Every once in a while you come to a fork in the road and you must choose the path you will take: the high road, the low road, the one less traveled, blah, blah, blah....I arrived at that fork today and I am still not sure which way I will go. If anyone pulls up behind me, please just honk and I will pull over to the side so you can go around me.
I went out to lunch with some friends. While we were leaving I saw an acquaintance who works in the real estate business. We chit-chatted for a moment about my lack of gainful unemployment and my side jobs as a pizza delivery driver and stripper (aka housekeeper). She began to quiz me in my computer application skills and experience with office skills, accounting, etc. She then said they were possibly going to hire an assistant for her and I should bring by a resume. Now this woman is super nice, super smart and actually super cool. Not such a bad gig actually. The quandary revolves around the profession of real estate.
In this world there are two types of people: Planners (me and my kind) and Real Estate Agents (them). Planners and real estate agents interact for a handful of reasons including arguing about allowed land uses and the impact of the zoning on the value; arguing about building codes and the impacts on the value; and discussing the specifics of planning/zoning/building law which apply to properties they are trying to sell and make a butt-load of money on for commission without typically doing any of the footwork or research (that is what planners do).
My planning friends and I refer to the real estate industry as "The Dark Side." I believe it may be a planning-wide joke as well because I have heard it at conferences too. They are dark--we are light (or so I thought). Now that the planning world has been reduced to nothing by the failing real estate market (much like the planet Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star) I must decide which force is stronger inside of me: the planning side that is unemployed or the side that would really like a job to earn some money. I wish I had Yoda nearby to help point me in the right direction.
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