Hot To Trot - Friday

‘Oh great.’ Grumbles assistant manager T as he looks out through the window. ‘Here come those tools who’ve sold privately.’
A low-level groan of distaste echoes round the office, like distant thunder.
‘Well I’m not seeing them again.’ States T with finality and he vacates his desk then scuttles towards the toilets.

‘Blimey,’ I say to negotiator S with a grin. ‘Next time we replace his company car I’ll order him an Italian battle tank!’
‘What do you mean?’ Quizzes S a frown spreading across her pretty features, one’s I could wax more lyrically about than the bland pre-war semi details I’m trying to write-up.

And as the despised private sellers hesitate on the threshold, peering through the window disdainfully, I realise once again, S and I have little in common other than work.
‘More reverse gears than forward.’ I tell S realising immediately I’m the one getting bogged down, and just as I add: ‘They were supposed to be notorious cowards.’ S makes tracks herself.

‘Oh come on.’ I grizzle as she turns at the back of the office and give a fetching wave, before exiting to the ladies’ loo with a cheery. ‘Buona fortuna!’ Which I’m briefly thinking might be a new Premiership footballer as I dredge my rusty holiday phrases. Before I can retaliate with a witty, dos cervezas por favor, the door rattles and they’re in.

Agents dislike private sellers. Fact. It’s bad enough someone shipping-up whose sold with the opposition, as clearly it’s a missed opportunity for a lucrative double-deal. But at least you can verify their ability by checking the chain via your competitor. Unless they are completely useless – and granted plenty are – you can trace the number of people in the transaction, talk to lawyers and lessen the chance of your deal collapsing, due to the inability of a third party.

‘Good morning,’ I trill pasting the false smile across my features before hitting them with a nice open. ‘And how may I help you today?’ It’s less likely to offend and garner another complaint to head office than a curt: Piss-off you wasters we’ve nothing for you.

‘I don’t suppose you can.’ Sneers the husband to a nod of approval from his sour-faced wife. I can see why they sold privately. Notwithstanding their imagined saving on commission, only the desperate agents would be chasing their business after they undoubtedly milked several free valuations, before sticking their ghastly home made flag board up.

‘We’re on your mailing list already.’ Snaps the man when I ask for their details. They’re almost certainly not, at least not in our hot buyers section. People like this only get a call when we’re desperate to shift a pile that’s sticking, or about to lose a sole agency. With a waning grin that’s beginning to make my teeth ache, I gently ask again for the information.
‘What is it with you people?’ The woman spits angrily, taking the words right out of my mouth, but she grudgingly supplies what I need.
Then I ask for their position.
‘We’ve sold.’ Announces the woman smugly.
‘Oh good, exchanged contracts?’ I press mischievously.
‘No, of course not.’ Interjects the man. ‘Because you people can’t find us anything as nice as ours.’
‘Sold privately though,’ taunts the woman gratingly. ‘Saved thousand in commission.’
Not if you don’t move, I think sourly.

‘And your buyer’s position?’ I probe, looking for the information and credibility fellow professionals’ would normally supply
‘They definitely want ours.’ Says the woman dismissively.
‘Survey done and mortgage offer out then?’ I ask knowing full well the answer. And the atmosphere becomes as prickly as a blind man in a cactus farm.

‘You just all close ranks don’t you?’ Snarls the husband as they rise to leave empty-handed. And I can’t help myself.
‘I’ve someone who’ll pay up to £400k in your road.’ I tell the couple not altogether inaccurately. I know it’s a full forty grand more than they were probably offered, which means they might have undersold.
‘If you don’t test the market fully, it can sometimes be a false economy selling privately.’ I conclude to a shuddering doorframe.

I can’t understand why people don’t like us.

Buzz Lightyear - Monday

Bounce out of the house on an almost chemical high, sole agency form in my briefcase. Still the buzz is there when you land a great house on what should be an almost guaranteed fee, no matter how gloomy the market predictions. If only you could bottle these moments - hold on to the almost orgasmic joy of winning the business and better still turning-over the opposition agents - the job would be the best in the world. Then the doubts start creeping in.

By the time I’m walking back to the office and after I’ve caught a glimpse of the shuffling man in a shop plate-glass window, I’m wondering where the catch is. Was it a sympathy instruction? Did the owners feel sorry for a greying man in a suit who with better career choices and more application at school, ought to be CEO of a mid-sized Footsie 100 company?

Or are they complete nutters? Who, after we’ve spent several hundred pounds and countless man-hours marketing the house, will change their minds and decide to stay put because nothing out there is as “nice”, or as “ludicrously cheap”, as their own home. Or perhaps I was the only one to actually value the place and I’m not the slick accomplished salesman I briefly convinced myself I was?

By the time I approach the office, the high is a distant dilated-pupil memory and I’m convinced my fee was too low and I’ve overpriced the house.

‘You’ve just missed the most annoying couple ever.’ States negotiator S boldly, as I plod through the door, trying to adjust my body language to just the right side of cocky - appearances in property being paramount.

‘That’s quite a sweeping statement.’ I say to S, rubbing my chin theatrically. ‘But let me guess.’ Out of the corner of my eye I can see lettings lush B shaking her head and sneering, only I love an audience.
‘He was a pompous looking arse with an attitude and a body warmer. She was wearing a tweedy twin-set and pearls, and a face like a horse.’

‘How did you…?’ Begins S as B emits a groan of disgust.
‘And they wanted to downsize.’ I continue, the buzz from earlier returning pleasingly. ‘Been watching too much escape to the converted-stable-block bollocks on television, and want to sell high, buy low, pocket two hundred grand and still be able to fit all their grandmother’s period furniture in.’

‘You’re really good.’ Enthuses S as B sighs and lets out a muted. ‘Oh pleeease.’
‘Experience.’ I tell S tapping my forehead mystically. And as I’m on a roll I hypothesise a little further. ‘And everything you showed them they turned their nose up and said it was just too pokey, or in the wrong area?’
‘Yes!’ Confirms S, close to awestruck.

‘And one of them said before they left,’ I speculate, but with more than a little confidence. ‘Was what they really wanted to do was to pick their existing house up and move it somewhere else.’
‘Unbelievable.’ Exclaims S.
‘You got that right.’ Snipes B.

‘I know you were stereotyping right,’ ventures S haltingly. ‘But the descriptions were spot on.’
B throws a file on to her desk angrily and rasps. ‘For crying out loud love, he saw them coming out of the office, he’s not a mind reader.’
‘Really?’ Asks S, her face crumpling in disappointment. And I shrug, as B twists the letter opening knife another half turn, and adds. ‘A, he’s a salesman and they’re full of bullshit. And B, he’s a man. And they always have an agenda.’

‘I have got a new instruction.’ I offer lamely as the pair look at me in imperious judgement. As if I’ve dropped my pants rather than the ball. ‘Will it take a Welsh dresser, a twelve foot table in the kitchen and give quarter of a million change from seven hundred K?’ Questions S half-heartedly.

Back in my office I type-in my password and reflect on the fact that most forays into property, without judicious editing, end in disappointment.
‘Got an agenda.’ I mimic sarcastically as my e-mails unfurl and I get just that from the bean counter boss.

Item three reads: Performance review. No change there then.

Congratulations On Your News - Wednesday

Sat at the morning meeting aiming to motivate and energise my staff, when all I really want to do is go back to bed. My plaintive parting shot to my wife of: ‘Why did you let me open the second bottle of wine?’ Having been rebuffed with a less than sympathetic. ‘You didn’t exactly ask me.’ Followed by a rather curt. ‘And you didn’t exactly share much of it either.’

My head has that dull throbbing ache that presages a day of feeling increasingly ropey until that magic time - about three-thirty in the afternoon on my body clock - when you finally start to feel a little better, to the extent that you might consider just a little glass of something medicinal with your supper when you get home.

‘Here she comes at last.’ Says assistant manager T, bringing me back to the present and I look up to see B our lettings lush wobbling across the road towards the door.
‘Oh-oh, she looks a bit grim,’ opines negotiator S. ‘Nothing worse than a middle aged person who can’t hold their drink.’
‘Or hold on to their men.’ Chuckles T, as I swiftly make a mental reminder – still can’t work out how to do the automated one’s on my phone – to just have soft drinks, at least until Friday stats come around.

