My son is coming home today (he's almost 30) and we are going to celebrate Christmas with him. He got to come at Thanksgiving, but he was on call at Christmas and couldn't come so sometime today he'll roll into town and we'll get about 24 hours with him before he has to get back to work. I've made sure his gifts are wrapped (other than I still have to find a big bow to put on the tires for his motorcycle) and they are sitting on the floor in the living room - the decorations are all down (in fact one of the chores he gets to help with while he's here will be putting the decorations back up in the attic), but it will be great to have him home for a few hours and to celebrate with him.
Now, if life acts like normal, the day will be quiet and no one will call me until he gets home, then I will get multiple calls from clients and potential clients, each thinking that they have a situation that has to be dealt with right then. Each will want my undivided attention. Then I will have to calm them over the phone and by email and assure them that everything will be OK and I will get it taken care of (just not right now). In the process, I may lose a potential client who insists that today is the only day that I can take care of them (in which case they really need a newbie agent who has no other clients since an experienced agent will almost always have other clients that they are dealing with at the same time).
A realtor's day is like a juggler - we have all these balls in the air that we are keeping up - the sellers who are out of the area and need their homes taken care of - the potential sellers who need comps and a listing presentation prepped and presented (a good 8 hours to prepare some of those when we do it right and sometimes they give us 1/2 an hour (and that includes driving time) when they call and say can you come talk to me now, we have everyone together now, and we won't later on - the contract we're negotiating for a client - the building inspection that has to be done at noon - the gas company needs to be let into a home and they won't give you a time so you have to sit and wait for them - a contractor to fix something - working through a municipal predication - helping a buyer to get financing - the other agent needs a form and it's at the office and your at home - can I help you fight your tax assessment, of course I can - you'd like to set a time to look at 12 homes and you're sending me the addresses and you'd like to see them this afternoon (and it's Saturday morning and the offices are closed to schedule part of the homes they'd like to see) - sending feedback for the homes you've shown - getting feedback from the agents who have shown your listings and then sending it on to your sellers - letting your buyers and sellers know what's going on in the market - Sending out marketing materials to your farm areas - chosing marketing materials - better prep for Sunday's Open House - what about those continuing education requirements, better get those done early - what relocation department has a new client for you, coming from Boliva and they need you to call them (on their time zone) and set up emails and have things set for when they arrive in town? - Don't forget you have 8 active listings and 10 buyers that you are handling this week alone and you don't have an assistant, it's just you so when the contract is written and negotiated, it's you doing the paperwork and sending it along to the title company and the main office! We get up in the morning with a phone call, spend our days juggling 2 phones and the keyboard and go to bed at night (actually in the early hours of the morning) having taken care of other people all day long and sometimes never gotten around to taking care of ourselves.
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