Dodo Protection Act - Friday

Sitting at my computer, I click through several score of e-mails, most mind numbingly dull and a great proportion sent to the entire company address book to cover someone’s over-exposed arse. Then my inbox chirps and a message from H, my vertically challenged rival manager arrives, with an attachment.

Now I’m not a whiz on computers at the best of times. It’s one of the reasons my Blog homepage is devoid of fancy pop-ups and add-ons, but I’m savvy enough to be wary when opening files blindly. Only this looks interesting. So after a brief wrangle with my conscience and a passing concern as to whether the geeks in IT are able to monitor your viewing patterns in real time, I fill the screen.

And with a Technicolor ping someone else’s arse is most definitely overexposed, and on my monitor. Like some gawper on the opposite carriageway from a crash scene, you know you shouldn’t be looking but somehow you can’t tear your eyes away. For reasons Freud would no doubt deliberate over for weeks, H has chosen to send me a cleverly mocked-up shot of a nubile naked lady, her well oiled and now hairless pudenda, being topiary-trimmed by a couple of miniature Smurf types clutching a scaled down wheelbarrow, mini scissors, and comb.

I should shut the screen down immediately, but as the phones are mute again and I’m not due out for another hour, I end up gazing at the soft-porn image wondering just how they managed to manipulate the shot. Perhaps they are real life Leprechauns dressed in those strange droopy bakers hats, or maybe H is actually in the shot himself, I think absurdly. Then I start chuckling to myself as I decide the whole scam would be that much funnier if the dwarf depilation team, were Brazilian.

‘Something funny?’ Asks a female voice, causing me to jump in alarm and banish thoughts of thongs being the default Rio de Janeiro dress code. Negotiator S is standing opposite my desk, her own rather impressive twin peaks casting a shadow over my workstation. How is it that whenever you want to shutdown your screen in a hurry, you always hit the wrong key and the bloody thing freezes?

‘No. Just some ridiculous head office memo,’ I bluster cheeks reddening as I frantically hit control/alt/delete over and over.
‘I got one of those here too,’ announces S moving towards my side of the desk as I desperately switch off the monitor, to a suspicious look. And S drops a pile of paperwork on the desk, then places a topped-to-the brim mug of tea on my coaster.

‘Sorry about the cuppa.’ She says, leaning forward. ‘I rather overfilled it.’ Not unlike you own cups, chortles a salacious voice that I’d like to think belonged to H on some sort of psychic-link but embarrassingly might be me.

And I scan the rather too prescient personnel memorandum, headed Corporate E-mail Policy.
‘They want to suck all the joy out of the job.’ Announces S indicating the officious note and shaking her head in bemusement before adding. ‘By the way were you having difficulties with your PC? I can probably solve the problem if you’d like?’

Offer declined, I shut the door this time and read the heavy-handed warnings listed before me. Has H breached the Data Protection Act? I’m pretty sure he didn’t obtain the waxed model’s permission before transmitting her silky-smooth form. It seems the e-mail might transgress licensing and copyright laws and to the wrong recipient could fall into the insulting, bullying, racist, obscene or threatening category. You’d be particularly upset if you were an unemployed Pigmy hairdresser.

God, it was so much easier when you could just send a mildly risqué seaside postcard. Now the mass mailing of jokes is deemed ill advised, as some people might find them offensive.

‘We’ll have to knock before we go in,’ apologises a potential lady vendor later, as we pause outside her teenage son’s bedroom door. ‘Goodness knows what he gets up to in there. He’s glued to his computer twenty-four seven.’ I could give her a pretty exhaustive list of the options - but I’m not sure I’m allowed to pass it on.

Hazardous Waste - Tuesday

Following a downbeat morning meeting I hurry to prepare for a welcome run of appointments. When I first started, back when first time buyers needed to save for a deposit and lenders offered three times salary loans, or two-and-a-half joint, the high of a job where you could leave your desk and snoop round peoples homes, all without being punished or prosecuted, was almost chemical.

That thrill has long been blunted by over-exposure and disappointment, but just occasionally I’ll see a home with an owner whose character and structural integrity matches their property. Accordingly I still fastidiously gather my tools of trade, with a flicker of hope guttering against the wind of experience.

In sales, preparation is paramount. So I’ll run off a list of comparable properties and recent deals to underpin my recommendation on price. Ensure my brief case is stocked with agency agreements, promotional literature and spare batteries for the digital camera. Update my visual aides folder with glossies on conveyancing services, home information packs and financial services offers. Then finally, and most importantly, I’ll check my appearance - and have a piss.

