‘Has nobody heard of the Kiss principle?’ I shout in exasperation as another avoidable cock-up envelops the office and several grand’s worth of precious income is jeopardised.
F the imbecile trainee has lost another key – I sometimes think the locksmith is paying him a retainer – and M the moribund mortgage man has prevaricated over a hard to place self-employed loan, misleading us over the man’s financial standing while he tried, ever more desperately, to place the loan with the shadier operators.
The seller has finally lost patience and is threatening to pull the plug on the whole protracted process and if he does my commission will vanish faster than a container full of illegal immigrants at Dover. Like a punch-drunk boxer, I too find myself wanting to throw in the towel.
‘Kiss?’ Queries F dragging me back to reality as I find myself staring at S the comely negotiator once more.
‘Keep it simple stupid!’ I snap, as I enlighten him on the one worthwhile industry acronym I know.
‘I wouldn’t mind kissing - or keeping it simple with her!’ Slobbers M nodding towards S as he waddles back to his lending lair and prepares to fabricate three years accounts. I’m tempted to reprimand the big man and remind him of appropriate employee-to-employee conduct, but those in glasshouses…..
The e-mail in-box pings presciently and I reluctantly click open another familiar message from my bean counter boss. One thing the modern estate agency is not short of – unlike friends – is data. Reams of statistics chug out of my printer daily as every applicant, viewing, valuation, fresh instruction, sale and financial lead, is monitored and cross-checked with all the vigour of an airline pilots pre-flight checklist.
And of course the numbers are translated into the inevitable personal and office targets. The universal yoke every sales person labours under until they crack and join a commune - or a government department.
Judging by the increasingly complex, rainforest-wrecking volume of paper churning through the laser copier lately, the bean counter has not heard of the Kiss acronym, and he could do with a reminder on the other well-known target aide memoir – SMART. Objectives should be: Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic and Time Defined. Although word around the company is the increasingly superfluous grouping, should now read. Shrewd. Man. Advocates. Redundancy. Time.
‘How’s things for you?’ I ask later, instigating a much more accurate litmus test than the bean counter’s dusty numbers. I’m in a darkened half-finished stairwell, sporting a bright yellow hard hat, quizzing a powder-coated plasterer as he skims some paper-thin board. The nervy developer, increasingly desperate to shift expensive product, has disappeared to take a phone call from his bank manager and left me with the hired help.
Centrally produced statistics, from organisations like lenders and the land registry have built in obsolescence and are often out of date by the time they surface. But the sub-contractors on site know what’s happening.
And as if to confirm it the scruffy tradesman confirms his work has dried-up faster than the freshly applied screed in front of us. Before going on to enlighten me about several local developers who are delaying payments and in his opinion, about to go bust. And for good measure he tells me, what I know, every body else suspects, and the owner refuses to acknowledge, by saying.
‘And these places will never fetch the prices they’re asking.’
‘What about this bloke?’ I whisper as the developer re-appears worry lines etched across his once cocky features. And I quickly ask if the approaching entrepreneur is worth getting involved with. Particularly as he wants my company to throw extensive and expensive advertising at his near completed block – one I’ve no budget for and will need to get ratified by my parsimonious boss.
The savvy sub-contractor warns me to repeat those earlier actions, when I made my way up the rickety half-finished staircase, and to tread with caution.
‘Smart money says he’ll go belly-up before the year-end.’ Concludes the grubby guru before scooping up a red-hued trowel of mix and spreading it with a flourish.
Have a feeling it won’t be long before my numbers up too.
F the imbecile trainee has lost another key – I sometimes think the locksmith is paying him a retainer – and M the moribund mortgage man has prevaricated over a hard to place self-employed loan, misleading us over the man’s financial standing while he tried, ever more desperately, to place the loan with the shadier operators.
The seller has finally lost patience and is threatening to pull the plug on the whole protracted process and if he does my commission will vanish faster than a container full of illegal immigrants at Dover. Like a punch-drunk boxer, I too find myself wanting to throw in the towel.
