The high school I went to was an old building that was built like a prison (seriously, look at that thing), it’s 3 stories plus a basement (and the smoker’s area - this was in the 80s - was out back from the basement), so I routinely had to go from basement to 3rd floor for classes. it sucked. The school had an elevator, but it was key-operated, and they only gave out keys to kids who actually needed it. I faked a knee injury to get a key and it was great not having to climb 4 flights of stairs. But after a couple days I noticed other kids were always waiting around for me so they could ride the elevator with me and such.
Thus, a brilliant idea was hatched: I went to a locksmith’s shop and got 10 copies of the key made. Whenever anyone wanted to get on the elevator with me I would offer to sell them a key for $10. I sold out by the end of the 2nd day and word was beginning to spread. I went to a different locksmith and got another 10 keys made, but only sold 7 of them before somebody ratted me out. Still, $170 in my pocket less a couple bucks for the copies for 2 days of ‘work’ seemed like a pretty sweet deal to me, even if I did have to go back to climbing the stairs again.
The funniest part is through one of the classes I took I had been invited to join some kind of ‘young entrepreneur’s club’ and they kicked me out when I got busted. Seems like I was doing things exactly right for that sort of crowd, I guess the lesson learned there is getting caught is the problem, not doing the thing that gets you caught. :P
Selling elevator keys.
The high school I went to was an old building that was built like a prison (seriously, look at that thing), it’s 3 stories plus a basement (and the smoker’s area - this was in the 80s - was out back from the basement), so I routinely had to go from basement to 3rd floor for classes. it sucked. The school had an elevator, but it was key-operated, and they only gave out keys to kids who actually needed it. I faked a knee injury to get a key and it was great not having to climb 4 flights of stairs. But after a couple days I noticed other kids were always waiting around for me so they could ride the elevator with me and such.
Thus, a brilliant idea was hatched: I went to a locksmith’s shop and got 10 copies of the key made. Whenever anyone wanted to get on the elevator with me I would offer to sell them a key for $10. I sold out by the end of the 2nd day and word was beginning to spread. I went to a different locksmith and got another 10 keys made, but only sold 7 of them before somebody ratted me out. Still, $170 in my pocket less a couple bucks for the copies for 2 days of ‘work’ seemed like a pretty sweet deal to me, even if I did have to go back to climbing the stairs again.
The funniest part is through one of the classes I took I had been invited to join some kind of ‘young entrepreneur’s club’ and they kicked me out when I got busted. Seems like I was doing things exactly right for that sort of crowd, I guess the lesson learned there is getting caught is the problem, not doing the thing that gets you caught. :P