I used to manage a restaurant here in Berkeley. Part of my job was to hire new employees. Normally, people are on their best behavior when they are trying to get something, like a job, an apartment, or a loan. However, sometimes people would say very insulting things to me while they were applying for jobs. Some people say insulting things to me now while they are applying for apartments. On one occasion, an applicant for an apartment looked me in the eye and said: “I hate landlords” while I was reviewing his application with him. I have asked people who run businesses if they ever had an experience like that while interviewing a job applicant. Several said: ‘Yes’. A psychologist I know explained this to me. She said that when a person applies for a job or an apartment while he is insulting the person who can give him that job or apartment, it is probably because he wants to be rejected. A person may apply for a job that he doesn’t want just so he can collect unemployment insurance. A person may apply for an apartment that he doesn’t want in order to please his parents who are nagging him to move out of their house and get his own place. And sometimes, people say insulting things without even being aware that what they are saying is insulting. The Kitchen Crier was one of those people.

The Kitchen Crier.  In 1999, I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the Rockridge district of Oakland. Over 50 people came to my one and only showing, and 20 of them turned in applications. That wasn’t unusual in 1999. It was the height of the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 1990’s. Besides, Rockridge is a very desirable neighborhood, and there aren’t a lot of apartments in Rockridge. At the end of the showing, I sat down on the living room couch to review the applications I received. I thought I was alone until I heard the sound of somebody crying. I got up to investigate. To my surprise, I found a young woman sitting at the kitchen table, crying, and holding a handkerchief over her eyes. There was a partially filled-out rental application form on the table. I said to her: “Are you OK?” She shook her head and said: “Yes,” so I went back to the living room. I wondered why she was crying, but I didn’t know what to say. After a while, she came out of the kitchen. She had stopped crying. Then she looked around the living room and started crying again. I said: “Is there anything I can do?” She shook her head and said: “No. It’s just that my mother warned me that I’d wind up in a place like this, but I didn’t believe her.” Then she handed me her rental application and walked out. I watched her drive away – still crying. I don’t think that she was trying to be insulting; however, she was aware of the fact that she wasn’t the only person who wanted to rent this apartment. A lot of people left applications while she was there. The apartment wasn’t a dump. I don’t rent dumps. It was in superb condition. As you may have guessed, I rented the place to somebody else.