The Professional Development Meeting

So yesterday was my first meeting on the Professional Development committee. At the end of last year, I asked to be join this committee and gratefully resigned my role on the Community Outreach committee.

I am not sorry.

The Professional Development committee oversees all of the adult education at the local realtor association. They bring in guest speakers and interview future teachers. I wanted to be part of this group because I want to (eventually) teach at the association.

My greatest fear was the group would be as unprofessional and cliquish as the Community Outreach committee was. I needn't had worried. I probably could have walked into a junior high school cafeteria during hazing week and had a more welcoming experience at any Community Outreach meeting I ever attended.

Anyway, this group was professional. I knew a a few folks and they were pretty cool. When introductions came along, several mentioned they were involved in the leadership group I opted not to interview for. I felt a twinge of regret in not going for it, but truly, I would have been over-committed. Perhaps next year.

Overall, I really liked the group and I liked the meeting. The Chair was pleasant, didn't make snide comments or cut people down when they had an idea (unlike the Community Outreach committee Chair). Nobody was blatantly leering into the chest of any woman wearing a low-cut top (unlike the Community Outreach committee Vice-chair). In fact, conversation, discussion and questions were encouraged.

Except once. And please--let me just die and fade into the sunset.

So we had two potential instructor interviews as part of this meeting. The first guy walks in, starts his spiel on the essence of leadership and talks for 15 minutes. The Chair says to all of us on the panel watching the interview: "Mary, Patty, Paul and I will ask questions in the interest of time." Mary, and Paul ask a couple of questions.

However, nobody asked the burning question I wanted to know: Why did this guy who had no real estate experience whatsoever and was a licensed pharmacist want to teach at the Association?

Come on! Doesn't that sound like a reasonable question? I mean, we are interviewing REAL ESTATE INSTRUCTORS, right?

So Mary and Paul ask their questions. The Chair and Patty have no questions. Then the Chair looks at the rest of us and says, "Any other questions?" Which, to me, means he is inviting others to make logical queries. So I asked the guy who was interviewing why he wanted to teach real estate agents. Seems like a legit question to me. But then again, I have only been on this committee 90 minutes.

Anyway, apparently, what the Chair really meant was, "Nobody else damn well better ask a question," but my crystal ball wasn't working.

After the meeting I was politely taken aside and sweetly straightened out. No matter, I figured out my faux pas before the second dude interviewed. Hopefully nobody else will remember that moment--that I still can't figure out. I mean, why say, "Are there any more questions?" if you don't mean it? And why bring in a pharmacist to teach leadership to real estate agents?

By the way, the panel agreed to have the pharmacist teach a class. Don't ask me why. I didn't vote yes. I was still processing why this guy wants to teach real estate agents.