Word: broker
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Soviet bloc nations in the 1960s; in Rome. Upon his election as Pope, John Paul II quickly named the omnicompetent prelate the Vatican's chief diplomat, a post he filled with skill and judgment from 1979 to 1990. In 1989, in perhaps his most dramatic moment, Casaroli helped broker the meeting between the Pope and Mikhail Gorbachev...
...felt even more naive and helpless when they told me that we would need a parental guarantor for our apartment because landlords do not like shares. Although I thought I was truly independent, making a decent salary, the broker wanted me to run back to mommy and daddy for help. Initially I took the brokers' words at face value. I called my father immediately, thinking he'd be happy to sign a piece of paper making him ultimately responsible for our rent. But he was not so willing, advising me to be more firm with the broker...
...money down on an apartment we liked today, it would be gone. Four other people were lined up to take it, the clock was ticking fast. "You are not going to find another one like this for the money. If you like it, you should take it now," the broker said. We were told we could not say, "Wait, we need more information...
...course, the broker could be exaggerating, lying even. But we had seen other apartments in the past couple of days. One that I had liked, that we decided to keep in mind, was snatched up in 15 minutes. On the other hand, the rest were not that great. We could wait. Perhaps a great apartment would become available. But, then we would have to go through the whole process of scurrying around Manhattan, gathering money and most likely not finding a place that would be as wonderful as the apartment we saw that day. From our limited experience, we decided...
...never know if another one just like it, for a better price, would have come up in the next week or month. But once we had made the decision, we could not go back and could not regret. It was done. And we were learning how to deal with brokers who break their promises and keep asking for more money. Stand strong, but play on their sympathy and fear. "We just won't be able to take it with a 15 percent commission, but we do really want this apartment," I told the broker and gave a heartfelt sigh...