Ask Uncle Bill

From Rental to Self Finance/From Bad to Worse

The strange thing about the Feds busting my rental property was that I never heard anything further except for a phone message saying "We'll be out by midnight" from the tenant and a visit to the local police station where the dispatcher had no record of any disturbance.  Shrugging, he said "Sometimes the Feds don't fill us in."  I asked the dispatcher to have a car patrol the area.  He said ok and I went to see what kind of mess I had left over.  But these people seemed to be fairly neat drug dealers so a few garbage bags of trash, switch over the utitlies and I was back in business.

The casual reader is probably saying "Didn't this idiot check these people out?"  Yes, but not completely, obviously, and, as I have found out, I am a sucker for a sob story--not very typical for an ex-finance guy but true just the same.  I had checked out the tenant through her employer (probably in on the deal) and she had paid her deposit of two months rent in cash (and now I know where that came from.)

Anyway, back in business, or actually wanting to get out of the business.  I decided to sell the property and reverted to MBA ways--clean up, call four realtors, interview the realtors, pick one and put the property on the market.  So I interviewed the realtors and picked one on the basis of his attention to what properties in the area SOLD for, not what they were LISTED for.  No dream prices or promises.

And the property sat.  In retrospect I don't think the guy did a very good marketing job and after about two months he called and said "How about owner finance?"  Hmmm.  The deal was get full price in return for no downpayment (alarm bells should be going off right about now) and carry the mortgage at 8% for 20 years.  The appeal here is three fold.  One, you get full price.  Two, you get, or think you will get, a regular income stream.  Three, this is, at least the way I read the tax code, an installment sale so the gain is spread over the life of the loan.  Pretty sweet deal. 

And I would be helping out a young, struggling couple.  Freddie and Celia were second generation Hispanics with two young daughters.  And they had references, or so I thought.  Freddie's father had worked for the realtor doing painting for the last twenty years and Freddie was following in old dad's footsteps.  My place in heaven was assured.

At this point you have to remember the part about being a sucker for sob stories plus the monthly 8% payments and the tax deferral.  I bit.

As they say on Wall Street, bears and bulls make money but pigs get eaten.  Next--Life with Freddie and Celia.

 

House Flipping in the Real World

Turned on the TV yesterday afternoon to catch a few minutes of the Buick Open golf tournament.  A basketball game was running late so my itchy finger started flipping.  Channel 4 had Richard Allen, some kind of real estate maven, touting buying and flipping.  Testimonials, happy high school graduates and people on water skis, all enjoying their escape from dead end jobs by INVESTING in real estate.  Channel 5 was rodeo (you sure can tell when the football season is over) but Channel 8 had a guy that looked kind of like Richard Allen touting real estate.  Similar testimonials and those people on water skis again.  Channel 11 was the basketball game so on to 13, the PBS station.  I was hoping for the 'Antique Roadshow' or 'This Old House' but there was Robert Kiyosaki flogging real estate. 

YIKES.  The 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' guy talking about OPM to a smiling and sincere bunch that looked like college graduates stuck in dead end jobs.  If it's on PBS the secret is out.  What next?  Terry Gross?

So five stations and three were broadcasting shows about flipping real estate.  At least PBS was not selling anything, I don't think, except ole Robert probably racking up some pretty good book sales.  Put down the remote, picked up the paper and saw an ad for a Donald Trump seminar coming to town flogging, you guessed it, getting rich with real estate.

The interesting thing was that the day before I had just sold TWO real estate properties.  Not money in the bank yet but signed sales agreements and took escrows. 

AND I am totally convinced that anyone can make a lot of money in real estate BUT not the painless way touted by Allen, Kiyosaki and company.  You make money in real estate the old fashioned way--you earn it by buying low and selling high and enduring a lot of people problems and building problems.  And you have to learn and truly understand the basic real estate maxim--you make money in real estate when you buy it, not when you sell it. 

Here's the good news on the houses.  Note:  These house prices will either make you people in San Francisco and Boston laugh or cry or both.  Both the houses are in basic working class, relatively safe neighborhoods.  The selling prices$49,000 and $61,500, respectively.  My purchase price was, and this is where you make the money, $25,000 and $35,000 respectively.  So quit laughing/crying at the small numbers, disregard the dollar signs and concentrate on the percentages.