‘Morning.’ We all chorus as B stumbles across the threshold and murmurs a return greeting, before heading straight for the ladies.
‘Probably going to throw-up.’ Suggests T caustically.
‘Do you reckon she’s got one in the oven then?’ Asks trainee F to derisive looks all round. But although it’s almost certainly too many gin and tonics, I can’t shake the unlikely suggestion.

‘Even she’s not that stupid.’ Suggests mortgage man M in between mouthfuls of a giant breakfast pasty that could feed an African village for several days. ‘Mind you, that’s all we need,’ he continues. ‘A bloody maternity leave con where we all have to pick up her phone calls and hassle for months and try and fill the post with some useless temp who isn’t good enough to get a proper job themselves.’

‘Hey, you can’t say that sort of thing.’ Snaps S in a sudden show of sisterly solidarity, before she looks at me for support. I make the right human resources by rote mutterings to a pastry-filled leer of disgust from M, all the while hoping, as every line manager does in private – particularly the one’s who did the shagging – the test comes up negative.

Over the years I’ve lost numerous excellent female colleagues who, when just trained and out-performing the majority of the males, declare with a faint flush of excitement they are up-the duff. Hopefully my exclamations of feigned delight appeared genuine, but inside I was cursing my luck.

‘You lot all milk the system,’ continues M moving on to dangerous ground as he continues to tease S. ‘Say you are coming back so we have to hold the post open for you, then at the last moment, surprise, surprise, you discover you’ll miss posting pointless pap on Mumsnet, and resign.’

‘That’s sexist.’ Snaps S as B meanders back into the main office face whiter than M’s flabby arms. Fat men in short-sleeved shirts not a good look. ‘Just telling it like it is.’ Bats back M, as I glance across at B again and re-double my resolve to keep off the sauce. Her standards seem to be slipping as calamitously as a pensioner on an icy pavement. Despite sometimes yearning almost masochistically for an end to all this, I’m still not ready for the fall.

‘What you all looking at? Snaps B, and F clears his throat. I should have been quicker in hindsight and it’s not as if I don’t know. I’ve still not got over having to explain, as the nights started drawing in and I mentioned we were heading for the shortest day, that in fact each rotation was still twenty-four hours.

‘I didn’t expect her to cry.’ Mumbles F lips trembling, after B has returned to the ladies, S in her wake. ‘I thought it might be something to celebrate.’

A pregnant pause followed.

Built In Obsolescence - Friday

I limp from a valuation knowing it hasn’t gone too well, but hoping against hope they might instruct me anyway. I tried all the usual methods of engagement. Commenting about photographs on the mantelpiece, enthusing over the décor, ghastly as it was. I even resorted to patting the salivating dog as it drooled something unspeakable down my trouser leg. Nothing, no real connection, just the likelihood of someone else’s board going up - and another dry cleaning bill.

My back is as stiff as an ironing board and a numb tingling sensation is coursing down one leg ominously, as I ease butt-first into my car seat and turn like an octogenarian, knees jamming against the steering wheel, all flexibility vanished in the spasm. Then a new plate minor model BMW turns up and a lithe senior negotiator from one of our competitors arrives at the same house. I try to sink lower in the seat but it’s as if some spiteful road cleaner has left a broom handle on the squab. As it happens the young buck doesn’t even notice me as he skips towards the doorstep.

‘Hope the dog bites you.’ I growl uncharitably, as the door opens and the wife gives the lad a mega-wattage smile and he stoops to pat the hound, then let’s the flea bag lick his face.
‘Christ no,’ I mutter to the headlining as I fell a potentially dangerous fur-induced sneeze brewing. ‘I don’t need the business that badly.’ And as I watch the opposition disappear inside and try to staunch the back-wrenching nose explosion arriving, my mobile phone jangles that irritating tune I can’t work out how to change.

‘Bad news I’m afraid.’ Announces assistant manager T down the crackly line, as I wonder why tell me now? Why not wait until I’m back in the office? It’s as if by unburdening the problem to his line manager, like some sick pass the parcel game, T’s involvement in the collapsed chain will no longer be his responsibility.

