#also like. the fallout from this one to people who are obviously unconnected and just easy to target? bad bad bad bad bad

[jackawful]

Y'all have got to realize there are ways to protect older teens from sexual predators without insisting that teenagers don't think about sex or sexuality until the magical moment exactly 18 years from their birth. Trying to reduce harm to teenagers (especially teenagers online!) is a good and valid goal but pretending none of them have ever viewed porn or fucked isn't it. You've gotta acknowledge that if they don't have safe ways to explore their sexuality with peers they are going to explore in unsafe ways & that secrecy, shame, and censorship are what open the door to predators & allow them to normalize unhealthy power dynamics.

Shit like (professed) minors allegedly being on ezra's site is most likely the result of that community being the only thing they could find that treated them as like, humans with autonomy and desire, and that's a pattern that plays out with adult exploitation of teens in-person too (the "you're so mature for your age" routine). Of course teenagers exploring sexuality for the first time fell into a community that told them they weren't bad for being attracted to adults or having sexual desire in the first place! Thing is, an "Adult Attracted Minor" is like, the default state of teenagerdom.

The shit that's actually been demonstrated to help with this isn't carceral whackamoling of bad actors - it's giving teenagers education about healthy relationships and power dynamics and safe sex and yeah, kink, and also giving them the autonomy to make their own decisions about sex. Specifically, you let them know that it's normal to be attracted to adults but that adults trying to date or fuck them are in a position of power that means those relationships can't be healthy. In absence of that, teens are vulnerable to the first adult that appeals to their need to be taken seriously. And for fucks sake, using "minor" to equate teens with young children in these cases makes this tactic easier for abusers to pull off, not harder, because it is self-evident to teens that they have more capacity for autonomy than the average 8 year old. Sure, it makes the people you're targeting in your callout Sound Worse, but it also immediately loses you credibility in the eyes of teenagers themselves.

And for fucks sake, don't let a handful of bad actors using a leftist framing for that old song and dance lead you to believe that's what youth lib is about OR take away focus from all the times the right wing has systemically & institutionally done this.

#csa tw #posting this may very well be inviting piss on the poor levels of bad faith but it's important #I've seen the doc & based on the professional experience I have I'd be surprised if LE actually takes action anyway? #it's uh. always surreal to see how badly the internet handles this shit & meanwhile have multiple years of professional experience on it #like even when allegations are reasonable there's still a lot that seems more designed to stir a mob than help kids #toonimal #ezra orena #also like. the fallout from this one to people who are obviously unconnected and just easy to target? bad bad bad bad bad #csa prevention

[synthville]

the thing is.

raffi isn’t half as strange or off-putting as she could be. given how she processes things and her vices she really should be so much more of an audacious eccentric obsessive schemer (love) and also just the biggest liar to ever do it. meddlesome as hell but it comes back to bite.

