Ta-Daaaa!!!

It’s time to shift gears again. It’s time to make another run for it.

No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”

It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?

I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.

No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.

So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.

Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.

I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."

So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.

I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.

And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.

I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.

“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”

When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.

Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”

When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.

His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.

There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.

But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”

On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.

One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.

“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”

“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”

“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”

“That’s me.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.

“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.

“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“

“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”

Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.

I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.

It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.

That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.

Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?