Ex-Realtor

To outside observers, I must seem an aging hipster, sitting outside a coffee place in South Park typing what probably has something to do with new technology and / or art on my laptop. It is sunny, 65 degrees and 10:54 in the morning. Why else would I be sitting outside of this place, just a few feet from the tasteful local art that hangs on its walls, writing on my laptop?

Could it be because I just had my "exit interview" at Zephyr Real Estate?

Yes, another odd career choice has run its course. It is official: I am no longer a realtor. The "official" part was necessary, though I have unofficially been un-realtored for the past few weeks. And though I have mentally burned every bridge that connects me to the truly unusual world of San Francisco real estate, I made very sure to check out in a pleasant and rather dorky way. Which is not unusual for me. In fact, it wouldn't be altogether inaccurate to put that on my tombstone some day in the (hopefully, distant) future: "He was pleasant, and rather dorky."

Real estate in San Francisco is a tough business. It is not for anyone who scores in the low range on "emotional resiliance" when they take the battery of tests required to enter the field. How would you feel, for example, if you were to enter your former place of business, a week after hanging it up, to find that not only was your name removed from the wall but that there was already someone sitting in your desk?

There he was, an actual realtor. He couldn't have been at the desk for more than a week, but he looked like he'd been there his entire life. With his glasses, blue oxford button-down shirt, black slacks, glasses and blue tooth thing clamped on his ear, he was everything I was not. For one, he looked like he knew what he was doing. A week in, he was already working the phones, gesturing and leaning over a pile of papers.

To him, I was invisible. To practically the entire office, save for the overwhelmingly nice admins, I was invisible. The leather boy transaction coordinator, who'd been so friendly a few weeks ago when we saw him crossing the street in full cowhide regalia, barely looked up when I passed his desk. The single mom who talked to me at length about the Jawa's school? Not even a glance. I was the office pariah, but knowing that I'd be sitting in the sun typing outside a coffee place a few minutes later, I was unconcerned.

I'll say it again: real estate is a tough business. I don't know if that goes double for San Francisco or not. In the end, as I told my understanding and probably relieved former boss, that's the key element I was lacking. "If someone comes in here and is smart and funny and clever," I said, "that's not enough for them to succeed. In fact, it's unnecessary." I paused dramatically, knowing that this would be my only moment onstage, "You need to hire people who are tough. And I am not tough."

He agreed, perhaps too quickly.

Then, naturally, I babbled on like an idiot about all of the exciting new things I'm doing. Why? So he wouldn't worry? So he'd be impressed at how I'd landed on my feet? It's a mystery. I've gone 41 years trying to solve it and am no closer than I was at age 9, when I was ridiculed by my little league teammates for overusing the word "actually."

So ends another chapter of my misspent professional life. I think it may be time to write a book of short stories entitled, "Bad Jobs."

"Don't be a stranger," said the cheerful admins as I left. I think they might have really meant it, but why? Better it should have been lip service. Real estate is a profession that chews up and spits out more than 50% of its participants. I mentioned the name of another agent to my former boss, adding, "Well, she probably won't be here past December," and he agreed. "Yeah probably not." Which is sad, because I know he truly does like both this woman and I. Which, in the bottom-line world of sales, counts for exactly nothing when his boss goes over our office's numbers at the end of each quarter.

Kinda lonely out here in South Park in the middle of the day. Everyone must be at work or something.