Line Item
In a tough business environment, executives, managers and entrepreneurs have to do everything they can to make their business stand out.
With this truism in mind, then, it was unsurprising, but certainly amusing, when The Teller came across a press release from a two-year-old company that paints lines in parking lots, based in Connecticut, but looking to expand into Boston.
It wasn’t the company’s business model – looking to attract franchisees to the company to promote growth outside its home market – that caught our eye. Nor was it the young startup’s impressive growth rate of 150 percent in the past year.
No, what caught our eye was the firm’s self-admittedly "clever" name – "We Do Lines."
Don’t get it? That’s ok. In fact, it’s probably a good thing if you don’t know that "doing lines" is slang for using cocaine. The only reason The Teller knows is because of a misspent youth watching 1980s gangster movies and reading about the go-go days of Reaganomics, power suits, hostile takeovers and mirrored tables. Oh, and listening to 1970s-vintage Eagles and Joni Mitchell sing about "lines on the mirror, lines on her face" and "a prisoner of the fine white lines," respectively. Really, we swear.
But what a name for such an otherwise ordinary business franchise. Honestly, who would you rather have striping your parking lot – the boring, no-nonsense guys from "Parking Lot Stripers Inc.;" or the slightly paranoid, way-too-talkative, sweaty and intense boys from "We Do Lines" that keep grinding their teeth together?
Yeah sure, maybe the lines end up crooked and the painters keep arguing over whose line is longer, but really, what an experience!
Of course, we jest. Parking lot striping is serious business. Lots must be re-striped regularly to comply with code and to ensure safety.
We just hope that doing lines, while actually doing the lines, isn’t part of the job – we don’t recall things turning out too well for the gangsters in those 70s and 80s crime movies.
Workin’ For The Weekend
Observation: the Teller has noticed that on fine days, particularly one sunny, strangely rain-free Thursday we enjoyed here in Boston last week, the streets of the financial district are curiously … less-packed than usual.
As were the cars in the MBTA’s subway system. Usually we jam ourselves awkwardly into crowded cars, our Wall Street Journals (and Banker & Tradesman’s, of course) accidentally whipping fellow passengers in the face (our apologies especially to the petite nun on the southbound Red Line recently).
But last week, we could sit in luxury, elbows out as we turned the pages of the Marketplace section in peace and serenity.
Clearly, it’s a sign of the season. Weekenders have begun to play hooky, it appears, and eschew their cubicles for whatever it is people do when they’re not at work. We, the ever-bustling Teller, wouldn’t know.
Still, it is nice to have a little more room on our daily commute.