she’s got all the connects but also she’s been banned from multiple planets. it’s fine. she didn’t want to go back to any of them anyway. her access was revoked so why does she know so much about seemingly unconnected classified events and titbits. why don’t you. she happened upon that information. as one does. what’s with all the questions. smooth talks her way in and out of stupid situations daily because she can’t leave well enough alone and just has to get answers. she does not get her answers. rabbit holes that spawn labyrinths. whatever the futuristic version of a red string board is. rios breaking into her quarters because it’s been days and she’s replicated an alarming amount of wine but very little food and he hates the EMH but the nosey holo is right this cannot stand. she tries to be present because it was her idea to visit that one spa like planet in the first place but it’s physically impossible for her not to bring up whatever theory it is that’s plaguing her this time around. there’s something just outside her periphery and once she connects the dots she’ll let it go. really. the great pretender. an actual reckoning with her addiction and what’s at the root of it. why constantly numbing herself with various substances didn’t actually work. she can fool everyone but not herself. at least not well. all the fallout with people she loves that now want nothing to do with her (gabe?? hello that thread alone is so much) because of all the times she recklessly dismissed or used them for her own means all the while convincing herself it was about the big picture. being real with herself about the reality of starfleet and why she wants in so badly anyway. greater good huh. her tricked out encrypted tech because why accept bland federation equipment or adhere to legal limits when she can make things that much more fun with a little tweaking. that unassuming little trailer is fortified as fuck. eyescan fingerprint alphasymbolic code physical lock to even get past the front door. and obviously her tech self destructs upon intrusion this isn’t amateur hour. she might be living in a semi utopia but you still not about to catch her slipping. any and all conversations between cybernetist agnes jurati and intelligence officer raffaela musiker. rios needs them to stop making unauthorized changes to la sirena and cut it out with the emergency holo roundtables. everything to do with her and seven but twice the stubborn gay ridiculousness and entwinement. everyone is alive and well and in their rightful timelines. salivating. she’s barely putting in her weird girl hours and already people can’t take it imagine if they just leaned into making her a possessive obsessive little freak (positive!) and wrote/depicted everything with care? the layers. a hyper-competent-women-with-massive-issues-lover’s dream and the nasty bros and bigots who can’t fathom anyone other than a bland white guy as deserving of complexity or relevance would die on the spot amen. id EAT.

#raffi musiker #women who are giant weirdos my beloved #it’s not like she’s the first trek character with Personality but instead of #building an alter to her lmao #she’s rebuked #this world. it ain’t right… #thinking st jean luc was gon be anything but old man woes #very silly behaviour on my part😭 #but i couldn’t just not fall for raffi like that was never going to happen #she’s just. character of all time #this is the last time i get roped into a show riddled with unrealized potential (lying) #although whenever the show does climb out of jlps ass and remembers other characters need to be more than just ornamental #there are glimpses (some this season even) of how things could be if she was able to step into her power and it’s amazing lol #the moment for ultra forgiving self sacrificing black woman therapist friend has ended it’s time for arrogant freaks who are doing their be #& im not gon do it but making a series rewrite a passion project sounds like a GREAT way to tickle my crazy #lasirenas #.rfi

[garynsmith]

Do some business models make bad real estate agents?

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Reposted from REreflections with permission from Bill Lublin.

On Facebook today, Brad Inman was complaining about the lack of skill and courtesy demonstrated by an agent that he contacted as a consumer.

That lead to a conversation about how low the bar is in the industry, and the usual complaints and aghast responses from some very skilled and professional people.

Same old, same old. But why does that happen?

Where was the supervision that could have helped that agent do a better job for someone in the industry that could certainly have been a wonderful source of future business?

3 models of business

It strikes me that the competition for agents created by different business models has led real estate agents to assume that they know everything, well before they know anything. And it also struck me that some business models do less to improve the competence of agents, and more to degrade the level of service received by consumers than others, so I thought I would throw those thoughts out to see if I’m alone in my concern.

Essentially there seem to be three types of business models in the real estate industry;

1. The traditional model where the company (large or small, independent of franchised, virtual or brick-and-mortar) provides infrastructure, training, and some variety of services. The income of the firm is generated by the gross closed commissions earned by the agents, and the profit of the company is generated by the retained company dollar of those commissions.

2. The desk fee or “downline” firms, where the company (large or small, independent of franchised, virtual or brick-and-mortar) may or may not provide some training, but the majority of the firm’s profit comes from desk fees, “up sales” on training programs, and/or selling services or tools to the agents, with some income coming from a modest amount of retained company dollars, usually hitting a ceiling or cap at a modest amount.

3. The license warehouse where the income of the company (large or small, independent of franchised, virtual or brick-and-mortar) is generated by a monthly or annual fee — there is little or no company infrastructure, and the profit to the firm is generated strictly from fees. (Caveat: I know that there are companies of all shapes and sizes, and many of them have some amalgam of these models, but these are really the core model — I would gladly review any model you think is different from these.)

