A little over a month ago, we closed on our new home. Our belongings arrived 4 days later and today, we finally got the main floor of the home organized and put away. This is a weight off our shoulders. The basement is probably 90% done and the garage...well, we’ll get there. Maybe this coming weekend?
Unpacking a box, I tossed things into a trash bag.
“What is this?” I asked.
“It’s Jesus - and some children.” Andrea replied. I grunted and tossed Jesus into the garbage bag.
“You can’t throw away Jesus!” Andrea shrieked.
“Oh. Okay.” I began pawing through the trash bag. “I can’t find Jesus.” I mumbled. Andrea rescued Jesus. We kept going.
I still have too much stuff – even with a section of the attic ready to be donated to the local Goodwill. Stuff isn’t what’s important and yet, it is what transforms a house into your home. Which is why your supposed to depersonalize your home when you list it - so that people can envision themselves in your home. I cannot tell if the people we purchased our home from were particularly skilled at depersonalizing or if they were just dull. The colors in the home were primarily beige on tan and there wasn’t anything in the home that piqued interest or conveyed much about them. I thought I’d depersonalized our house to ready it for sale and then the buyers wrote us a really nice letter which made me realize that my attempt at depersonalization was an epic fail. They made reference to a sign in our basement that said “Save the Tatas!” which may or may not be a selling point. I guess in that case, it was.
I’m working out of my home and while on a video call, someone asked me, “Is that a real raccoon?”
“Yes!” I said, “Well. It’s dead. Of course. But it was real. Yes.”
Pause.
“Sorry you guys have been assigned me.” I laugh and wonder how you can blur your background. I heard you can do this in Zoom but I’m not sure this is true for Teams.
“He’s holding a flashlight.” I offer while thinking, “Stop talking.”
“So he’s a helpful raccoon.” My colleague says.
I don’t reply, “Well, obviously."
I feel like Jesus may be more socially acceptable in the background than a dead raccoon. But I’m not sure. I think people want HR to be like Switzerland. Neutral. Jesus isn’t particularly neutral. But is a dead raccoon? I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything interesting in the background when senior leadership is on these calls. Maybe they carefully depersonalized? When I imagine them hastily shoving a dead raccoon in their closet before dialing in, I laugh aloud.
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