Are You Ashamed of Your Profession?

"All honest work is good work." Iʻm wondering if that is true.

Gosh, you are all still here! A huge mahalo for hanging in with me as I transition from memoir to essay. I had the highest number of readers ever for last weekʻs post about Questions - and yet, only one of all of you answered my questions - thatʻs less than .5% of my readers. Nevertheless, I have many more questions that are burning in my brain, so each week I am going to choose one to explore. Or you can choose a topic. Iʻm still listening for the whispers I know must be out there.

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Tutu is a good worker and the best dancer according to one probably ill-informed 7-year-old.

When the then just-turned-seven-year-old member of my household observed TutuBeth (“tutu” is grandparent in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi) insanely, imperturbably focused on her laptop screen and phone calls, then sprinting from the house dressed for work rather than for beach going or horse whispering or hula dancing, she concluded TutuBeth must be a “good worker.” What she does not realize is that TutuBeth secretly or not so secretly worries that she is only a hard worker at a job that is fundamentally not “good work”.

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I assume that most of you who found your way here as a reader know that writing is not my current paid profession (and I feel confident if writing were my sole profession, I would not be ashamed of saying so). I do write as part of my day job - I enjoy writing blog posts on the Hawaiʻi Life real estate website. Primarily, I work with the Hawaiʻi Life brokerage as a licensed agent, and as the leadership team member focused on protection of conservation and legacy lands in Hawaiʻi.

Other than managing, renovating, and loving the homes I have owned over the years, starting with one in Boulder Colorado my astute and intuitive grandmother bought when I was a college student there, I was not “in real estate” until moving back to Hawaiʻi in 2005. At the time I got my real estate license and was looking at jobs in resort development sales or even timeshare, I confessed my ambivalence - to be honest, it was more like flat out embarrassment - to one of the first people to welcome me to Hawaiʻi Island. I felt my friend had given me an important gift when she told me the island was drawing me here for a reason, and I confessed to feeling I was letting her or the island or someone down. This woman, who is a scholar of native Hawaiian thinking, sculptor, cultural practitioner, all around brilliant human being, responded by quoting Yogananda. “All honest work is good work,” she assured me.

I felt a bit better, but my mind kept turning over the meaning of that phrase. Was it “good work” because I was approaching it with the integrity I aspire to bring to all my personal and professional interactions, is that the meaning of “honest” work? Was it “good work” because I uphold a legal requirement to treat the public in an honest, professional manner, abide by the standards the Realtor© Code of Ethics is intended to insure in its members?

My judging mind still believed and believes that some intrinsic quality of the work could make it “good” or “bad” regardless of my approach to the job.

This was not the first time I wrestled with the question. I seem to ask it every ten or fifteen years. During the period about which I wrote in my memoir, three years of extraordinary experiences and encounters with extraordinary people had me asking new questions; it was three years of gradually coming to the conclusion that I needed to leave Wall Street before finally doing that at the end of 1994.

I asked the question a decade earlier, in 1982-3. I entered graduate school at Colorado School of Mines in 1979, intending to contribute to Coloradoʻs “energy future” in public policy and environmental advocacy. But by 1982 I was working for Mobil Oil and then went on to do mergers and acquisitions for mining companies at JP Morgan. What happened to the aspirations inherent in writing a dissertation on the topic “The Environmental Policy of the Mining Firm: An Economic Analysis?”

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Back to the present and real estate. I cringe in shame at the public view of real estate brokers, as captured in regular surveys and lists of the most respected and least respected jobs. Among the most respected are always the helping professions. Here is the list from one recent study quoted in Forbes magazine:

• Scientists, farmers and doctors – 83% of people respect these professions

• Firefighters and teachers - 82%

• Nurses - 81%

• Members of the military - 80%

And then on the other end of the spectrum there is this quotation, from a list of the 15 least respected professions, according to Insider Monkey:

15. Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents are one of the most hated jobs around the world. It is just something about real estate agents which makes them hard to trust. As we go along the list of least respected jobs and most untrustworthy professions in the world, notice how many professions end up on this list which involves salespeople of various kinds.

The only saving grace that makes me feel a little less awful about the mistrust of the real estate professional is that clergy and chiropractors are even less trusted, according to the list! The usual suspects - business executives and politicians - are right up at the top of questionably moral career choices.

I could justify a different view, naming the various aspects of the real estate profession that should put it in the most respected and trusted category: from helping individuals and families with the purchase of their first home, to the years many of us spent helping homeowners preserve a bit of dignity and a financial future through short sales and foreclosures when seemingly everyoneʻs mortgage obligation was underwater. And of course I can point to my conservation practice, although that one is pretty rare in the real estate world.

Yet despite allowing us to assist intimately with what is usually one of the most meaningful, significant choices people make during their lives, the general public still sees the real estate professional as selling something rather than as being their trusted advisor. And there must be some grounding for such a widely held assessment. Is it that the public views both real estate professionals and clergy as not trustworthy, as one way or another selling something, because our track record at selling that something, a home or a belief system, is the measurement of our success?

“Sales person” seems to imply my actions are self-interested, rather than guided by the concerns and best interests of the other person. What fascinates me as an economist is this: our standard economic theory is based upon the idea that each individual following their own self interest produces the best results for society as a whole (leaving aside the whole business of externalities). Ordinary people, by which I mean those without a degree in economics, just donʻt “buy” that line of thought, based upon overwhelming personal and societal experience.

So back to my original question. If I am in a profession which could lend itself to self-serving behaviors, and in which not all of my colleagues do “good work” - either through their failure to represent the public interest or simply due to low standards for entry into the profession - can I still maintain that all honest work is good work? Specifically that in this business I am doing good work?

The full Yogananda quotation says:

All honest work is good work; it is capable of leading to self-development, provided the doer seeks to discover the inherent lessons and makes the most of the potentialities for such growth.

Ah ha! Let me rephrase then. All honest work performed with consciousness and intention to learn and grow is “good work.” It think I can live with that.

But - it raises another question in my mind. Let me noodle on that one and I will see you back here next week.