Convincing People

...that I am awesome.  It's a tougher job than I thought it was.

My project for the week is to secure housing for "the sun of my life" and me in Santa Cruz.  I went through this whole thing where I was over-eager and looking too early back in April/May...and then, I went through this extremely uncharacteristic moment of feeling like we would just find housing once we got out there in August.  Now the time is ripe to find a place and find it soon so that we don't end up screwed with places that are too expensive and have an undesirable commute.  

Finding housing is difficult, especially when you are not in the same area or in the same time zone for that matter.  It's just not going to happen for me to visit and look at places before we move out.  Too expensive and too time consuming.  So, lucky for me, I make a living off of letting people know they can trust me and confide in me and want to spend time with me -- all via telephone.  I'm really turning on the charm for these Santa Cruz landlords and trying to convince them that they should rent the place to me AND save it until August rather than rent it in July....  It's hard work.  

Lucky for me, credit reports are required for Santa Cruz rental applications (um, yes, this is insane and I have NEVER heard of this before, and I think it is wrong, so by "lucky" I mean that I am exercising my privilege) because mine is excellent.  Otherwise, things are not so lucky.  People I speak with are just SURE that I have a friend, relative, SOMEONE who can view the apartment for me and represent me...and no, that is just false, I do not.  I resorted to sending my professional bio on AU's website to someone today to convince her that I have a trustworthy look and a strong employment (ie. rent paying) potential.  This is really not how equal opportunity is done, AND it is difficult and really silly.

Shouldn't I be able to apply online and stuff like that?  The only places that do that are the undesirable places as far as I can tell.  Although, I did spend 20 minutes on the phone with Roger today who manages a property in the Seabright neighborhood where I would like to live and explained that waiting a month to rent a one bedroom to me would be an investment on his part because I am going to be there working on this degree for at least four years.  He seemed to take my point, but he didn't concede the point.  He is after all a manager and not an owner.  His consolation to me was telling me to send a check in the mail to "reserve" a spot that might or might not be available and might or might not actually be held for me even though I sent $700.  That was the end of our conversation.  

The good news is that this is the kind of stress I can handle.  It's a much better and much more motivating stress than the issues I've had to deal with for the past three months: ridiculous IRS audit that tried to take away my education tax credit and tell me I'm not a student (how do you argue with totally false information and logic?!), a storage container that was run into a TREE not 2 blocks from my house (seriously?!), etc.  That's the kind of stuff that will send me into crazy town. This persuasive business is just regular 9-5 work for me.

And Neal Brennan, gets how ridiculous this dynamic is: