Fear Is Just a Four-Letter Word by Tracy Tutor

Author:Tracy Tutor [Tutor, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

REEL IT BACK

The only way you know if your joke goes too far is by going too far. There’s no way around it. The risk of saying something funny is that it isn’t funny at all. And at its worst, it upsets someone. Both of which have happened to me. But you learn how to land jokes much like you learn how to ride a bike—by striking the balance found only from losing your balance . . . and falling. Want to know how you know you’ve taken it too far? The room goes quiet. That’s how.

Unfortunately for me, I took a joke too far with a guy who I’m fairly sure is mafia. No joke: if you google him, he’s definitely a tough guy. When he was buying one of my listings, the whole deal was totally convoluted and complicated. We were on a conference call, and I was referencing the size of the house, what the square footage was inside and out. He had a million questions and we were going back and forth. In the context of my response, I said, “Don’t be stupid. It’s fine, I told you.” I used the phrase lightly and jokingly, but it sent him over the edge. The conversation was playful enough that I thought I could say that. I really misjudged. That was the end of that conversation. Immediately he shut it down. I was caught so off guard. Then his agent called me shortly afterward to say that I needed to apologize. Are we in elementary school? What’s going on here? She proceeded to tell me that this whole deal would fall apart if I didn’t apologize and that I essentially needed to get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness. She also told me she was so scared of this guy that he was giving her diarrhea. Actual diarrhea. She was scared not only that we wouldn’t close but also of what else he might do to us. It was all hysterical and absurd. So then I had to deal with her diarrhea and beg on hands and knees . . . not my specialty.

Of course, knowing how upset he was, I called him, and he answered. I said, “Listen, I know we had some back-and-forth dialogue and I threw out the word ‘stupid’ loosely. I don’t feel that way about you, and I’m sorry I offended you.” And it was over. What’s funny about all of this is that, after this conversation, the deal got more complicated and his agent couldn’t hack it, so we began dealing with him directly. We ended up creating a really close relationship with this guy. And after calling him stupid, almost losing the deal, and maybe having a hit out on me at one point or another . . . he’s now my client.

When you take something too far, the only thing not to do is not do anything. Not calling would have been the wrong thing to do. You have to have some humility in life in general.

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