‘Kiss?’ Queries F dragging me back to reality as I find myself staring at S the comely negotiator once more.
‘Keep it simple stupid!’ I snap, as I enlighten him on the one worthwhile industry acronym I know.
‘I wouldn’t mind kissing - or keeping it simple with her!’ Slobbers M nodding towards S as he waddles back to his lending lair and prepares to fabricate three years accounts. I’m tempted to reprimand the big man and remind him of appropriate employee-to-employee conduct, but those in glasshouses…..
The e-mail in-box pings presciently and I reluctantly click open another familiar message from my bean counter boss. One thing the modern estate agency is not short of – unlike friends – is data. Reams of statistics chug out of my printer daily as every applicant, viewing, valuation, fresh instruction, sale and financial lead, is monitored and cross-checked with all the vigour of an airline pilots pre-flight checklist.
And of course the numbers are translated into the inevitable personal and office targets. The universal yoke every sales person labours under until they crack and join a commune - or a government department.
Judging by the increasingly complex, rainforest-wrecking volume of paper churning through the laser copier lately, the bean counter has not heard of the Kiss acronym, and he could do with a reminder on the other well-known target aide memoir – SMART. Objectives should be: Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic and Time Defined. Although word around the company is the increasingly superfluous grouping, should now read. Shrewd. Man. Advocates. Redundancy. Time.
‘How’s things for you?’ I ask later, instigating a much more accurate litmus test than the bean counter’s dusty numbers. I’m in a darkened half-finished stairwell, sporting a bright yellow hard hat, quizzing a powder-coated plasterer as he skims some paper-thin board. The nervy developer, increasingly desperate to shift expensive product, has disappeared to take a phone call from his bank manager and left me with the hired help.
Centrally produced statistics, from organisations like lenders and the land registry have built in obsolescence and are often out of date by the time they surface. But the sub-contractors on site know what’s happening.
And as if to confirm it the scruffy tradesman confirms his work has dried-up faster than the freshly applied screed in front of us. Before going on to enlighten me about several local developers who are delaying payments and in his opinion, about to go bust. And for good measure he tells me, what I know, every body else suspects, and the owner refuses to acknowledge, by saying.
‘And these places will never fetch the prices they’re asking.’
‘What about this bloke?’ I whisper as the developer re-appears worry lines etched across his once cocky features. And I quickly ask if the approaching entrepreneur is worth getting involved with. Particularly as he wants my company to throw extensive and expensive advertising at his near completed block – one I’ve no budget for and will need to get ratified by my parsimonious boss.
The savvy sub-contractor warns me to repeat those earlier actions, when I made my way up the rickety half-finished staircase, and to tread with caution.
‘Smart money says he’ll go belly-up before the year-end.’ Concludes the grubby guru before scooping up a red-hued trowel of mix and spreading it with a flourish.
Have a feeling it won’t be long before my numbers up too.
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7 comments:
SA - if times are that hard, why is F still employed? Surely you're running a business not a Care in the Community project....?!?
Pretty unlikely you'd still have an in-house mortgage adviser too.
The blog is, of course, lightly fictionalised, to protect the privacy of the people discussed (and also to protect the bloggers' job).
I've no doubt that every incident that Secret Agent writes about is basicly true, but with names and details changed, similar situations merged etc. The fellow-employees that appear in the blog are presumably composite characters, based on the types of people that he's worked alongside in the past.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong and the office actually does exist as it's described! Stranger things have happened and what do I know.
How many offices did the bean counter(s)close last year?
The last 2 comments seem unusually bullish, don't you have more important things on at the moment Gordon, or is it Alistair?
if every blog or indeed every conversation in the world was actually only allowed to contain things which had happened to that person THAT day, everything would be substantially more dull. it is the ability to mould these stories into a continuous narrative which makes these blogs enjoyable!
Actually, working in the industry, I find reading these things very amusing and you should not try to "work it out", just enjoy it as it is meant to be enjoyed.
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