I have negotiated all of my own contracts; I enjoy it for some odd reason.  I like the posturing, the drama, the technicalities, and the give and take.   Do you know who is the most difficult to negotiate with?  The kings.  Those are the customers, the clients, the buyers, the sellers, and the employers who are not in a hurry.  These are the GMs and CEOs that take their time crafting a response, they are efficient in their conversation, and there is never a deadline that they can’t move. They control the negotiation by dictating pace.  The king is never in a hurry.  Why would he be?  He’s the king.

Megan and I live in a land of kings (and queens):  Mill Valley in Marin County, about 15 minutes north of San Francisco.  It’s a nice place, tucked back into the hillsides below Mt. Tamalpais.  People have money here:  this county has the 9th highest per-capita income and the 11th highest household income in the country.  We don’t own, we rent.  My only complaint here is that traffic is bad sometimes, and it’s because the kings don’t act like kings.

There are two main arteries into Mill Valley and they are clogged with nice cars at commute time.  The problem is that these two routes go from two-lane to four lane to two lane twice on the one mile drive to the freeway.  You know how it goes, right?  Each time we get a new lane, some drivers decide to jump out of line and pass the rest of us before merging back in.  Here is what I don’t get:  it’s the people in the fancy cars that jump out of line and slow all of us down.  This seems counter-intuitive to me-why are the “kings” in a hurry?  Shouldn’t the kings be the last to care about being first?

I have a theory though:  we have a new class of faux-king (and queen) in this country.  These are the people who put on king’s robes, but don’t act like kings.  The car is mortgaged, the clothes are on credit, and the house with a view is only a few months away from foreclosure if the the nut can’t be cracked.  These are the people that I love to negotiate with and they are easy to spot.  They are always in a hurry.