Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Going Down to the Office

When we were selling our hillside house in Huntington, Indiana, we were in frequent phone contact with our realtor, Marcellus Scher, and he'd always say when he'd be available "down at the office" next Tuesday morning or this Friday after four o'clock, etc. Sometimes when we'd call his wife would answer and say he was "down at the office," and we should call there, and repeat the number. But we never knew exactly where that office was. He had been with a big Realty office downtown for several years, but wasn't currently.

Finally one day we got an offer that he wanted us to drop by his house out on Stults Road to hear, and we drove out of town to the address.

I knew the house well. My parents' friends had lived there years before--a nice little Cape Cod box with a finished dormered second floor upstairs and a finished paneled basement. It was a comfy country cottage I'd been in in several times previously. Scher greeted us at the front door and sheparded us through the front hall directly into the down staircase.

"I went down to the office this morning," he said, "and I got an offer on your house--just a second." He fumbled with some keys and found the one he wanted, unlocked a solid door and stepped into "the Office," inviting us to follow and sit down around a big round antique table.

Thirty minutes or fewer later we had accepted the offer in writing and sold our house, and Scher locked up his "Office" as if it were located in the most insecure part of town instead of at the foot of his basement stairs, and we all climbed back up and were seen out the front door, with a nod to Missus Scher who glanced at us over her shoulder from the kitchen.

We've often chuckled at how serious Marcellus was about keeping a professional demeanor as he went to work on definite schedules by going ten steps down to his basement. Here was a man who kept his work separated from his private life with a zeal.

Now, as I try to feel my way into more internet publishing and marketing activities, I find it remarkable my "business," my "office," is sitting here on my laptop computer that I normally work with on my family room couch. When I go online to try to increase traffic to new sites or write some more help menus for the spreadsheet budget I'm trying to sell online through affiliate sites, I laughingly tell Barb "Well, guess I'll go on down to the office today," and she knows exactly what I mean.

3 comments:

Big Penguin said...

HAH!! Love it. I hope your not checking this comment at the office... you might get fired!

Anonymous said...

Soon I will actually have 'an office' too. Although I won't need it as much since I have stepped down from all my leadership roles which caused me to sit in 'my office' all day.

Carol Anne said...

At Elephant Butte Lake, there is a boat whose name is The Office. When I first saw that boat's name, I immediately thought of the saying, "The worst day on the water beats the best day at the office."

Later, I learned that The Office belongs to a fishing guide on the lake who also used to publish a monthly newspaper aimed at New Mexico outdoorspeople.