I recently read an interesting blog

The blog related to the market; the abyss; the mess. It was realistic in it's depiction of market woes.

The comments were agreeable, if in agreement.

My heart literally stopped when the middle of a response included the sentence, "Maybe I'll get lucky and just die in my sleep." The author, having found rents not dropping in accordance with the market full of foreclosures, was encountering his own problems after job issues and an income unable to keep pace with rent increases. The possibility of living in his car is real. Doesn't matter if I agree with the content of the response- it's incomprehensibly sad.

It seems that if there ever were a year to really "reach out" with the benefit of a holiday encouraging that action, it might be now.

Clients might benefit from a touching base visit more than the perfunctory weekly report phone call- particularly those for whom the distress is singular (not shared).

If you have a client in "the mess", a box of cookies (I don't cook- bakery) or warm, "hello" might be more a part of our jobs now than it may have been in the past. Physically touching base in a way that offers support might be less about inconveniencing them during the holidays (as I'd considered with one busy shopper) than about making sure that the light at the end of the real estate tunnel is tangible. For some, the time of year makes the hardship more tangible.

I'm not at all into delivering cookies. It's easier to budget the cost for some newspaper ads.

 Touching base after making a time that works just to say "hello" and "it'll be fine" is easier with  cookies for me somehow, boxed with a ribbon.