Jane Beaman

Her Work: Real Estate Broker.

 “I like helping people” she tells me that she likes helping people find their first home, a safe and happy place to live. “My job is important to me and I really strive to be as good as I can, because you know you’re dealing with people’s lives. Home is a big deal for people.” She tells me that “It’s not a 9-5 job. You don’t get weekends off. If you want a vacation you have to schedule it and find someone to take over your practice” so in that way it can be very demanding.

“I think I’m really productive when I’m in a quiet space where I can concentrate.” Ms. Beaman often comes in early before the office opens to start working. There are some difficulties that Ms. Beaman experiences because she shares her office. One of those problems is having two conversations going on at once, or difference in organizational styled. She says “I tend to be a neat freak and [her partner] tends to be the polar opposite of that.” Ms. Beaman tells me “I think I work better in a quiet area, a place that I can be a little more creative. I love having music on” but unfortunately her partner doesn’t work well with music so that happens rarely. Ms. Beaman and her partner aren’t always in the office together as she explains that “you’d be a bad broker if you’re in the office all the time.”

The sheer use of space in this office seems embodies a strange design. Both Ms. Beaman and her partner face the same way, so while Ms. Beaman is working at her desk, which faces the wall, her partner is against the wall behind her, facing her back. Although she says that sometimes she feels like there are eyes boring in the back of her head, that it’s worked just fine for the past ten years.

Ms. Beaman seems to love her space and emphasizes the large windows which let in an exquisite amount of light. Ms. Beaman says her job is “satisfying, can be frustrating, you put an awful lot of work into something and it doesn’t always come to fruition. In that situation you work and work but gain no monetary reward for it.” She tells me that “most of the time I come home feeling pretty good. It’s been challenging, very challenging. Real estate is not for the faint of heart.”

She explains an aspect of real estate I had not considered and tells me it “can be scary in some aspects because you don’t always know who you’re meeting, but there are little things like don’t ever let them follow you down the dirt road, you follow them. It’s a rural area, you could drive three miles down a driveway and then there’s the house and you don’t know who could be there.”

Closing the interview Ms. Beaman tells me “I would like my own workspace someday… I’m hoping to have a home office” but that she is used to sharing her space.

Themes: challenging, frustrating, satisfying, rewarding.