Trying to retain a modicum of managerial dignity, instead of sobbing down the phone at the potential loss of half a month’s income, I issue curt instructions to re-market the three homes we have in the aborted transaction. Then reluctantly undertake to ring and soothe the owners myself when I get back. At least one of the three has already packed the bulk of their possession into boxes against my advice, so that will be a fraught conversation. It’ll be the agents fault, it always is.

Phone call over I thump the roof in frustration and am rewarded with a sharp knifing sensation in my coccyx. I figure it’s about the same time the young stud in the house opposite is finishing off a sole agency agreement with one hand, while charming the wife, answering his BlackBerry, and pleasuring the dog with his free hand.

‘I’m too old for all this.’ I grizzle to the instrument panel, as I ponder once again if I should actually pay the absurd contract price for one of the ever-available e-mail machines. But in truth if I can’t get the wretched Boyzone jingle off my old Nokia without my son’s help, I’m not about to master multiple applications on the City Boy toy.

Technology waits for no man, and I still struggle with the floor plan application on our own in-house system, but I can’t help feeling like some failed eighteen-century entrepreneur who has mortgaged his house and his soul acquiring a second hand Acme spinning wheel, just as the new cotton mill opens in town.

Unwisely I tug the sun visor down and slide across the cover. The light illuminates unkindly as I stare back at the old git in the mirror. I barely recognise the gaunt-featured man with more wrinkles than an elephant’s arse and a hairline rising faster than a kid’s lost balloon. ‘You look like shit.’ I mutter before firing the engine and heading back to make those phone calls.

Halfway across a box junction unwisely entered, the sneeze arrives like a roadside detonation. I’m pretty sure a camera flashed me. Perhaps I can use the photo on my emigration application.

Blue Monday

Drive to work station hopping on the radio, but each presenter or track just serves to annoy me. In the end I punch the unit into silence and brood as the traffic clogs once more.

Maybe it’s just me – my wife is pretty sure it is – but I can’t help feeling there’s more to life than a never ending series of rolling targets, a perpetual procession of time-wasters, promise-breakers, chancers and out and out fraudsters. I’ve speculated before that a salesman’s shelf life is finite and since the New Year it’s as though some unseen persecutor has been hanging successive weights onto my soul. As if a rancorous shopkeeper with one of those old fashioned sets of scales, has been progressively adding another disc of doom to see when I’ll tip.

‘F**k!’ I scream at the windscreen as I look up and see nothing but red taillights. And I brake, I brake with all the power I can muster, as my stomach rises rapidly in my throat and the anti-lock system judders rapidly under my shoe, in time with my thumping heart. ‘You’re losing it. Get a grip.’ I mutter face flushed with embarrassment, as the car rocks on its springs, inches from the bumper of the car in front.

Momentarily I think nobody has noticed, until the driver ahead turns angrily in his seat and mouths a laminated-glass-filtered obscenity at me. Then for good measure, mimes a particularly vigorous act of self-abuse through the heated rear screen. All I can think of is how much grief I’d have had from the bean counter boss if I’d totalled the company car. The associated paperwork doesn’t even bear thinking about.

‘Nearly had a prang on the way in.’ I mention in passing to the team, once the formalities are out of the way and the refreshments distributed.
‘About the only way you’ll get the motor replaced at the moment.’ Chortles assistant manager T dryly.
‘Things will get better.’ Suggests negotiator S sweetly. ‘It’s just the time of year and the weather.’
‘My boyfriend’s not returning my calls.’ Sulks B from her lettings desk. I’m tempted to ask which one, but have already diced with danger once this morning. ‘I hate January.’ Continues B moodily. ‘Got to be the worst month of the year.’

I can think of eleven others that have their downside, but decide to keep my own counsel. January does drag you down though. Payday is a long way off, with the Christmas excesses hitting the credit card statement alarmingly, and if you are commission based in a difficult market, bumper remuneration statements are a distant memory.