House number 1--bought for $25,000, put in $5,000 so basis of $30,000.  Will sell for $49,000 plus rented out for two years at $9,600 (gross rent minus property taxes and insurance.)  So income of $58,600 minus basis of $30,000 divided by basis=95% return.  Not too shabby, percentage wise.  Plus some tax breaks and capital gains tax of only 15% on the gain.

The bad news was replacing rotted windows, frozen pipes in a claustrophic crawl space--think Charles Bronson in 'The Great Escape.'  (If you have never seen this film, rent it.  Great story, overacting by Steve McQueen but great motorcycle chase, and a very young Ducky from NCIS.)  Flea infested carpet covering hardwood floors- a rare pleasant surprise- dead birds in the attic, asbestos siding and digging ditches in January  to replace a drain pipe crushed by the roots of nearby thirsty tree. 

The real estate TV stars would say, "Just hire somebody, stupid."  I did for some things but that cuts into your margin and too much of that will make you upside down and you will be bringing your checkbook to the closing.  Then the experts counter that appreciaton will bail you out.  This is not a bad neighborhood but it certainly is not Wisteria Lane.  Chasing appreciation is risky business.

But the topper was getting a call from a neighbor saying a US Marshall SWAT team had cordoned off the street and had my tenant and three of her closest friends face down in the front yard, handcuffed with shotguns poked in their backs.  Remember what I said about people problems.

More on that tomorrow.

 

 

IKEA Nation

"$1,500 to $1,700."

This is the amount needed to buy enough stuff at IKEA to totally furnish a one bedroom apartment.  Tell this to your dad if he is going to subsidize this adventure and go slowly since fathers (males in general) equate furniture stores with panic attacks.  A furniture store to men is a place to buy stuff you don't really want or, more importantly, stuff you feel you don't really need.  Regardless of the financing source, you are going to need $1,500 to $1,700 to get:

a bed frame

mattress and sheets, one blanket, two pillows and pillow covers

bathroom towels, shower curtain, shower rod, miscellaneous bath glassware

small chest of drawers, two lamps  and two nightstands for the bedroom

wall mirror

computer desk, chair and lamp

living room sofa and matching chair

entertainment center or what I call a TV stand

two floor lamps and one bookcase

two barstool type chairs to go under that cheesy little bar area that seperates the kitchen from the living room

glassware, plates and can opener (manual) needed to fill up the kitchen cabinets.

That's actually a lot of stuff for $1,700 and worth it if you can afford it or weasel it our of your parents.  (Marc got it out of me this way.  He said it was a graduation present.  I told him he graduated from college a year ago and he got a graduation present then.  He informed me that this was a graduation present for getting his wings from the US Air Force navigator school which was a whole lot tougher than graduating from college.  Knowing what he had gone through, including being locked up in a box for 14 hours in survival school, I reluctantly agreed.)

It is also a good deal because IKEA is one stop shopping.  You can get most of the stuff in a truck or SUV, put it together which is not real hard but not totally painless, and you're set.  The furniture is pretty impersonal and the same stuff is in about every apartment in your complex but you have the basics and you're not sleeping on the floor. 

You want to get up and running fast because as a new graduate you don't have time for leisurely, expensive shopping or leisurely garage sale shopping.  You should be devoting your time to finding a job.  If you have found a job, you should be devoting your time to doing the best job possible to keep that job and get promoted so you can buy the furniture you want and the house you want for that furniture to go in.  Or keep the stuff you got and invest the money you make and get rich.  Or a combination.

To Be Or Not To Be

Early Thursday morning Margot called the medical support company but missed the HR person.  Left a message.  About 11:00am the HR person called again and offered Margot the job---$35,000, three weeks vacation, 401(k) with match, full medical, three blocks away.  Perfect.  Margot said "Let me think about it."  "How long?"  "Tomorrow?"  Ok but the HR person was not happy. 

In a bit of unbelievable timing, the HR lady from the ad agency called at 11:30am and offered Margot the job there.  That was a quick turnaround.  Margot was now in a bind but a good kind of bind having two job offers.  Margot again asked for some time to think about it saying she wanted to talk to me.  I was pretty proud of that until I figured I may have been more of a convenient excuse than a wise sage that Margot had to counsel with prior to any major decision.   

I was out and didn't get Margot's message until early evening.  Called and we did the old MBA thing--get out a piece of paper, in this case, two pieces of paper.  Make two columns titled Pro and Con.  First, the medical support job.  Lots of pros--money, vacation, retirement plan, short commute, would look good on her resume.  Cons--dull.  Maybe not but Margot wasn't doing cartwheels after any of the interviews. 

