stated, “No means. You signed up for this and also you’re sticking with it for the entire summer season.” He taught me once you decide to one thing, you do it. My dad didn’t have plenty of decisions in life, he didn’t have the choice of strolling away on the finish of the summer season. I feel secretly my dad was apprehensive that I wasn’t going to complete college. In his personal means, with out saying something in any respect, he inspired me to go to highschool and provides myself choices.

So I labored the entire summer season. Ultimately I obtained used to the bodily a part of the job, however by no means the monotony. I had plenty of time to assume. At first it was simply, “Why am I in a truck loading packing containers? I don’t need to be right here.” Then it was what I’d do subsequent. I considered 1,000,000 totally different companies that I used to be going to construct sooner or later. The job made me need to end college and likewise so grateful that I had the selection and alternative. There needed to be a greater means for me and I simply needed to discover it.

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