u/amadubashie

So I started working with this appraiser doing litigation work about a month ago and learned that he keeps the engagement letters confidential.

So that's already red flag#1 in my book.

So then I ask him for details about the job like the purpose of the appraisal and the due date and he doesn't want to tell me. He says "in 45 days". I ask him "45 days starting when?" No real answer.

Then about 2.5 weeks ago after a meeting with the client's lawyer he tells me now we have 2 dates of value and the job is due in 1 week. This is just about impossible given the amount of information I now have to sift through, most of which is irrelevant, as they dumped even more data on us after the meeting with the attorney.

Then he wants all this detail that requires a lot of research. I could've stayed this earlier when things were slow. After all this he says it's taking too long.

Thing is I had no idea about that due date or the scope of the project because I never saw the engagement letter and my questions weren't answered, so I feel like I was just flying blind.

I'd leave but I've been between jobs for over a year now and desperately need the money.

I went to see a play in a park recently with some white friends and got out kinda late (later than I'd normally want to be walking home alone). One is the white friends, a super lefty progressive type from a wealthy family who's gotten into DSA and social justice activism.

Anyway, I said I was taking the train home as it would be too late for me to walk home by myself and she made some comment that well I know my neighborhood.

That comment felt kinda off to me. Is like she was saying I live in a crappy, unsafe neighborhood. Now I do live in a long-standing majority Black neighborhood that has most definitely seen a litter if gentrification. We were standing in front of a Whole Foods as it is.

On the other hand, another friend lives in her whiter, more upscale neighborhood and she doesn't like to walk the 10 minutes or so home from the train because there's all kinds of homeless people who hang out in the main street. I honestly think walking home late at night on dark deserted side streets might be worse but to each her own.

She's been to my house may times. The door people in my building at least recognize her. I live in a slightly different pocket of gentrification in this neighborhood BUT there's a set of projects in between and I don't want to walk near let alone through it to get home after 10 PM, so I take the train. I'm not sure this is only something I would do in an especially dangerous neighborhood. .

This same friend had disappointed me in the past occasionally on issues around racial sensitivity despite all her activism and all the books she's read, etc.

So how would you feel in this situation? Am I overreacting?

I went to see a play in a park recently with some white friends and got out kinda late (later than I'd normally want to be walking home alone). One is the white friends, a super lefty progressive type from a wealthy family who's gotten into DSA and social justice activism.

Anyway, I said I was taking the train home as it would be too late for me to walk home by myself and she made some comment that well I know my neighborhood.

That comment felt kinda off to me. Is like she was saying I live in a crappy, unsafe neighborhood. Now I do live in a long-standing majority Black neighborhood that has most definitely seen a litter if gentrification. We were standing in front of a Whole Foods as it is.

On the other hand, another friend lives in her whiter, more upscale neighborhood and she doesn't like to walk the 10 minutes or so home from the train because there's all kinds of homeless people who hang out in the main street. I honestly think walking home late at night on dark deserted side streets might be worse but to each her own.

She's been to my house may times. The door people in my building at least recognize her. I live in a slightly different pocket of gentrification in this neighborhood BUT there's a set of projects in between and I don't want to walk near let alone through it to get home after 10 PM, so I take the train. I'm not sure this is only something I would do in an especially dangerous neighborhood. .

This same friend had disappointed me in the past occasionally on issues around racial sensitivity despite all her activism and all the books she's read, etc.

So how would you feel in this situation? Am I overreacting?

I'm working for an appraiser (in New York) who specializes in expert witness testimony and it's studying to get interesting but I don't like the uncertainty in income. I have to open a corporation and elect for S-corp status because my boss doesn't want to pay taxes at an employer. I'm getting a good per hour rate AFAIK (the equivalent of what has been my highest salary in recent years) but prefer to get paid a fixed sum every 2 weeks (assuming the sum is high enough) and have someone else dealing with taxes and health insurance (that is often better when you're in a large company with a lot of employees that has a lot of bargaining power).

With that said I'm inches away from having enough experience credits to get permission to take the CG exam. I mostly view it as a backup option as ultimately I prefer to get out of appraisal (it was only meant to be a stepping stone but that was like 15 years ago at this point).

Meanwhile, I have an interview for coming up for a CRE Data Analytics position at an affordable housing nonprofit. I also prefer to avoid the nonprofit/affordable housing sector (been there, done that, however briefly. Prefer to avoid jobs too closely intertwined with the government or nonprofit sector).

Finding opportunities in litigation work within CRE appraisal is difficult enough that my current role could be a good opportunity long term. On the other hand I prefer to get out of traditional appraisal and more into more finance-y, data analystics-ish CRE work that builds on my Valuation background.

I'm also not super young, so I have to consider that as well. My boss at the litigation appraisal shop is 80-ish and says he to pass down the business down to someone but I also am concerned that that could be bullshit to reel me in for low key labor exploitation (which had happened to me on the past). As an aside this appraisal shop, small as it is, basically assisting an individual with his own practice, doesn't offer support for continuing Ed or anything so while the work could be interesting and I'd get at least decent experience or could also ever up being a dead end, which I didn't have time for at this stage in my life.

So I got laid off last year (a year ago last week). My mother had been helping me with rent all this time and I substitute teach to make some money for bills, food, etc.

My rent is below market by about $700 and is a nice apartment in a nice place. The owners of the apartment are a nice couple I've been renting from for 8 years. Everything was fine until February when I started to seriously fall behind on rent.

My mother has said she's not giving/lending me any more money.

I've been getting a decent clip of interviews for real jobs and have even started getting incoming calls from recruiters over the last month or so. There's 1 company that says they have to hire me but their process is take slow and over been waiting for about 2 months now. I'm starting to home up on them not I have 2 recruiter screenings Wednesday so it's not like there's no movement on the job front.

I'm just afraid that I'll move back in with my mother then get a job offer shortly afterwards and then I will have given up my sweet deal of an apartment for nothing (something like this happened back in 2014 when I moved back in with my mother and then 5 minutes later I got a job that covered rent but not enough to move into a new place (security deposits, moving, etc). I am in the same situation now except that my credit is shot after maxing out my credit cards paying bills the last time I was between jobs in 2022/23.

I'm over 40, so this is especially embarrassing, and now my place is nicer than it was in 2014, so I have more to lose.

What would you do? Would you pack it in and start looking into moving companies or would you hold out until the last minute in case something comes through.