Ok, let's do the ad agency.  Margot said no.  Why not?  "It only pays minumum wage." she squeaked.  I have to admit I was taken aback.  How could they get away with paying a college graduate $7 an hour?  Margot explained--the job was a six month internship at which time you were either offered a full time job or shown the door.  This thing was starting to make sense--the deal offered the agency some pretty good talent at a rock bottom price, no health plan cost, no 401(k) cost, no vacation cost and an easy out at the end of six months if the person is a bust.  No messy firings just sorry, it isn't working.  No harm, no foul.

Also, somewhat of a tradition in the ad and talent agency business.  In many agencies, especially in old Hollywood, the newbies started in the mail room no matter who they were or what the future expectations were for that agent or star.  The theory was to hit the ego with a bit of humility to see how they handled it as well as having the newbie learn the organization by delivering the mail.   

So, a good deal for the agency but not so great a deal for Margot, in the short run anyway, as she had another rent payment coming up.

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked.  "You tell me." Margot shot back.  "No, you tell me." I said.  And back and forth, back and forth.  Finally, she said "I'm going with the agency." and I replied, "Right answer."

Not the right answer for my checkbook as we were now subsidizing the agency but the right answer for Margot and her career as

1)  if Margot turned down the agency job she would question that decision the rest of her life,

2)  the medical job paid well but only in the short run.  The future earnings potential in the agency far outweigh  the potential in the medical company.  I have no empirical evidence but could probably prove it if I had to.

3)  the ad agency sounded like fun.  Young people doing fun things.  I'm sure there are all kinds of politics and petty jealousies but there are in any organization.  I had a friend recently describe a co-worker as the type of the guy that will stab you in the front.  It's everywhere and the only counter is to work hard and don't get dragged into the pettiness.

So that's it.  Margot is in her third month on the job and things seem to be going well.  She's working really hard but the time flies.  One of the worst things in life is a job where time crawls.

The Agency

(If you want to start at the beginning of this series about getting a job straight out of school, scroll down to "Why A Lousy First Job Is Good For You."

I asked Margot about the interview schedule at the advertising agency.  Just somebody from HR.  Not good, I thought.  At best an introductory interview, at worst a blow off interview as a payoff to the headhunter that tossed the resume over the transom.  The interview was at 10:00 am. 

And, as usual, Dad was wrong.  After spending the day chewing fingernails, my phone finally rang about four thirty.  Margot had just finished at the agency, basically six hours of interviewing and she was really excited.  Tell me what happened, I said. 

Margot started.  Met with the HR lady, really nice, real young (all people at ad agencies are young except the owners), went through what the agency did, client list, size, reputation (voted one of the top ten best places to work in Houston).  And no trick questions for Margot--basically tell me about yourself, your goals, your interest in advertising, your interest in public relations, what classes you thought were most helpful in college, what job did you enjoy the most and why, why you think you will be successful here.  The seven week job that ended in disaster came up but the HR lady knew all about recruiters and they shared a few war stories.  All normal questions and answers, all designed to bring out strengths and weaknesses, no "If you were a tree, what kind of..." nonsense.

"What then?  What then?" I shouted.  Margot continued.  Margot had indicated a preference for the public relations side of the firm and the HR lady had three account executives lined up to meet with Margot.  (You have to admire this kind of planning.  The HR lady had obviously set up the interviews in advance and told the account execs that they would probably see Margot but if Margot was not 'suitable material' she would show Margot the door and not bother the account execs.  That is a pretty good HR lady.) 

Three hour long interviews and all went well according to Margot but "you never know, you know."  Pretty smart for 22 years old.  Where did you leave it?  They'll call.  The best that could be expected. 

But one fly in the ointment.  Actually, a good fly but a fly nonetheless.  There was a message on Margot's phone--please call the HR lady at the medical support company.  By now it was past five and too late to call but things were really starting to heat up.  In a good sense but heating up nonetheless. 

The P Word

So Tuesday was the interview day with the medical support company and Wednesday was the advertising agency interview for Margot.  Not bad but not great.  Life-long job decisions often get screwed up over day-to-day timing.  If Margot got an offer from the medical company they weren't going to want and wait around for three weeks while Margot talked to the ad agency.  They would want an answer, yes or no, now.  But first the interview.