If people don’t like you, they won’t buy anything from you unless you lead on price over service. And that endorsement of you and your company isn’t going to be helped by asking to have a slash in their lavatory, before you’ve even pitched for the business. As the body has weakened in tandem with the resolve, I’ve started to chart the public conveniences around my patch like some soggy-trousered cartographer. I’m hoping waning bladder power doesn’t signify something more sinister other than the march of time but sometimes ignorance, as trainee F will doubtless endorse, is bliss.

‘Might want to leave it in there for ten minutes.’ Chuckles mortgage giant M as he sways out of the gents’ door with a less than convincing apologetic shrug.
‘Aw come on,’ I plead pressure in the lower-suit department building after two mugs of tea since breakfast. ‘You know I’m going out all morning.’
‘Some deficits just need to be off-loaded.’ Guffaws M. ‘Just ask the chancellor.’
And the bloated loan peddler waddles away leaving just a few earthy top notes hanging in the air.

I might just have well walked into a wall. The astringent stench envelops me like a grandmother’s holiday hug, as I desperately try to urinate half a pint of Darjeeling before needing to breathe. But sadly my days of carthorse like pressure on the porcelain are just a distant memory, and I’m turning blue before the first shake is needed.

Why is it, I ponder angrily, having taken a few clotted gulps of fetid air before hobbling to the basin and scrubbing my hands with all the urgency of a poor man’s Howard Hughes, that everywhere I’ve ever worked there is at least one early doors dumper? Surely people ought to complete their ablutions before they arrive at the office, it’s just common courtesy, but as sure as targets and rent reviews only ever move upwards, there will undoubtedly be one u-bend despoiler in very office.

Back in the kitchen, I grab a beaker of water from the dispenser, sip half, tip the rest down the sink so as not to over-hydrate, then glance at the pin board. No mention under the Health and Safety Law poster of big-bowelled financial consultants being a workplace hazard, perhaps I should look up the clean air act? We seem to have public liability certificates, electrical appliance testing confirmation, and out of office personal security checklists, yet nothing on close coupled water closet contamination. If I start compiling a hazard diary, perhaps I can sue retrospectively in a couple of years and finally hit the jackpot.

‘I think that might cause a few problems.’ I tell a potential seller, later. We’re at the bottom of his garden where a ramshackle garage-cum-shed leans drunkenly to one side, with what looks suspiciously like a corrugated asbestos roof, above.

‘The other agents didn’t seem to think so.’ Counters the man as he opens the stained door with an ominous creak. I decide to risk it as he’s in a mood to sell.

The hard part will be flushing out a buyer.

Home On The Range - Thursday

Mortgage man M waddles through the door clutching another vast loss-leader bag of supermarket doughnuts. I’ll need to avoid the kitchen for the rest of the day, as the jammy treats will be waiting enticingly. Their sugary siren call beckoning me to take on board some instant gratification that I’ll only regret minutes later, as I’m left feeling cheap and used. An unsettling insight into M’s daily struggles and probably lettings slapper B’s, too.

‘Is that what those myopic idiots at Westminster call the green shoots of recovery?’ Chuckles M voluminously, his podgy paw already delving inside the doughnut bag and groping the produce almost pornographically. Tearing my gaze away from the food fondling, I see he’s looking out the window towards another ladder placed against a back-to-front fascia above a whitewashed window. A rivals’ board erector is nailing up a 4x3 commercial To Let board over a failed business venture, the reversed signage still legible, despite the outgoing tenants best efforts to hide their collapsed company’s demise.

‘If it goes on like this we’ll be the only firm left in the street.’ Suggests negotiator S with a heaving sigh that causes her flat screen to wobble on her desk, along with my resolve. I only just stop myself from telling her we might not be far behind the closed gift shop. People seemingly not too keen to buy houses, any more than perfumed candles and those crystal glass pyramids.

‘He seems to be filling his boots.’ Suggests M, nodding towards the labouring board man, before stuffing two-thirds of a doughnut into his mouth, a viscose smear of blood-like jam dribbling from lips to chin. ‘There’s still business to be done,’ opines M, wiping the escaped preservative into his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It just depends where you are in the food chain.’

‘Was that meant to be a joke?’ Asks S, as M balloons into the kitchen cheeks churning, as he moans in appreciation, before audibly filling the kettle – just enough for one mug of heavily sweetened tea, from experience.
‘Probably not.’ I tell S with a shake of my head, just as assistant manager T strolls languidly through the door.

‘Do you know?’ Asks T rhetorically. ‘I sometimes wonder why I bother.’ I stop myself from the obvious retort, as T bemoans the timewasters he’s been to see. The pair had no intention of selling, particularly once they heard about the Home Information Pack (HIP’s) they’d be expected to purchase. Shamefully I ducked going to see the habitual nearly-movers. In the past it cost them nothing to test the market, now they seem more circumspect. The only upside of HIP’s I’ve yet to find.