‘Today is the crummiest day of the year.’ Enlightens mortgage man M as he munches on a custard cream and sheds bits all over the carpet, without a hint of irony.
‘Because we had a sale fall-through?’ Asks trainee F vapidly.
‘Hell no,’ sneers M. ‘You lot have that most days. It’s officially the most depressing day in the calendar. Heard it on the radio this morning.’

Must have been when I turned off that annoyingly upbeat presenter, I think fleetingly, before concentrating on M’s telling dismissal of his workmates as: “you lot”.
Therein lies the difference between residential sales staff and the slightly aloof financial services brigade. Just because they are licensed and we’re not, they think they’re better than us. And as if to confirm it, M wipes little flecks of cream filling from his face – possibly not for the first time – and reads from a memo he’s just opened.

‘I’ve been instructed to hold weekly sales training and coaching for you guys.’ He pronounces pompously, as an absurd out of control plan to lace his hob-nobs with hemlock skids through my brain. ‘You’re just not giving me enough quality leads.’

And just as I did earlier, as my life briefly scrolled before me while my worn tyres scrabbled for grip and the rear end of a Ford Mondeo raced towards impact. I bite my tongue.

Unless the fat fool intends to train how to consume twice as many calories as recommended, or coach how to wipe doughnut jam from a face with your suit sleeve, he’ll be running on empty.

Just like me.

Linear Logic - Friday

‘Got a valuation for you.’ Calls negotiator S as I hustle through the door, stomach rumbling, but unlikely to be satisfied by the low-calorie offering I’ve picked out from well-known retailer’s ‘fat bastard’, three for two range. A range that ironically mortgage man M our own porky illegitimate, has yet to savour.

‘Where is it?’ I ask, always keen to spend time with S, purely in a motivational/mentoring capacity, of course. And she reaches across to her filing tray, causing a distracting gravity versus blouse material phenomenon that would have focused Isaac Newton’s attention more forcefully than a Cox’s Pippin smacking him on the forehead.

S tells me the address and I groan. It’s a soulless bland-faced blemish, the sort of character- free rabbit warren that appealed to all the amateur buy-to-let investors who piled into the market and bought off plan a few years ago, when they realised some light-fingered chancellor had raided their pension funds.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’ Chuckles S her chest heaving with mirth. I swallow harder than I’m likely to when I chew on the paper-like nourishment of a no mayonnaise chicken and sweetcorn sandwich, in a moment.
‘Pass it over then.’ I say reluctantly and she hands me the valuation form, a whiff of her perfume comes with it and briefly distracts me from the fruitless task ahead.

‘You should have an apple or something with that.’ Suggests S, looking at the thin offering in my hand, balanced against the plain yoghurt and pre-carbonated flavoured water. An absurd and potentially ruinous vision of a teacher’s pet and some extra-curricular activity the training department would definitely not approve of, dances before me - unless I’m hallucinating from hunger.

To get myself back on track I read the information she’s culled from the potential vendor. She’s good, but then I’ve taught her all I know – well most of it anyway.
‘Only bought it a couple of years ago.’ I say gloomily, realising that no matter how slick my pitch the owner will be disappointed with my likely price suggestion.
‘Yes but they are keen to sell.’ Chirrups S. ‘They’re fed-up with the tenant and the economy, and want to buy abroad.’

I’m hard pushed not to laugh in S’s face. But it’s not her fault I’ve heard it all before. One property recession was bad enough. Two is just an unwelcome reminder I’ve not progressed at all. I’m still making all the same mistakes the owners do.

The block I’ll be visiting could be in any town in the country. No hint of a nod to regional styles or materials, just flung up in a mad dash to what seemed like a one-way bet for instant no-risk profits. I’ve built Lego constructions with my sons, with more architectural merit than this vacuous concrete and glass excretion.

‘Are they realistic about the market for these places?’ I ask S vainly.
‘Oh yes,’ she gushes. ‘They know they have to price sensibly if they want to sell.’
I seriously doubt their realism will match mine when push comes to shove but it’s not S’s fault, so I smile thinly and trudge to my office to try and break into the plastic meal packaging, without using an audible swear word.

As I pick unenthusiastically at the food, I rustle up some comparable evidence of recent similar sales to underpin my price recommendation. If they really want to shift the box and not still own it when some myopic local historian pleads to have the carbuncle Grade Two Listed - alongside a 1960’s multi-storey car park - a sharp dose of realism will be needed.