As one of the remaining five canditates, Margot was climbing the organizational ladder.  The next, and probably final, interview was with the VP of Operations.  College career centers and any book on interviewing teach us to be aware and ready for the stealth question but it usually is something along the lines of "Where do you want to be in five years?" or "What is your greatest weakness?"  (The best answer I've heard of for the "Where do you want to be in five years?" question was "General Manager of the White Sox" which was a pretty gutsy way of saying "That's about the stupidest question I've ever heard.  Can't you do better than that?"  The guy got the job but did not become GM of the White Sox.)

The VP of Operations must have read a few books on interviewing or considered himself an amateur psychologist as he started out the interview without saying anything.  A bit disconcerting for Margot but she has her mother's ability to suffer fools so she sat there basically saying, body language wise, nice try.  I've been on the other end of this technique as well and the purpose is to make the silence so overbearing that the canditate finally can't stand it any longer and blurts out something really stupid.  The interviewer then has the advantage and the interviewee is reduced to tears. 

Discarding that ploy, the VP asked a few harmless questions and then "Tell me why you are passionate about medical care?"  Passion is another, currently in vogue, Human Resource buzzword that drives me crazy.  You have to be Passionate about your job, your industry, your calling.  If you started making random calls to major companies at 8:30 in the morning, I doubt you would find many people who would characterize themselves as passionate just at that moment.  People work to put food on the table and may become "passionate" about their jobs sometime but not likely.

More importantly, passionate people make stupid mistakes.  Passion is defined as "violent, intense, overwhelming feeling."  Just what you want in an employee, a nut.  Successful careers and successful businesses are built on calm, measured, thorough analysis and decision making.  Not on zealots running down the halls.  I've seen 'passionate' people in action and they do make an impact, usually negative, in the short run but soon burn out or are tossed out.  Passion has it place, boy does it, but not in the corporation.

So this one did catch Margot a bit off guard.  She mumbled something about world peace and got through the rest of the interview relatively unscathed.  But she didn't think so. 

Margot called, we talked and she said she basically blew the interview.  Margot has a pretty good attitude about things like this and her rationale was "I don't think I really want to work there anyway but the money was pretty good so...damn it."  A little mad, a little disappointed but basically over it and wanting to get to the next day and the interview at the advertising agency.

I was glad to see that.  I tend to agonize over what I should have said or should have done rather than just letting things go.  Not Margot.  Another personality trait inherited from her mother.  Now on to the ad agency on Wednesday. 

Hot Lead Goes Cold, Then Hot

Blog Note:  This topic has turned into something of a mini-series about Margot getting her first job out of college.  If you wish to start at the beginning, scroll down to "Why A Lousy First Job Is Good For You."

I thought that Phil's lead into the Senior VP at the ad agency was our golden opportunity.  And then nothing happened.  We had the guy's e-mail and his phone number.  Margot sent an e-mail with another copy of her resume and called and got, of course, the guy's assistant.  "We will be back to you."  Nothing.  A week goes by, Margot calls me and we huddle.  Consensus--call again.  Senior Vice President assistant to Margot, "Call Human Resources."  The kiss of death.  Dutifully, Margot called HR and, of course, "We will be back to you."  I was ready to pass and go on to other things but then Phil got back in the picture.

Phil is a real busy guy running his own agency but he has the ability to focus, take action and go on as he did with Margot's resume.  And then, for some reason, he did it again.  I don't know what prompted this and the details are a little fuzzy here but just as Margot was getting nowhere I got bcc'd on another e-mail from Phil to another headhunter with a great intro on Margot and resume attached.  Then Phil bcc'd me on the response.  The headhunter knew the VP of HR at the agency in Houston and sent the resume.  Great news except HR VPs get resumes every day, every minute, and Margot's resume was already in there gathering dust.   

For whatever reason, something worked and Margot got a call.  Be here next Wednesday at 10:00am, thanks very much. 

In the meantime, Margot had another interview with the medical support company and pretty much had a lock on the job, she thought.  She didn't sound very excited.  This was on a Thursday and on Friday she got a call from the medical company for another interview next Tuesday.  They also told her they had interviewed 50 people for the job and she was in the surviving 5.  Not exactly a lock.

Next week was shaping up to be pretty exciting. 

