Where Are We, Exactly?
If you’re going to buy a piece of property, you probably want to know just where it is. A street address is a pretty good start. But before any mortgage company gives away a loan, they send out surveyors to figure out just where the property ends. Usually, this stuff is depicted on any number of maps, and using a compass and a few other simple surveying tools, the job gets done easily enough.

But only recently, in the grand scheme of things, is that data being recorded electronically. That’s why the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) recently signed a memorandum of understanding; both organizations understand we better start getting this stuff collected in one place, standardized and, more importantly, correct.

Or if you’re looking for a more complicated explanation, here’s one from OGC President Michael Reichardt: "Real estate by definition is a highly place-based activity (ed. note: a.k.a. location, location, location). With so many actors involved in real estate development, transactions and forms of management, Web-based geospatial standards can help to further advance the industry in its modernization."

So basically, with new GPS technology, property boundaries can get very specific. The way they are now, not so much.

You see, compass-based boundaries aren’t perfect because magnetic north actually moves. The movement is incredibly small; it can move more than two degrees every 100 years. For some newer parcels, that’s not really a big deal. But for places with somewhat older histories, (remember the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1620) things can get a little bit iffier. This could lead to all sorts of arguments about which shrubbery belongs to whom, and we all know how ugly shrubbery arguments can get.

Here’s another wrinkle: When completed, this database will allow people to see not only exactly where property boundaries are, but where gas mains, water mains and underground electrical cables are, too. Trust The Teller – you don’t want to misjudge where that gas main is.  

Check Both Ways for "Charging Rhinos"
The Teller likes a company with chutzpah. This week’s qualifier is CareerTrack, a continuing education company out of Kansas City, Mo., which sent The Teller a brochure titled, "How to Communicate with Tact and Professionalism."

Uh, hello? We’re The Teller. We tell. It’s what we do. We even get paid, making us professionals. As far as tact goes, The Teller’s position is simple: forget that!

Despite our instant disliking of the very notion that we need any help "communicating," we read CareerTrack’s brochure to see what we might miss if we don’t attend one of the six upcoming workshops in Massachusetts.

CareerTrack makes it all seem so easy, almost as if signing up for its seminar allows participants to gain a Jedi mind trick like the power to get people to do what you want them to. Actually, that could be quite useful.

Here’s an excerpt straight from the pamphlet: "Experts now agree that the movers and shakers who climb the corporate ladder fastest are the ones who can relate easily to everyone … present their ideas with conviction (and charisma!) … and emerge from almost every personal interaction on a high note."

The Teller knows we rarely emerge from any personal interaction on a high note; very few people like being Told. But we imagine that the person described above is also the person who makes the break room instantly fall into a hush whenever he or she enters. Corporate climbers are hardly favorites with the little people, stuck in their dead-end Telling jobs.

But that got us to thinking: Is that why The Teller is stuck at the bottom of the corporate ladder? Is it our lack of conviction (and charisma!)? We just thought we had no useful skills, other than communicating.

Actually, it turns out that "good interpersonal skills are worth their weight in gold," according to CareerTrack. If only we could find a way to weigh ours, we’d quickly redeem them for the gold, or use them as some sort of collateral.

Not that they’d be worth too much. You see, The Teller is what CareerTrack calls a "charging rhino." We dominate conversations, rushing headfirst without worrying who might get trampled. That’s why the print medium works so well for us. We can’t hear anybody trying to butt in or argue. We’re Telling, not Conversing, after all.