Yesterday, November 15, 2024, was to be the day that I closed on and moved into Cypress Corner, the new townhome that the builders just finished with all of my customizations. I’ve been looking forward to yesterday for many, many months, following the unit’s progress each time the builder sends an update, driving by the site to watch and take photos of the process, and making plans to move in right away, get new furniture, clean out my storage unit and unpack, and get out of my parents’ hair as I’ve been staying in their guest room for a few months after I sold my old home, waiting out building delays to get into my new home.
But yesterday wasn’t actually the day that I had dreamed it to be and planned on for so long. I got up early, as planned, and washed sheets and towels to prepare my parents’ guest room to be turned over to its next residents. I packed my truck and confirmed utility installations scheduled for the next day, got my documents and confirmation of funds together, got my Realtor®’s thank you card and gift ready, and was less than two hours from heading to the closing to finalize everything, sign my name, and get my keys, when I got a text from my mortgage company. Jason, a loan officer at the very small firm with which I went because they were said to specialize in working with entrepreneurs, said in his text, “We can’t close today.”
Actually, no. Jason doesn’t seem to care about professionalism. He actually said, “We cant close today. I will call you.” I guess putting the apostrophe in “can’t” was just too much effort, though if he had removed the extra space he included between the sentences he could have then used that energy to type an apostrophe. But, I digress…
My heart sunk. WTF!? Is he for real? This has been scheduled, funds have been transferred, closing disclosures have been reviewed and signed, my closing agent is waiting at her office for our 11 a.m. appointment (or so I thought), I have my truck packed, I have utility installations scheduled for tomorrow, and my life has been sculpted around this day for months. What does he mean we can’t close today? What’s the issue!?
I sat in the rocking chair in my parents’ guest room and tried to take some deep breaths. Is this a joke? I texted back that this was not okay and that my truck was loaded and I was not given any warning that the scheduled closing may not actually happen. Jason responded and said that the underwriter hadn’t given a “clear to close” and that he was talking to them now and would call me when he was done.
He called a few minutes later and I had collected myself enough to not totally tell him off—a trait I’m prone to and that I work hard at trying to breath through so I’m not as hurtful in my reactions as my nature would let me be. He explained that the underwriter was taking longer than expected. I asked why they scheduled the closing if the underwriter wasn’t finished yet, to which he didn’t seem to have an answer. I had no idea everything wasn’t finalized and I told him that. I mean, they sent a message that funds were transferred and everything on my end was signed and sealed. For goodness’ sake, the closing was in less than two hours, but they were still waiting for the underwriter to give a green light? It seemed so absurd. Jason apologized and agreed that it was incredibly unprofessional and that he’d be riding the underwriter to get the clear finalized so we could close next week. I wasn’t too kind to Jason on the phone, understandably very upset, and I do regret some of my words and harsh tone. But, as my mom often says, there’s a difference between anger and righteous anger…and, in this case, I feel it was righteous anger as I was feeling. Nevertheless, it’s still anger and dwelling on anger and bitterness will only cause more harm.
I had to get away for a while, so I took my loaded truck to my storage unit and proceeded to unload everything I had just that morning loaded. I then started driving. Driving is sometimes good for me to clear my head and sort through emotions. And, since my storage unit is in the heart of the new town I’ll soon call home, I figured I needed to find my way around this town without using my GPS. So, I started going in the direction that I thought was correct.
After a while, I finally came out of the town in a place that I recognized—miles away from where I thought I’d come out and in the opposite direction of where I wanted to head. As I approached the big road (Delaware’s Route 1, which is the closest thing to a highway we have in Southern Delaware), I looked at my dashboard and noticed a little letter on it that I don’t think I had noticed before: S. I was headed south. I wanted to head north. And, what in the world!? My truck has a compass!?
I don’t think I had ever paid attention to my truck’s compass before, but there it was, smack dab in the middle of my dashboard above my odometer and speedometer. My truck is a 2020 and I bought it new, so for nearly five years now I’ve been looking straight at my compass without realizing it was telling me the direction I was driving in. That would have been so incredibly useful! Yes, I almost always have my phone’s GPS up on its dashboard mount, but there are times when I think I know the way and don’t use the GPS, then inevitably get turned around. My sense of direction is fairly non-existent.
I started driving, north this time after I successfully got on the big road going in the right direction. While driving, I passed a field that had been freshly harvested and cut back. I think it was a corn field, though I’m not certain. Delaware is a heavily agricultural state, with lots of corn, soy, alfalfa, beans, and other crops so beautifully and neatly grown in large farms that line its roads and give this coastal state with its beaches and wildlife sanctuaries and small towns a rural Midwest vibe. Anyway, in this one probably-corn field, I saw two bald eagles quite close to the road—a female with her brown variegated feathers and a male with his white head and dark brown body feasting together on some sort of fresh carcass.
