Up Time – It Always Got Me Down
One of the duties of real estate agents in our office that I most dreaded was “Up Time,” also known as “Floor Time.” The enthusiastic instructor in my company-provided training even referred to it once as “Opportunity Time,” and that can actually be true if the timing is right.
Up Time, to sum it up briefly, basically involved playing receptionist at the office. Blocks of time were assigned to each agent every month that involved sitting at the office front desk and dealing with potential customers who simply walk into the office or call on the telephone.
These blocks of time were usually three of four hours depending on the shift that was assigned.
Our office – not being what you would call one of the busiest real estate offices in the world – was often pretty quiet. As you might suspect, this can result in some extraordinarily boring shifts on the front desk. Thankfully, there was PC available at the front desk that probably saved my sanity by allowing me to access the Internet and learn more about marketing my web site while I passed the Up Time hours.
I usually ended up with 5 or 6 Up Time assignments each month and that was the norm for all the agents in the office. There was always much trading of Up Time slots as agents had to re-schedule their Up Time because of appointments with clients or family commitments.
Beyond the boredom, I found Up Time unpleasant because I discovered that I did not at all enjoy talking to customers who were calling the office. The vast majority of the time the calls were for other agents in the office which had to be forwarded to the agents extension or to their voicemail. I didn’t enjoy playing receptionist at all. To me it was just a pain in the ass.
I also discovered that I really didn’t even want to talk to the potential customers who called and did not ask to speak with a specific agent. This was the coveted “Up Call” that meant the agent on duty was free to treat the caller as a potential customer and try to get them to set up an appointment or at least give you their phone number.
As with any dealings with the public, some of them were polite and courteous, some of them sounded a bit rude and others sounded just plain annoying or a bit clueless. I was finding out that I did not want to talk to these people. I wanted to pick up that phone and talk to these random voices on the other end of the line about as much as I wanted to slam my fingers in a car door.
Remember, I’m not much of a “people person” and I was starkly reminded of this when I started talking to these people. What I really wanted to do was to tell them to call someone who actually wants to talk to them about whatever real estate needs they happen to have – real or imagined. Yes, some of them did make me wonder.
It was becoming clear to me that my only passion I had for the real estate business was getting as far away from it as I could. I was beginning to realize what a huge mistake I had made and it was more and more obvious to me that this was a job I could never love.
Perhaps more accurately, never tolerate.
I was beginning to wonder how the heck I was going to extract myself from this mess. I kept telling myself it would get better. Much of the anxiety I was experiencing was due to the fact that I felt like I did not have the know-how or experience to do the job when a real live lead presented itself.
I was trying to convince myself that once I got the hang of this job, I would feel a lot better about it and maybe even enjoy it. As I gained a little experience and spent some time working with a few customers, I did become more relaxed and confident but I was also finding out that my tolerance for the job was not trending upward.
The more I learned about the job, the more one glaring fact became evident. This job was just one massive hassle wrapped in a pleasant-sounding name like “Real Estate Agent.”
As far as I could tell, that is what a real estate agent’s job is all about: hassle! Having a rather low tolerance for almost any and all hassles that come along in life as a rule, this was another glaring incompatibility between real estate and myself.
Think about it. Have you ever heard of any real estate transaction that ever went completely smoothly with no problems popping up during the course of rhe transaction?
I didn’t think so.
Next: Real Estate Agent or Hassle Hunter?
