I walked around with a commercial broker yesterday, visiting possible office spaces. It must be interesting to be a commercial real estate broker. You get to look at everyone's office. You know who's moving and who has big plans and whose plans have failed. You see what people do when they work -- not just by visiting the offices of people doing all kinds of things, but by walking around the city with people and noticing what they look at, what kinds of questions they ask, where their gaze lingers and what they touch.
The broker I walked around with didn't seem to be particularly observant, actually. He was young and a little bit fidgety, a few years out of college, not yet at ease in his suit. His palms were sweaty. He relaxed after I shook my head and told him to slow down and speak to me in plain English, not using words like "modified gross" and "triple net".
Every one of the offices has a story. I walked from room to room looking at the walls and wondering about the people who were here last. I furnished the rooms in my head. I thought about who would be on the elevators. I imagined the other kinds of businesses that might populate the space. Fascinating. When I was done meeting with him I drove around town looking closely at office buildings I'd never noticed before. For Lease signs are something you don't notice unless you're looking, but then they're everywhere.
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