My first real job was as “backseat wiper man” at the Rockville Center Car Wash on Long Island. I was 14 and happy with the $1.25 an hour they paid me. A couple of years later, when I had a summer job as a housepainter’s assistant in swank Hewlett Bay Harbor, I became an “entrepreneur.”

What happened was this. My friend Peter and I were scraping the shingles on a big yellow house when the lady of the house, a Mrs. Bernstein, came out and asked for Armando, our boss. Armando’s routine was to drop us off at the work site at 7:00 a.m. and disappear until 5 or 6 in the evening.

We were left to do the work, with virtually no experience and only Armando’s advice on watering down the paint and “dry rolling” the second coat to guide us. (Dry rolling is when your painter pretends to be giving you a second coat when, in fact, his roller is dry. This allows him to get the job done twice as fast and save a bundle on the cost of paint.)

“I’m onto your boss, Mrs. Bernstein said. “How much does that cheap bastard pay you?” We told her. She harrumphed and disappeared inside. When she came out, she announced, “I just fired that good-for-nothing. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be here Monday morning. I’ll pay you an extra dollar an hour to finish this job properly.”

The point of this little story is to illustrate how I accidentally started working for myself. (Some other time, I’ll tell you what happened when Armando discovered our duplicity.)

I just fell into it. And I loved it. I although I didn’t stay in the painting business very long, the experience of having my own business became a habit that continued, with a few brief exceptions, for the rest of my life.

The stories that are told about entrepreneurs are about men and women with dreams. People who imagine building and selling better mousetraps, who risk all their money and time to make those dreams come true.

My story is not nearly as dramatic. And that’s probably why it’s seldom told. But it’s not a bad way to begin.

What Peter and I did, unwittingly, was to start a business by “knocking off” the business we worked for.

And this is not a terrible idea. (Well, that depends on how you do it.) In fact, it’s probably the easiest and surest way to become an entrepreneur. And I’ll bet it’s the most common way as well. Way more common than having the dream.