There is one takeaway that should be noted--there are a lot assumptions going on here.  I assumed the SVP at the agency was our way in.  Not really.  I also assumed that HR would be the kiss of death.  Not really.  I assumed that I had used up all my contacts.  Not really.  Margot thought she was a lock on the medical job.  Not really.  The takeaway is DON'T assume anything.  Just keep slogging away.  This simple truth of life is taught in books and movies.  For me it was "The Little Engine That Could."  For Margot it is "Brave Little Toaster."  So when things get tough, dust off the "Brave Little Toaster" CD and get inspired.

A&M Career Center

(Note:  Margot didn't like the picture on the site so we changed.  Check out the picture with Margot on the left and Louise, her roommate, on the right.  The picture was taken in their apartment in Rennes, France during Margot's junior year abroad.  Louise is 25, Swedish, single, and her father has the largest poulty farm in Sweden.  She also gets written up in the Swedish version of "People" for modeling or something.  Now if you can just get her away from her boyfriend, Gustav, ...) 

While waiting on something to come out of Phil's lead, Margot contacted the A&M job center to tell them never let that Houston recruiting company back on the university site.  She also found an open position with a medical company.  Health care is a huge, lucrative field fraught with complexity and stupidity.  I worked for Quaker Oats and we made Captain Crunch, filed the necessary documents with the FDA, advertised, sold a bunch and worried, a little, about suits over too much sugar in the product.  That was basically it.  I also worked for a pharaceutical company and health care is much more complicated because the players are the government (FDA, Social Security, Medicare), old people (AARP), companies (Merck, Pfizer), and lawyers.  Tons of lawyers.  And doctors, some of the most unorganized people on the planet.  And everybody wants some of the action.

And that's where the job opening comes in.  The business model for the company: form a network of doctors in rural Texas areas and handle the backroom operations (billing, insurance, administrative, leasing) and thus, supposedly, reduce the overall costs for the doctors letting them concentrate on 'deliverying medical care.'  A form of medical outsourcing.

The job opening was 'support coordinator' for the doctors, or as I saw it, medical babysitter.  My business law professor told us if you want to defraud somebody, try a doctor first.  Doctors study hard for a long time, then they work really long hours in some kind of medical Hell Week (I really don't want somebody diagnosing me that is sleep deprived but residents do it all the time) for starvation pay and then suddenly they are out on their own with people throwing money at them.  Also, many have a Messiah complex because they save lives, supposedly.  My own doctor is an exception being fourth generation doctor so he knew the score going in and, if truthful, would be happier as a professional golfer.  Almost good enough but not quite.

The support coordinator handles doctor complaints, organizes board meetings, drafts presentations and supports the sales team.  Not real exciting stuff but stuff that, I thought anyway, could translate into a pretty good resume after a year or so that Margot could perhaps parlay into a PR job.

And it paid--$35,000 a year, three weeks vacation, 401(k) with one to one match, basically free medical care and three blocks from her apartment.  That's a lot of pluses straight out of school, or almost straight out of school.

So Margot applied, they called and set up an interview.  The lady did let one thing drop--they only hired Aggies.  I figured this was against some Federal law but ok with me.  Got the first interview out of the way and on to the second.

No action on the ad scene but things were going to start heating up.  More on Monday.

Narrowing The Search

For anyone new to blogs, blogs run in reverse chronological order.  This week has turned into kind of a mini-series about how Margot, my daughter, broke into advertising and tips on how to go about a job search.  It starts two blogs down so go there if you want to start at the beginning.  But now... 

Like I said, looking for a job is a job.  Margot and I had our work assignments and we got started.  After getting the resume fine tuned I started thinking of people to send it to for help.  Not a very long list unfortunately.  Having once been a somewhat senior executive I once had lots of contacts and it would have gone something like this.  Call Joe in Marketing. 

"Joe, how's it going?  Hey, need a favor.  My daughter just graduated from A&M, great kid, has an interest in advertising.  Know somebody over at our agency she could talk to to get a feel for the industry?"  Done deal.  Joe makes a call and Margot gets in the door and then she does or doesn't make it on her own.  (This cronyism is not just in Big Business.  Look at the film industry and the family connections--Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie.  All with connections.)  But Joe doesn't give a flip about me anymore because once you are out, you are really cold.  Made a few calls but my circle is non-existent.  Except for Phil.

Phil and I were classmates in college, not regular college, but our year abroad at the University of Vienna.  We have managed to run into each other or somehow stay in contact or play golf every once in awhile over the last thirty plus years. 