‘The lease is getting too short on that block anyway.’ I tell T with a shrug. ‘Without an extension it would be hard to find a lender.’
‘I can find lenders.’ Interjects M, back from the kitchen and clutching a steaming brew and the last mouthful of dough, which might well be his second if I don’t miss my guess. M asks T which block we are referring to, then sniffs dismissively. ‘Cruddy construction and less than twice term left on the lease, forget it.’

And a discussion ensues about the inequitable form of tenure leasehold proves to be, together with the dubious build methods I’ve encountered over the years. I tell them about the sixties tower blocks made of pre-cast concrete with a tendency to delaminate, or collapse like a pack of cards. Enthral them with tales of Cob Cottages constructed of mud and straw, three little pigs’ style, yet still standing several hundred years later. Caution about new fangled methods, such as the early seventies steel framed houses, I tried to sell, that were rusting from the inside out.

‘So you don’t rate those paper houses then?’ Laughs T, referring to a recent report of pre-fabricated homes made of pressed, recycled pulp, complete with veranda and outside toilet.
‘I think they are aimed at third world countries.’ Counters S.

It’s only a matter of time, I think, as the last nail goes into the board across the road.

Love Hurts - Monday

I bring an insipid morning meeting to a close, with almost as much relief as the assembled staff struggle to hide. To think I once wanted to be a performer, until I realised my singing voice had less range than a Sinclair C5 and that three-chords and a snarl had been replaced by prissy New Romantics and an arpeggio. I’ll never look good in eye shadow and I still haven’t learnt to play the guitar.

‘So how many Valentine’s cards did you get?’ Asks negotiator S breathlessly and I belatedly realise she’s talking to me. Suddenly the natural verbosity of a salesman returns and I construct a facile fabrication involving herniated postmen and bulging mail sacks.

‘I know all about those.’ Chortles fat mortgage man M unpleasantly, to blank looks from the less sleazy attendees.
‘Bulging male sacs?’ Offers M, cheeks colouring to red-rose proportions as he realises he may have crossed an ever-shifting line. Reprimand conspicuously issued, contemporaneous note made in the margin of my daybook to refer back to at any forthcoming industrial tribunal, I continue the deceit.

‘So I’ll probably still be opening them tonight.’ I finish unconvincingly.
‘You only had one then,’ summarises S accurately, before concluding. ‘And that was from your wife’

She’s right, and sadly a valentine’s card with: To my husband/wife, emblazoned on the front, rather nullifies the essential frisson of mystery the tradition requires. Plus I still remember the prickly shame of those school mornings while the popular kids conspicuously flaunted their envelope-ensconced love tokens, while I sat shame-faced and empty handed.

I vividly recall the gorgeous girl in my tutor group I fancied in a doomed unrequited love fever, for three terms. Of course she was hopelessly out of reach. Girls my age more interested in hirsute men with access to Mini Coopers and condoms, than spotty oiks with Corgi cars and Kleenex. Perhaps the masochistic early conditioning led me to the daily rejection of my current profession? She has a lot to answer for, that Carol.

‘I didn’t get any at all.’ Announces lose lettings lady B with a sad shake of her head. I stop short of asking if the STD clinic sent her some sort of communication, even just another reminder for her next appointment. Then S announces she received two cards. And everyone looks at each other suspiciously. One from the undeserving boyfriend, obviously - never have liked him. But who could the secret admirer be?

‘Nice lot of cards.’ I comment to a well-preserved forty-something lady owner, later. We’re in her lounge and several valentine missives are displayed proudly on the mantelpiece. The woman reminds me of someone, and belatedly I realise she has a vague resemblance to the long-distant Carol from school. At least how I’d imagine her, thirty odd years down the line.

‘On no, they’re not mine,’ Blusters the woman, face colouring slightly. ‘They’re my daughter’s.’
And I just stop myself from announcing I can see why the daughter is a multiple recipient, as I’ve seen the girl’s portrait picture in the hall. The last thing you need is a potential vendor thinking you’re lusting after her offspring, when you’re hoping she’ll give you a house key. Equally, I can clearly see why a host of suitors’ are hoping to exchange verse, flowers and fluids with the stunner.

‘Give it to me straight.’ Pleads the woman, as I sit at the opposite end of the couch.
‘I don’t want a load of old flannel about how beautiful my house is and a price that turns out to be unobtainable.’
And I hesitate. It’s the sort of entreaty for honesty you get from wife or girlfriend when they ask for an opinion on an outfit that isn’t quite gelling. The truth may be out there, but it’s not always welcome.

But despite the internal voice nagging me to increase my recommended figure by 10%, I sense some sort of platonic coupling. Maybe it’s her vague resemblance to the fondly remembered Carol, and perhaps I feel she’s heard enough unconvincing sickly sentiment. So I hit her with the number.