This was so cool. And rare! I slowed down a bit and the eagles seemed unphased. I thought of taking a picture, but then there was the issue of the carcass and that, to me, was gross. I have no interest in having an image of a gory carcass on my phone. Personally, I get incredibly grossed out this time of year when so many friends show pictures of their fresh hunting kills on social media. I’m not a hunter. I’ve never been hunting. I don’t imagine I’ll ever go hunting. I support those who enjoy it and their right to do so if they’re responsible about it, but it’s definitely not for me. And this is coming from someone who was at one time a biology major and who has had the incredibly exciting privilege of examining a cadaver up-close. I don't mind gore in clinical or scientific settings, but I don't want to display it or carry it around in my pocket. But, again, I digress…
I continued on my way, thinking about those eagles. They were so majestic. Was this a sign? I believe in signs and see them often. I shared a few months ago with some photos on Instagram (see part one of the post here and see part two of the post here) about how rainbows are often a sign to me and how multiple rainbows seen on a road trip to and from a faith gathering reassured me that The Almighty was still in control, despite confusion and conflict in our immediate view down here on Earth. If the eagles were a sign, what did it mean? I just decided that, like the rainbows, it was reassurance that there’s a much bigger picture and that my little moment of angst with my classic first-world problem of not being able to move into my brand spankin’ new home on the day I planned to is indeed not the end of the world. I took some more deep breaths and continued to feel better.
A mile or two further up the big road, I saw another bald eagle—another male feasting on another carcass. If the first two weren’t enough of a sign, the incredible low odds of seeing another in such a short time span sure was. I felt whole again and ready to address the morning’s mortgage and closing delay situation with a much more clear head and focused vision.
I stopped at Grotto Pizza for lunch. For those of you who have never heard of or been to Grotto’s, as it’s familiarly called, I’ll let you know that it’s a Southern Delaware mainstay—boardwalk pizza that’s honestly not my favorite, but rather a tradition, with restaurants popping up all over the bottom half of the state and not just on its coastline. I had a guilty-pleasure comfort appetizer favorite, fried broccoli bites, followed by half of a meatball sub that brought me incredible gastronomic happiness, all washed down with a Diet Coke. I then did some window shopping and checked out upcoming Black Friday deals for new couches, a dining room table, a new main TV, and other things that I’ll soon be buying to fill my new townhome. It was just what I needed.
After using my newfound compass and determination to learn without the GPS to swiftly and safely and much-more-directly return back to my parents’ house, I emailed Jason. Because I took the time to settle my mind, I’m glad to say that my email was much more clear and kind that it would have otherwise been if I had sent it in my immediate frustration that his morning text and call created. I was firm, don’t get me wrong, and called out the profound unprofessionalism in this situation…especially because, after I talked to my closing agent who, if you’ll recall from paragraph four I was assuming was also planning on closing that day, I learned that she had heard a few days earlier from my mortgage company that they needed to delay until Monday to finalize details with the underwriter. So apparently, a few days earlier, Jason knew about the delay but no one bothered to tell me until I had packed up my entire life and was almost on my way to the appointment. As is my literal job to do as a communications coach and consultant, I emphasized in my email to Jason and his boss Karen, with their entire team copied, that communication is so incredibly important and they had seriously dropped the ball on it.
Communication is one of the top things—if not the single top thing—that business professionals get wrong, screw up, and don't put enough effort or emphasis on, and it's also one of the simplest things that you can fix to vastly improve relationships, retention, and revenue.
A few minutes after I sent my strong but hopefully non-abusive email, I got a response from Jason thanking me for it and acknowledging their failure. He said he’d call me later in the day with a plan for Monday. Of course, that was yesterday afternoon, and now it’s Saturday afternoon with still no call, so perhaps Jason didn’t really learn a lesson in proper communication. Whatever. It’ll work out.
Life can be a series of disappointments and frustrations or a series of silver linings, depending on how a person looks at it. So, I’m focusing on the good. One good thing is I had saved all of my ready-to-go Christmas cards with change-of-address announcements for my friends and family until after closing, as my gut said not to mail them until I was in my new place because there was always the possibility of last-minute hiccups. So, those are still unmailed, which is good because I want to be sure I’m physically in my new address before everyone gets it.
Another silver lining is that this happened on a Friday and that meant that a fresh episode of The Great British Bake Off dropped, which helped distract and uplift me a little bit more. I also get a bonus weekend staying with my parents, three fewer days of paying a new mortgage, and an opportunity to once again learn the lesson that just because things don't go as planned doesn't mean that the way they go isn't the way it was supposed to go.
And, I learned that my truck has a compass.
Your compass is your morality, your gut, your heart, your standards, your conscience, your Jiminy Cricket. We’ve all got a compass, whether or not we notice it, realize it’s there, trust it, or let it guide us. For me, my compass lately has been schooling me in how to treat people. I’m a human prone to anger, bitterness, pugnaciousness, and damaging behavior just like everyone else. My compass tells me to try to control that.
So, despite its disappointments, yesterday was a win for my compasses—both the one in my truck and the one in my heart. And I hope that, on all of our disappointing days, we can all ultimately end up in the direction our compasses tell us we should be heading.
…
Update on Wednesday:
We didn’t close on Monday. In fact, I had to fire Jason and Karen last night. Long, gory story short, it seems this whole wait-until-right-before-closing-then-pull-out-the-rug tactic was intentional. After mass confusion and plenty of misinformation, they tried to slip in a nearly-two-points-higher interest rate on what they said was a redone loan because of an error they had made and miraculously discovered the morning of the closing. So, I called them out on their shady scheme and let them go. Be very careful, friends, as scammers and tricksters are everywhere and their wily little tactics are awfully sly.
I’ve decided to not mortgage my new place after all and have sent a message to the builder to rescheduled my closing while I prepare alternate funding. All being well, I should be able to close early next week to be in my new place by Thanksgiving and still be able to break in my brand new stainless GE oven (I think I’m more excited about all of the brand new appliances as I am about the new home!) to bake the pies for our family’s feast next Thursday. I can’t wait!
What a saga.
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