Those Funeral Potatoes Rocked

Jane's Award

Jane, bless her, ordered me to go to a real estate shin-dig this morning. I obeyed because she is 9 days older than me. And, just to guilt me into going she paid my $17 fee to sit at the Woman's Council of Realtors, eat Funeral Potatoes and listen to a bunch of agents talking about how great real estate can be. This event is one of the many Mrs. Hufflepuff attends and Jane goes along as well. This week Jane also went to two formal dinners and something else, that I can't recall off-hand. Incidentally, Jane is having the time of her life working at Mrs. Hufflepuff's brokerage. I am so glad.

All of these events are nice and all (Mrs. Hufflepuff was up for "Humanitarian of the Year" at the local Realtor Association black-tie affair two nights ago, but she didn't win). But, these events don't sell homes. In fact, personally, I find mingling with other real estate agents counter-productive to finding clients. But, that's just me.

The speakers today were from a Hispanic real estate-related organization--loan officers and title people for the most part--and they were there to tell us how to relate to the Latino population, because--according to them--we just don't know how to treat others, no matter what color the skin. It turns out Latinos are family oriented. Yep. that was the big take from the hour long chat.

They said--and I am not making this up--realtors don't know how to be nice to others, apparently. It seems nobody (but me) thought the concept was offensive. I would have been called racist among this group of squishys if I had suggested that most people are family oriented and folks in general want to be treated with dignity and respect. And, because I was Jane's guest, I behaved.

Oh there was one other take-away. Latinos don't always speak English as their first language, so if I have a non-English speaking client I should get an interpreter, which might be my clients' young child. That's all well and good, but I am not about to explain legal documentation through a six year old. What I am going to do is pass on this potential lawsuit (for me) to a Spanish speaking agent. Besides the AZ Real Estate Commissioner has plenty to say about agents who work outside their scope of knowledge. My Spanish isn't good enough to conduct business. That sounds like working outside my scope of knowledge to me (hence, a potential lawsuit if I were to pursue this).

Jane also won an award for being awesome--because she is. And apparently she is running for treasurer. Though I never suggested I was interested in joining, Mrs. Hufflepuff reminded me to pay my dues for this organization before August so I could vote for Jane. Then she hugged me. Squishy people do that too. As for me, I just wanted the Funeral Potatoes.



Note: want to make your own Funeral Potatoes? Here is a link. I don't know if this recipe is as good as what I had today, but there is no such thing as bad Funeral Potatoes.