There were lots of little things my mother had to do when my father passed away last year, things like cancelling credit cards, closing bank accounts, transferring internet accounts and the like. You know how it is. All the small, mundane tasks that should take about five minutes each to do.

My mother stayed home to raise her three boys in the 1960s until going back to work in the late 1970s. She’s now in her eighties, but don’t worry, this isn’t a secret because she still feels like she’s in her sixties and says that age is just a number and doesn’t matter. Even though she was a stay at home mom in that era, she was never the kind of woman who was limited to household duties. She was always involved in the finances and everything else so she’s used to dealing with companies like banks and utilities.

Here’s a funny story to give you an idea of just how capable she is: One day when I was about eighteen years old I walked into the kitchen and saw only her legs sticking out from under the kitchen sink. (To tell you the truth, it reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the East’s legs after Dorothy’s house landed on her in the Wizard of Oz. Good thing my mother wasn’t wearing ruby red slippers.) When I asked my mother what she was doing, she said she was fixing a leak. Thinking I would save her time, I mentioned I had seen my father repairing the leak earlier that morning. Her reply: “How long have you been living here? Don’t you know how things work? I let your father think he fixed something and then I fix it for real.” It didn’t matter that my father was the son of a plumber and my mother the daughter of a businessman, that’s how things worked.

Another thing about my mother: She’s not the kind to procrastinate. When she’s got a list of things to do, she likes to get them done as soon as possible and that’s how she approached her list of small, mundane tasks. She figured she’d be able to knock them down pretty quickly, like one duck after another at a carnival shooting gallery.

The problem is that most of the world is less efficient than my mother. Some tasks that should have taken one phone call or email took countless phone calls, emails and personal visits over the course of weeks and months to complete. One task in particular stands out because I offered to take it on for her – transferring the internet account from my father’s name to my mother’s name. After I explained the situation to the company’s customer service rep, including the fact that my father had passed away, she asked to speak to my father to confirm he authorized the transfer. So I explained again. And again she said she couldn’t do anything without his authorization. After a couple attempts to speak to someone more competent at the company, we decided to sign up with a different internet provider and leave the original company to figure things out for themselves when they tried to charge my father’s cancelled credit card at the end of the month.

My mother did a great job working her way through her list even though it took her a lot longer than anticipated. I’d have to say she wasn’t just frustrated by the experience, she was disgusted by it. There were many times when the lack of competence exhibited by many of the people with whom she had to deal caused her to say “I can’t believe these people. They have no idea what they’re doing. They say they’re going to do something and then they forget to do it and you have to call them every day to remind them. Or they say they can’t do something that seems easy and logical, but they can’t give you a reason why they can’t do it. Things were not like this when I was younger.”

You know what? I don’t blame her one bit for feeling this way because I feel this way almost every single day. Sometimes several times a day. And I’ll bet you do, too. It’s because there are too many people who don’t take enough pride in what they’re doing these days. Did your parents ever tell you “Any job worth doing is worth doing well?” Has everyone forgotten about that?

Take a look at the photo at the top. You know what it is? It’s my friend’s balcony being retiled in a tiny village in the Italian countryside. Notice how the tile layer has installed spacers between each tile to make sure the spacing will be perfect when the tiles set. I’ve seen a lot of renos, but I’ve never seen such precision. This tile layer isn’t just a worker, he’s a craftsman, someone who takes pride in his work. Is there any reason we can’t all be like that?

This reminds me of another story from my younger days. After an extended family dinner one evening, my mother asked everyone if they’d like some decaf coffee because she had made a pot. Everyone who wanted coffee nodded affirmatively, but my father, who preferred regular coffee, was silent so she turned to him and asked “Ben, would you like me to make you a pot of regular coffee or will you settle for decaf?” His reply: “I won’t settle.” I still chuckle when I think of that story. It was like he was being asked to make the greatest sacrifice of all time.

The point of all this is that you shouldn’t settle either. Whatever it is you’re doing, do the very best you can. Always. And when you hire someone to do something for you, don’t settle for anything less than the very best. Don’t accept inferiority and convince yourself that’s the way things are. Especially when it comes time to choose a Realtor to help you buy or sell your home. There’s too much at stake.

If you already have a relationship with a top Realtor, great! But if you don’t and you’d like to receive the kind of help that involves honest answers, straightforward advice, no pressure and being treated like family, please feel free to connect with me. I’m always happy to help. Thanks for reading.