Friday, December 2, 2011

I'm surprised I haven't been fired

I began working at my real estate office in the middle of October. That means after four years of not being a member of the normal "work force" that fuels the economy, I had to scour through my closet and try on all my (old) work clothes. That was not a fun day. I sold real estate back in 2006-2007 and now that we have moved back to our home-state of Oklahoma I decided to get back in the game. My office is extremely small: there are three Realtors in the office, including me. What's common in a real estate office is a term called "floor time". This means if a phone call comes in about a property, or someone is wanting to list their home for sale, that particular phone call goes to the Realtor who is on floor time. In my office, we do not have a secretary. Instead, each of us stays at the office two days a week and works the floor. Since we just moved to the area, and since I don't know a lot of people, the days that I am on floor duty are spent scouring the internet and wasting time. Just kidding...I do try to make my days away from home and my toddler count! However, after only two weeks in the office, I was sure my broker was going to fire me. My second day on floor duty was on a Saturday. Saturday's are short days and we are open from 9:00 to 12:00. Greg had already agreed to do a job for someone that day and that meant I had to take Parker to work with me. On my second day. I had told the broker that I may have to bring him with me to the office occasionally but that I didn't want to make it a habit. She was totally cool with it, but I felt a little twinge of guilt for taking him to the office on my second day. Halfway during the job that Greg was doing he relized he needed to go to Lowes for supplies. He drove right by the office so figured he'd stop in and check on me. He was there maybe five minutes and wouldn't you know my broker walks in the door. There we were: me, my husband, and little Parker sitting down in the middle of a room strewn with plastic food. I groaned inwardly because I did not want her to get the wrong impression of me and I didn't want her to think that I didn't take my job seriously. Eventually Greg made the comment that he was getting hungry and when was I leaving. My broker over heard and said, "You can leave early if there's nothing going on." At this point it was 11:00 so I said, "Ok, thank you." She left prior to us and I quickly gathered up everything and the three of us headed out the door. I left my vehicle there and we made a trip to Lowes and then to Chili's for lunch. While eating my phone suddenly rings. It was my broker and the first thing she says is, "Are you alright?!" My response was, "I'm at Chili's in Durant eating lunch, so yup, I'm pretty good." Her follow up to that was, "Oh, well, I had to stop back at the office and your car is here, the office was unlocked, and there are a set of keys in the door. I thought you had been abducted." CRAP! My heart sank! I forgot to lock the door? I left the keys in the door? It was all rushing back to me. I had put the keys in the door (to save time) while Greg used the rest room. As I was loading Parker into his car seat I realised he needed a diaper change. I rushed back into the office, quickly changed his diaper, then went back to the truck to load him up. Apparently in my haste I forgot to lock the office door!! My broker said she was glad I was safe, but I couldn't help feeling horrible that on my second day I had done such a major blooper. However, my mistakes didn't end there. The following week I was rushing around the house before I went to the office for floor duty. I was running late (which stresses me out to no end) and I could not find my sentri card for the life of me. A sentri card is a credit card-looking device that Realtors in this area use to open lock boxes on properties. I didn't have any appointments to show properties, but I wanted to have it on me in case someone called the office and wanted to see a property. I finally convinced myself that I wouldn't get any phone calls from people wanting to see properties so I dashed out the door. Wouldn't you know, an hour after I arrived at the office my broker called and asked me if I could do her a favour and show one of her customers a property she had listed. My reply was, "sure if I can find my card." I'm not sure she realised what I meant, but I dashed off to my house first (luckily the house I was showing was only a mile away from my house) to search for the card....again. Ten minutes after I was supposed to be at the property to meet my brokers client, I still had not found my sentri card. Dejectedly, I called her to admit my fault. She sounded disappointed but told me to call her buyer to let her know the situation. I called the buyer...and received no answer. I decided to drive to the property with hopes that they were still there and I could explain what was going on. I pulled up, and saw a van a few houses down that was parked in front of another home that was listed for sale by another office. The lady in the van waved at me when she saw me pulling into the drive way, so I walked over to where she was. I explained that I had lost my card that would have given me access to the lock box and she said that I could ask the other Realtor to open the door for me. That sneaky little buyer had called the Realtor from the other sign and was planning at looking at two different properties with two different Realtors (that irriates me to no end, but she wasn't my buyer so I kept my cool)! Now, this is a small town, so word had already spread that a new Realtor was in my office. Believe me when I say that it was not a highlight of my career when I had to introduce myself to a Realtor from a different office and tell her that I had lost my sentri card, and could she please unlock the door so I could show the property to my broker's client. Luckily after that incident, things began running a lot smoother. Until a few days ago. I was in the office along with my broker. The Fed-Ex guy showed up to deliver a package and asked if the recipiant worked at our office. I looked at the name and told him that I didn't know who the person was and that it didn't belong there. So, he took it and left. My broker was on the phone when he came in. About twenty minutes later she asked if Fed-Ex was dropping off the package for her brother-in-law. Of course I knew nothing about it and had sent him off on his merry way. She said a few swear words and then set off on trying to track the fed-ex guy down. I have to admit, I didn't feel too bad about that since I had no idea she received mail for family members at the office, and the package didn't have our offices name on it. Like I said in the title, I'm surprised I haven't been fired. Luckily, today I had my first closing. I'm hoping that has redemed myself and now my slate can be wiped clean!

2 comments:

Kendra said...

Congrats on the closing and I do think you have totally redeemed yourself!

PennyCandy said...

Wow you had a rough start but now that you had a closing it will get smoother.