The major difference between the first business model and the other two is that the company’s success in a traditional model relies significantly on the success of the agents — because if the agent does not succeed, the amount of retained company dollar is impacted.

In the second model, the company’s success is less reliant upon the agent’s success as long as the desk fees are paid, training is bought, and services are used. And obviously in the third model, the company’s success is only reliant on the number of agents paying the monthly or annual fee.

And therein lies the problem: If the core of the company’s profit is recruiting the largest number of agents without regard to how successful they are, you can’t be bothered spending much time on agent development. And since those companies operate on the thinnest of margins, the resources just aren’t there, and part of the agent development that is overlooked is conducting themselves professionally.

The fallout

All of this leads to a large agent population that isn’t taught the simplest of professional techniques, let alone the finer points of the business, and that’s not good for anyone. Here are a few common issues:

Text messages or phone calls asking for information on a property or access to a property without introducing the sender (or caller) as an agent

Agents that call and ask for information about the property that is readily available in the MLS sheet. Often prefaced by a “My client saw this property and asked that I call you…”

Agents that send email offers without calling the listing agent to let them know that an offer is coming to them leading to:

Offers that get caught in spam filters and languish without response

Offers that are not responded to promptly because the listing agent was too busy actually meting with people to respond to their emails until late in the day

Verbal negotiations (which shouldn’t happen) and communications from Agents relying on those verbal negotiations who are often disappointed later when the principals refuse to execute the documents because they:

Didn’t understand the negotiation

Changed their minds

Felt uncommitted by their earlier response

Agents that call the advocate for the other party looking for directions on how to ask for something for their client, or agents that don’t clearly understand how to act as an advocate for their client

And lots of other stuff — because the fact that you have had a few transactions and no one poked their eye out doesn’t mean that you have a full understanding of the business. But there is, in many cases, a level of unwarranted pride that agents get just because they managed to survive their first year, leading them to believe that they have it all going on now.

Connecting broker and agent success

The simple problem is this: When the success of the brokerage isn’t connected to the success of their affiliated agents, the brokerage doesn’t dedicate resources to help the agents grow professionally, and the agents therefore only know what they know.

They have no idea what they don’t know about the business, and therefore are not able to grow in the profession in an organized manner, and often even lack basic skill sets that would make doing their job easier, make consumers more comfortable with them, and make other agents feel better about cooperating with them.

It’s as if someone decided to open a restaurant without knowing how to design a menu, purchase raw materials, hire staff for the front and back of the house, or budget expenses against the price of their meals in a manner that allows them to be competitive; and then neglected to smile and welcome the consumer when they joined them for a meal.

It’s as if someone decided to open a restaurant without knowing how to design a menu.

When a company receives money based on the number of agents they recruit rather than the amount of business they do, they have little to spend on resources to train and support those agents.

And that is based on hard economic reality. If the company doesn’t make enough to reinvest in their agents, or have no gain by investing in their agents, they just won’t do that, and the agents, their income and their professional growth will generally suffer.

I don’t think it’s unusual that in our marketplace, the highest producing agents don’t work for desk fee companies, and the companies that have the highest average per person productivity are companies that have technology support, training and managers who are dedicated to increasing the productivity of the agents that work there.

In our company, we tell agents that our commission schedule doesn’t cap because our support for our agent never caps, and when an agent’s commission caps, their employing broker has no practical business reason to worry about any individual transaction, other than in the vaguest and unconnected manner.

Not that you might have some desire to help someone you like, you just no longer have a connection to the transaction and therefore are not invested in a successful outcome.

We need management teams who want to help, and agents who are willing to be helped, and to accept that professional development is an ongoing process.

Though we all need to make a living, and it is important to do as well as possible financially, both the management team and the sales force need to be dedicated to being the best they can be — not just financially, but professionally.

Bill Lublin is the CEO at Century 21 Advantage Gold in Philadelphia.

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