by Michael Kessler
I practiced law for 41 years, most of those years as a partner in a major international law firm. It was a deeply rewarding career in many ways. I was successful, well compensated, and I am proud of my accomplishments. Nonetheless, it was also extremely demanding and stressful, required very long hours, extensive travel, and personal life sacrifices. Nothing came easy.
But I was well prepared from the very beginning. The very beginning was long before college, business school and finally law school. The beginning was my first job, at 14 years of age, at Bettman’s Barber Shop. Izzie Bettman was a barber in Montreal. He owned a four-chair barber shop on Somerled Avenue, about ten blocks from my school. Izzie was also an entrepreneur of sorts for he also owned a five and dime store at the front of the barber shop and fronting on the street. One had to walk through the store to enter the barber shop. Izzie’s wife, Tillie Bettman, managed the store. Maybe Tillie was the entrepreneur! She sold candy, cigarettes and other tobacco products, soft drinks, magazines and newspapers, greeting cards, and even some knick-knacks.
It was in that five and dime store that my story begins. I was hired as Tillie’s assistant. Each day after school, Monday through Friday, in good weather and bad, I trudged to Bettman’s Barber Shop to man the store, for the first hour or so with Tillie to handle the after-school rush of kids and then alone while Tillie went home to cook dinner for Izzie. My shift ended around 6:30PM, about three hours each afternoon, and all of it on my feet. I also worked on Saturdays and through one summer, the summer between the two school years I worked there. On Saturday afternoons, at closing time, Izzie would pay me for my week’s work. I don’t recall exactly how much I made, but it was in the range of $25 per week, about $1.10 per hour, a fortune for that 14 year old boy.
Mostly, I stayed behind the counter and sold stuff-anything and everything in the store. But Tillie and Izzie were getting on in years and no longer up to carrying cases of soda and other heavy items up from the basement. So Tillie left that to me. Carrying cases of soda up a narrow flight of stairs was tough work for a 14-year-old, but I persevered and never complained. Tillie taught me how to restock the shelves. Always put the new items behind or under the items already on the shelf. If you put the new items on top or in the front, the older stuff on the bottom or in the back will never sell. The inventory had to rotate. Never turn your eyes away from the store or daydream. Always be on the lookout for shoplifters. Be nice and smile to the customers and be helpful. Offer something else if we don’t have what they ask for. Small talk was okay but be mindful of other customers waiting to be served. When making change for a bill always place the bill on the cash register and don’t put it in the register while making change. That way a customer who gives you a $5 bill cannot claim he gave you $10. You have the $5 bill on the register as proof of what he gave you.
What I learned at Bettman’s Barber Shop was a life lesson. What I learned were the building blocks, the foundation, upon which everything that came after was built. I learned about responsibility, a strong work ethic, perseverance, social skills, the very basics of business and finance, and much more. Izzie and Tillie were fair and honest with me and expected the
same from me. I gave it to them. They were hard working people of modest means and little education. They were a life example to me. I learned a lot in college, business school and law school, but that formal education didn’t teach me what I learned—those tools of life—at the school of hard knocks in that five and dime store. I am forever grateful to Izzie and Tillie.
After 41 years as a practicing lawyer Michael has now been among the ranks of recovering lawyers for 11 years. He has been an avid member of LP² for nine years and looks forward to many more.