Oh, another mysterious little thing around the neighborhood. Somebody hand-stenciled a sign with a phone number and the words “Clock Repair”. And then nailed it to a telephone pole pretty near the big strip mall near here. No name or anything. It’s just an implicit promise that if you call this number you will acquire links with the world of clock-repairers who take enough pride in their work they want to advertise, but not so much pride that they want to say who they are or where to find them.
Plus they just hung the sign on one of the roads leading up to the mall, not actually at the mall or anything. I guess I don’t have a better idea where to hang signs on the street to find people with clock-repair-needs. But it’s hard shaking the idea they might do better with some more focused marketing approach, like picking houses at random and asking the residents if they have any clocks that aren’t clocking anymore.
The heck of it is, we have a clock that needs fixing. If they’d just come to us we could’ve worked something out. But now we have to remember to write down the number if it’s still there next time we see it. Don’t think too hard about that last sentence and just trust me that it’s there.
sometimes a genius has such laser focus in one small area, that the rest of the world, and how to work within it, makes no sense.
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This is so. Though now I wonder if maybe so many people respond to clock repair offers that advertising has to be done very low-key so there’s not too much business for any one repairer to manage.
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Every town has a public clock that doesn’t work right, usually at the town hall. and everyone who walks by sees that the clock is stuck at 2:15, and it bothers them. what better place for a sign than somewhere near the non-functioning clock. And if they fixed the city clock for free, and got their name in the paper…
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You’re right. That would do well too. Maybe I should grab the sign and move it over by city hall. Also I should check if city hall’s got a clock. Unfortunately it’s one of those modernist 60s designs so there’s no telling where anything is.
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