Broker Nightmares

After a brief flirtation with homelessness and the loss of a few hundred dollars, I successfully greeted December from a new home… one block away from the previous one. The apartment is a nice and spacious two-bedroom, whose only shortcoming is my weirdly shaped closet, but I lost my right to complain about that the moment I seriously contemplated living in a subway station. If anyone else is on the brink of homelessness, get in touch with me and I give you links to some great guides on surviving homelessness. They include useful and encouraging advice such as, "It won't be easy at first, but you'll get used to it.”

My initiation into the realty industry of New York City was rough. I thought finding a new apartment was easy, and I was in for an unpleasant surprise. Realtors can be vague, unreliable, pushy, rude and deceitful all at once! They can casually forget to mention their fee is, in fact, one and a half months’ worth of rent, rather than the standard one month in Astoria. They can waste hours of your time only to fail to show you any apartments because when they finally arrive at the location… they realize they’ve forgotten the key. They can also try to convince you that getting a railroad-style apartment at a ridiculously high price is a steal. Basically, they don’t have your interest at heart. It’s important to understand that before starting to deal with them.

I’m now on a first name basis with almost all brokers in Astoria and have the phone numbers of 18 of them in my phone. The various applications for apartments yielded three different credit reports with scores diverging by up to 60 points. I still get calls from brokers daily offering to show me “a great, renovated two-bedroom,” although my roommate and I made it clear we would be homeless if we didn’t find a place by the first of the month. But all of that is over now and we even cooked our first communal dinner in the apartment – French fries.

There is also exciting news from work. While I do have to write my self-appraisal, which I have been avoiding for about a week now, I feel like I have finally become a fully integrated member of the Foundation’s staff. At first, it was challenging to coordinate competing assignments from the three supervisors I effectively work for, but as I got a better grasp of my responsibilities and their expectations, things became a lot easier. Besides, all three of them (and all my other colleagues) were always happy to answer my questions and give me feedback on my performance, so I never felt a lack of support.

More recently, I participated in an internal innovation competition for the research associates and the associate directors at the Foundation, and ended up winning one of the three awards! Well, technically the generous award went to the grantee organization, on whose behalf I was competing, but I still really enjoyed preparing the application and the presentation for the contest. Not to mention, the award will contribute to the future success of an organization I deeply respect, which is a sufficient reward for me.