The worst problem with the slow real estate market is....well, besides it being slow, that not only do I not have all that much to do, but neither does anybody else. This is really bad if you have a manager, but almost a disaster if you have more than one. I effectively have two bosses...my boss and the one above her. And they don't agree. They're both nice people, but they have two totally different and conflicting ways of getting things done.

I swear that smiling and nodding is the most useful job skill I've ever learned.....

I have also, at my advanced age, finally realized that when somebody tells you to do something over and over again it may not be because they think you're too stupid to remember what they just said. (though that may be true, particularly since I spend so much time smiling and nodding) It may because their memory is so poor that they don't remember they all ready told you to do it.

Case in point: We got poinsettias for the office. The uber-boss was there when they came in, and we spent a great deal of time deciding where to put them (read she pointed, I lugged them around, knowing I was going to have to lug them somewhere else when my boss came in the next day) They'd gotten the same type over at the other property that the uber-boss visits.

"Make sure you water them! It's very important that you water them!" she told me about 20 times before she left.

"Okay, sure, no problem!" I said. I watered them once, then again the next week.

Poinsettias grow down in Mexico and out in California, but they're not tropical plants. Heck, Gram had one growing in her outdoor garden up in Western Maryland ( long story) I don't know how I know that you don't want to water them too much. It seems like something I've just always known. But I wouldn't have known it from listening to the uber-boss.

Anyway, the poinsettias had been there about 4 days when I got this call from the other property. "Are your poinsettias dead?"

"Um. No. They're fine."

"They are? Dang. I wonder what we're doing wrong. I was hoping that they came defective and we could blame the greenhouse. The uber-boss said to be careful to water them....they're getting plenty of water, but they're totally wilted. I think we killed them."

"Yeah. You might want to back off on that."

"You don't think we ought to keep misting them?"

"Um. No."

Yesterday when the uber-boss came back she was surprised by how well our poinsettias were doing. "Wow. I wonder what happened over at the other property. I told those girls to make sure they water them."

Yep. It's true. The poinsettias have been micro managed to death.