Names, Not Numbers

I was in electrical for years. There were a lot of things I loved about that line of work but I always felt like I needed something more people-based. I had some great relationships there and I have fond memories of the guys I worked with but it was a job that required my head to be down. Rather than being and connecting with people, I was connecting with blueprints. I'm just not wired that way.

It was a tough decision to get into real estate but I knew deep down that I had to follow my heart. I also had complete confidence that my work ethic from electrical would translate over to real estate, and I was right. I love my job.

The day before court I had to bring in some papers to the courthouse and when I walked through the heavy wooden doors I was greeted with a numbers machine--those things that spit out numbers so that there's no need for a line-up. We all just crowd around each other, exchanging flu viruses and sad faces, and wait for our number to show up. It hit me hard in there, that what started this process was human connection and now it is reduced to numbers on paper. Heads down. Skin weathered by the harsh storms of life. Each of us sitting in a crowded room, but feeling more alone than ever.

I went to court the next day and the judge demanded that I pay money that I can't afford to pay, and when my lawyer defended me, the judge replied smugly, "well, Mr. Slane will just have to work harder, won't he?" And at that moment it felt like all my hard work was being balled up into a fist and punching me in my own stomach. My character was being mocked, and he doesn't even know me.

It doesn't have to be like this.

I drove out to Chilliwack to check on my clients and when I got to the door, the 80-something year-old husband was standing there in the doorway, feeling a different kind of pain, as he was holding a photo of he and his wife. In the photograph, their faces were pressed together, smiling and so in love, eyes sparkling of promise and hope even as they neared the end of their journey together. His wife has a brain tumor and is suffering with a myriad of maladies, one of which is confusion, and she had walked out of the house and was nowhere to be found.

I grabbed my keys and took off in my car, looking for her everywhere, mostly so that I could make sure she would be safely reconnected with her husband but also because I have this inherent need for some sort of happy ending in general, in life. We cannot be reduced to numbers. When his wife went missing, we all searched for Sam. We didn't search for #457.

And when I go back to court, I want that judge to look at Andrew, not #458.