And Phil is in advertising.  And he is sympathetic since he was in the same boat as Margot thirty years ago.  Somehow talked himself into an agency in Pittsburg (a friend helped there I think), learned a lot, went to J. Walter Thompson in Chicago, then New Zealand for some reason, Bangkok, Ann Arbor and Kansas City where he started his own agency specializing in hospitals.  Talk about a tough sell.

And Phil owed me a favor.  Phil knows and I know that he tried to steal a girlfriend many years ago.  Not much leverage but take what you can get.  Actually, Phil would help no matter what since he truly believes the industry needs talent and wants to help young people, a disgusting habit that grows as one gets older.

Flipped Margot's resume to Phil and he flipped it to a headhunter.  Headhunters usually could care less about resumes from recent college grads with no real experience but this one, for some reason, flipped the resume to a senior VP at the largest ad agency in Houston.  Not a slam dunk but real progress. 

In the meantime, Margot was mining the A&M underworld.  More later.

   

Job Search II

When we last left Margot she had just told her old boss to take this job and shove it.  I was in full agreement.  Margot had found out what she didn't like--crummy bosses, weak markets for the company's product, and, most importantly, she had learned a lot about figuring out a company's culture.  As an ex-hard boiled finance guy, I view 'company culture' as worthless Human Resource buzz words like empowerment, mission statement and job enrichment.  And they are.  HR people spend careers sitting around thinking up these things and when the concept doesn't work out they quit and become authors or consultants.

But culture is somewhat borderline and each company has one.  Margot wanted (who doesn't?) a place where she could work hard, learn a lot, and build a career.  Pretty vague but we're getting there.  She also learned she really is project oriented and detail oriented.  Getting warm.  Margot looked backwards and realized she really liked being a DJ on the A&M radio station and then head of marketing for the station.  Got it.  Entry level job in public relations, advertising, radio or TV.  Margot and everybody else.

We also had economic issues to deal with, like the rent.  Samuel Johnson wrote, "Nothing concentrates like a hanging."  Or a rent payment.  There was, of course, a solution--me.  But Margot is an independent sort (thank God) who likes to be on her own and hates to ask for money. 

So, united by economic and family ties, Margot and I became a job search machine.  And we went about it like this.

Punch up the resume.

Check out the ads.

Analyze the Houston business structure.

Get the word out.

Use the Texas A&M network.

Look for temp work that could turn into full-time stuff.

Sounds pretty routine but that is the way people find jobs and the big unknown is you don't where or what will generate the job lead you want.  SO, you have to cover all the bases.

First, the resume.  Negatives and positives or, more importantly, turning negatives into positives.  We decided to keep her first job experience on the resume.  Negative--the job only lasted two months.  Positives--shows future employers she had gotten a job, she had showed up and worked in a for profit environment, most hiring managers know recruiting is tough, and she could explain the 'work environment' once she got in the interview.  Telling somebody the Hurricane Rita story or the firing two employees after one week on the job story would be enough to paint the boss as a whacko. 

Check out the ads.  That was my job.  Went through the Houston paper and any other website that came along with Houston jobs.  You guys today have it so easy with the Internet.

Analyze the Houston business structure.  Who actually does business in Houston?  Quick visit to the Houston Chamber of Commerce website generated a lot of information about large, medium and small companies along with addresses and  websites.  One thought I had was a letter writing campaign to all the companies hoping for a strike.  Most people think that approach doesn't work.  I know it does--a long time ago at The Quaker Oats Company we got a resume that came over the transom, mild interest, interviewed and hired the guy.  He ended up his career as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Get the word out.  Most jobs result from some kind of personal contact, a variation on "it's not what you know, but who you know."  This should really be, "it helps in the beginning to know somebody, but eventually you better know what you are doing."  And everybody knows somebody.  We started sending e-mails and resumes to everybody.  Who is everybody?  Put your heads together and throw out names of anybody, anywhere you know that has any link to commerce.  And that is quite a few people.  And then contact them because 1) you don't know where the job lead is going to come from and 2) people want to help.

Use the Texas A&M network.  For those who are unfamilar with A&M the best way to describe the place is not as a university but as a cult.  Aggies are weird but they stick together and the network runs deep.  There is an A&M club in Houston and Margot started going to the meetings.

Temp jobs.  Enough said.

This all sounds cheery and easy.  It's not.  Hunting for a job is a job.  A hard, unrewarding, door in your face job.  But we did ok.  More later.