I’d speculate I have nothing in common with Prince Charles other than male genitals, but I’m broadly with him on a dislike of balance sheet driven aesthetics in construction. I’m just not sure who’s the bigger prick.

‘How much?’ Snaps the vendor angrily as we stand in a sterile magnolia-washed rectangle, a few hours later.
‘There are three others on the market in the building for similar prices.’ I respond. And the man utters a familiar well-worn phrase, just as my lunch semi-regurgitates and a lump of sweetcorn rises uncomfortably in my gullet
‘I’m not giving it away.’

No, you’re not.

Love Hurts - Tuesday

Out for a quick gulp of very fresh air at lunchtime. Have to battle my way through hoards of shoppers either scavenging like gulls on a tip, through the sale rails, or panic buying in the convenience store. It’s easy to fall out of love with humanity when you see them day-in, day-out, at their belligerent, avaricious, argumentative worst - but enough about my staff.

The pavements are still lethal of course and now there’s a rumour circling the offices that if you show a modicum of initiative and clear the ice-rink outside your own door that you could be sued if someone falls base over apex. And as if to confirm the world has lost its marbles, the bean counter boss generates a nonsensical electronic memo cautioning all staff members not to interfere with the weather-induced, natural pavement hazard scenario.

‘Have you seen what this arse has sent now?’ I ask when I check my e-mails and see the offending missive, on my return from shopping Armageddon.
‘He’s a tosser.’ Replies B from her lettings desk in a rare show of solidarity, just as assistant manger T squeezes through the door weighed down with half a dozen bags.
I scan the retail outlet names and shake my head and do the muttering thing I’m prone to, apparently. Half of the shops I couldn’t enter without my kids as a cover, and the other half I’m too parsimonious to patronise, even with a final 25% off all sale items.

I scan the diary and see, with a fleeting wave of surprise, that T has booked me a valuation late afternoon, presumably before he went on a credit card melting spree.
‘What’s the catch with the four-thirty?’ I ask T and as he’s still relatively inexperienced, he has the good grace to blush slightly.

All agents are targeted, it’s something you have to live with - or leave. T needs to secure new instructions just as I do, and although a debate rages in the industry as to whether individual or team targets are the most successful, he has a monitored objective to achieve. I smell a rat.

‘I’m double booked.’ Pleads T as B stifles a snigger of derision. ‘Ok,’ T admits knowing he’s been rumbled. ‘It’s a matrimonial,’ he gives an unconvincing smile. ‘And you’re best at handling those.’
‘Nobody is good at handling those.’ Growls a rueful voice, and I turn to see mortgage man M waddling from his office to the kitchen. He still hasn’t got over his wife shafting someone else before shafting him. I still haven’t got over the pair of them selling their house through another agent.

‘God I hate matrimonials.’ I say to myself as I hurry across the darkened park, late afternoon.
‘What’s that?’ Calls a voice from a nearby bench. Now I’m thinking out loud, it’s a slippery slope. Just like the path I’m on.
‘Nothing.’ I spit back in reply and press on before the bench-dweller pleads for Pilsner money. I negotiate the car park, to a background jangle of bottle bank deposits and distant tills ringing like a call to last Mass.

After an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of small talk on the woman’s sofa, a car’s headlights illuminate the room and minutes later there’s a rasping knock on the door.
‘Daddy!’ Calls the little girl who’s been perched on a familiar step on the stairs waiting expectantly. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be a reconciliation if he no longer has his own key. A prediction confirmed by an atmosphere frostier than an Eskimo’s fridge that descends once the pair sit, with me in the middle like an impotent tennis umpire.

The girl clings to her father’s legs, limpet-like, and I’m reminded painfully of a similar child half a lifetime ago. The outcome will probably be the same.

‘No way.’ Exclaim the couple in what I suspect is a rare show of unity, when I suggest a sensible asking price. And for a moment hope flares in the little girl’s eyes, until the mother looks at her ex and snarls.
‘You’ll just have to stay in rented.’

The damage that we do.