Thoughts, Musings & Rants

I was just sitting here reflecting on my Real Estate Investments class thinking about the AWFUL guest speaker we had today. The guest was sharing information about the organization for whom he works and he represented his company very poorly. He was condescending one minute and then overly familiar the next. Add a touch of 'holier than thou' with smarmy used car salesman (a paradox, I know) and you have this guy pegged. He made gross assumptions about people in the class and their religiosity - alternating between joking that we needed to go see our bishop's to assuming that we all had current temple recommends. He quoted scripture references and then acted like we were stupid/not nearly as spiritual as he is/was when we didn't know what he was talking about. I loathe people like him because I think they represent all of the stereotypes I want to avoid. He also called us "brothers & sisters." Brothers & Sisters! At school! In a PROFESSIONAL presentation!!! SERIOUSLY!?!?

I am sorry - I know I am at BYU and it is a school run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I get SUPER annoyed when people confuse school and business classes with Sunday School. I am paying money to learn and be taught by experts - I don't have to pay (nor do I want to pay) to attend testimony meeting. I do not pay money to attend firesides and that is exactly moments of today's class felt like. I want a refund for today's class!I may have just been having a bad day, but I was BEYOND annoyed. Honestly if I were his boss we would be having a "Crucial Conversation" stat. I would be ticked if one of my employees ever represented themselves, and by extension me, in such an unprofessional manner.

In the midst of my annoyance with Real Estate I was thinking about other guest lecturers we have had in the class (they were all fantastic). I was also thinking about the lectures we had combined with the undergraduate version of the Real Estate class and about how I had no clue about real estate when I was an undergrad. Then I wondered why I didn't know careers in Real Estate.

My conclusion was that we know about what we see. The grown ups that I knew growing up were involved primarily in two professions: engineering and teaching. Sure I knew a policeman here, and a lawyer there, but the majority of the people within my sphere of influence were either engineers or teachers. I learned about other careers in high school and some in college, but I have learned a lot about different career paths in the past two years in business school. It is interesting to think about my younger brothers and sisters and to see what kind of career options they will pursue as myself and my siblings have pursed other careers. Sure I still have a couple of brothers who are engineers but we are branching out. I have decided that I want my little brothers ( I really should use the term younger as they are at least 6 inches taller than me) to know about all kinds of career options and I am on a mission to help them. I wish I would have talked more to adults when I was younger to learn about their careers and what they do to occupy their time. I am sure I could have learned a lot and my network of business contacts would be a lot larger. You live and you learn I guess.