Demi Gods Among Us

DemiGods We all know several of them. We detest them. We PRAY, we aren’t one of them. Who are they? Those among us who “know it all”, who have the attitude of “My Way or the Highway”. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of being a DemiGod, when you are in a position that gives you even a slight bit of power – when you have the ability to “force” your thinking and will on others. Several years ago, I had a delightful young lady who due to a divorce, was having to sell her home as a short sale. We found a young couple who really wanted the home and was prepared to take it “as is”. The young lady actually moved out of the home early, and gave the buyers permission to go in and make the corrections and repairs to the home that the municipality was requiring be done prior to the couple being able to get an occupancy permit and move in right after closing. Once the couple finished the repairs required by the municipality, I asked the municipal inspector to come back for his reinspection, as is required. First, "THAT inspector didn’t like anyone else to reinspect after him”, and since he was on vacation, we would have to wait till he came back for our reinspection. Our pleas that the home was a short sale and we had to close within the window that the bank had approved, or we couldn’t close fell on deaf ears. The supervisor wasn’t about to cross the inspector, even though other inspectors were available. Next, when the inspector finally got back and came to reinspect, he was HORRIBLE. The couple had done EVERYTHING on the list he gave them from replacing the hot water heater, to painting the chain length fence. The inspector, however, wasn’t satisfied. The couple had scraped and painted the exterior of the home where the paint was peeling and repainted those areas. Not good enough - the inspector informed us that while he hadn’t written it down that way, that was what he had meant and we were supposed to KNOW that. The couple had paid for a new hot water heater to be installed in a home that they didn’t own yet. They had gotten a permit, as was required, and the installation had been approved by STL County. Not good enough, the inspector (who had been out of town when the hot water heater was replaced, informed us that HE had not personally checked the permit and inspected after the work was done (even though he wasn’t a plumber and didn’t have the expertise to know if it was properly installed or not! Then we got to the backyard. The inspector had cited us because the chain length fence had vines growing on it and needed to be painted (which everyone involved had thought a bit much – paint a chain length fence???), but the couple had done it. Unfortunately, the vines turned out to be poison ivy and everyone who helped pull them off the fence came down with a bad case of poison ivy. But even as sick as they were, they had gone out and painted the chain length fence after the vines were removed because they inwspector had it on his list. He cited us because the vines that were pulled off the fence had been piled up in the middle of the yard and were waiting for someone to get rid of them. The ONLY WAY, we were able to close within the bank’s timeline, was because the couple’s grandmother paid the municipality several hundred dollars to give the couple a temporary permit allowing them to move in and then finish the work the inspector was requiring. ABSOLUTELY no reason for the inspector to make us go through all that. No reason for him to treat us that way, other than the fact that the inspector was a DemiGod in his own mind and he wanted to be sure everyone of us knew that HE had total power over us and over getting the house closed on schedule. It gave me great pleasure about a year later, to have the Mayor of the town the building inspector worked for, tell me he had been fired for abusing his power.