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July 17, 2007
I never thought I'd make it this far
Exactly a year after the contract was signed, I finally was able to close on my condo. That’s 9 months behind schedule, bit it happened and it’s a huge relief to get on with my life. It is also precisely a year since I rejoined the firm, which means that half of my b-school debt has been forgiven.
I’ve been working like a dog lately, pulling 91 hours last week and working until 2am last night. Private equity clients are known for being demanding, though the more frequent unstaffed days partially make-up for the string of 1AM nights.
The closing itself was a circus of papers—probably 500 pages or more--and some characters I hope I don’t see again. There was me, my attorney, the sellers’ attorney, a title closer, and a lender’s representative.
Oh where should I start? My attorney was good. That’s why you hire a friend’s attorney and pay him more than what he asks for. But I’m remiss if I don't jump straight to the star of this show, the seller’s attorney, a grumpy old hag named Marlene from the firm Seiden & Schein. It’s unclear if she’s an attorney or a paralegal or an escaped mental patient. Indeed, she’s the bitchiest woman I’ve met since I was touring the former Soviet Union a year ago. Combining the worst of a bully and an incompetent fool, she was incredibly rude to my attorney, single-handedly raising the tension in the room as she insisted that everything be done exactly as she demanded. When my attorney, who’s about the most laid-back guy you’ll ever meet, pointed out that they weren’t handling transfer tax payments according to my contract, she wigged-out.
“Well I just don’t know how to handle it that way. That rider is wrong. I don’t know who wrote it that way!”
My attorney did, because he was smart. Score another for him: “Sorry, that’s what’s in the contract.”
“Well I just don’t know how to handle it. We never do it that way. I don’t know what to do; we’ll have to do it the way we always do.”
My thought: you’re supposedly working for a law firm. Maybe it’s an el-cheapo two-bit law firm, and maybe you’re one of the reasons that the project is 9 months behind schedule, but figure it out.
My attorney didn't budge.
She then stormed out of the room declaring, “I just can’t handle this.” I’m really not sure that this warranted a nervous breakdown—it's just a contract, and it's not your money at stake.
She wasn’t seen again for perhaps 20 minutes, which was as well with me, though I kept wondering if a real lawyer would turn up. Or maybe a professional who was in control of herself?
Meanwhile the lender has hired some random guy who’s on the phone discussing his fantasy baseball scores, burping, and declaring that if I forget to sign everything, “we can just forge it tonight.” I don’t know where they found this guy, but his closest analog would be Larry Burns, including the shirt with tie but the top button undone. There’s nothing that says “oaf” more than a guy who buys a shirt with too small a neck size and then wears a tie despite being unable to close the top button. That makes me really comfortable when this guy is writing out multi-hundred-thousand-dollar checks.
Seiden & Schien’s offices were completely covered in foot-tall stacks of papers. In two of the large windowed offices I saw, there was virtually no horizontal space not buried in at least 3 inches of paper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such messy offices. No wonder identity theft is so easy.
The last character in all this was a title insurance woman, who was at least semi-professional and had her stuff mostly in order, though she turned up 15 minutes late. The shocking thing is that I’m expected to tip her $50 to $75, which is perhaps the most absurd tip request I’ve heard since I was in India six years ago. Here I’m paying $8600 to the title company (Judicial Title), who pays out less than 1% of premiums in claims, and I’m supposed to tip their rep? Get friggin’ bent. I tip taxi drivers, hair dressers, doormen, porters, waiters, barmaids, cocktail servers, bouncers, maitre d’s, superintendents, and baristas, all of whom have reasonably hard customer service jobs. Still, I don’t tip the shoe salesman at Bergdorf who gets a nice commission off my Ferragamos, and I don’t tip people to whom I pay their firm $8600 and only hire them because I have to. What ever happened to just doing your job?
Marlene, the old seller’s legal person, lost control again when we mentioned that the cherry floor isn’t done totally to spec (as I've been saying for two months), but she did finally a smile when she handed me the keys, which was a great feeling. It’s over. I’m moving this weekend. Then I’ll celebrate. I never thought I’d make it this far.
Posted by adrianjo at 09:34 PM