It’s not the first time I’ve been thrown out of a house - and on reflection it was always on the cards.

Give 'Em Enough Rope - Wednesday

I’m on the phone checking a chain’s strength with a distant agent. It’s a necessary task, if you want to advise your client accurately. But invariably the sort of vapid tool I have on the other end of the line only serves to confirm why the public dislike and distrust us. It’s why outside of a drink with the team on a Friday I rarely mix socially with other practitioners.

Only this guy sounds like a kindred spirit, I can tell by his voice and comments that he’s experienced, and somehow over the copper cables we forge a brief, passing connection.

‘How is it with you then?’ I eventually ask, chain details – names, agents involved, status of surveys’, mortgage offers’ and proposed completion dates logged - ‘Grim as everyone else is saying?’

Now at this juncture in the past, especially with the majority of odious operators, I’d expect a blizzard of bullshit. Bloated boasts about how many deals they’d booked that week, how many policies the advisor had written, claims that they were having it away like never before. But this guy is different.

‘Crap.’ He announces succinctly, before adding even more perceptively. ‘But then it was always going to happen.’ I agree tentatively, still not wishing to over-expose myself to someone I know only by a fleeting meshing of circumstance. And we go on to reminisce about the early nineties and the last big correction.

‘I listed this one bed flat yesterday.’ Confides the man wearily as I make the appropriated appreciative noises, unless it’s the sight of S my negotiator jogging past my window to grab a rarely ringing phone. ‘And the bloke was castigating me because it was worth £180,000 six months ago and now I wanted it on at £150 k.’
‘I know what you mean.’ I tell him, trying to get my focus back.

‘Truth is,’ says the far off colleague, hesitating briefly. ‘Truth is, it really ought to be £90,000 to make any sense.’ And now I wince and take a sharp intake of breath, and not because S is now skipping to the office diary distractingly.
‘First time buyers round here earn early twenties.’ Continues the sage, who is beginning to make me seem upbeat. ‘So, ten percent deposit if they can save it and £81k on the drip. That’s more than enough when you think about it sensibly.’

‘You alright?’ Trills S as she taps at my door with a cup of tea in hand, ten minutes later. ‘Only you look a bit down.’ And I outline my last call, sanitised a little in order not to frighten her.
‘Aw that’s nonsense,’ she pronounces naively, ‘the government would never let that happen.’ And she hesitates before adding in a slightly quavering falsetto. ‘Would they?’

‘I think that might be a little full.’ I venture gingerly, late afternoon. I’m standing on another deathly quiet construction site next to a small time developer. The footings for a brace of houses are poured and a solitary blue portable loo sits forlornly to one side, up against a pile of breezeblocks.

‘Shit, that’s the minimum I need to make the figures stack up.’ Announces the man, head shaking in disbelief. ‘The bank will be all over me like a rash if I don’t knock these out in the next nine months.’

And gently I supply him with the comparable sales I’ve brought to show him. And even theses prices – historical ones – are unlikely to be achieved again in a hurry.
‘I’ve signed personal guarantees you know.’ He tells me, as If I’ve not come across businessmen whose homes are about to be forfeited before. Fleetingly I wonder about asking his personal rather than business address, as if it’s in my patch there’s a better than even chance we’ll get the repossession next year.

‘I’ve got to finish it unless you can find me someone who’ll buy it like this.’ He sweeps a hand towards the sad little site, which should really have remained someone’s garden. We both already know the answer, so he concludes grimly.
‘Feels like I’m building my own bloody gallows.’

I know how he feels. I wonder if you hear the trap door opening?

Medicine Man - Friday

‘I know precisely the little sod that gave me this.’ I splutter to a disinterested family at breakfast. I’ve succumbed to another cold and with the relentless tenacity of a virus, the bug has migrated to my weak point – other than my back - and I can feel a treacle-like build-up on my chest, that will take days to clear.

Of course it’s an occupational hazard, picking up coughs and colds, as shameless punters often have you round to value or embark on a run of viewings, when they themselves are off work with an infection. If a major outbreak does ever ravage the country it won’t be spread by old ladies’ budgies, men and women with clipboards will doubtless carry it. That should really cement our reputation at the top of the love- to-hate list.

‘You could have picked it up anywhere.’ Announces my wife frostily, sweeping my half-finished bowl of bran flakes away. They feel like I’m trying to down clumps of wire wool my throat is so sore, and my voice is beginning to oscillate like a pre-pubescent choirboy. Youngest son gives me a look of disgust; the sort I see most working days, then disappears for the bathroom as I hack into a soggy Kleenex, miserably.

‘I know who it was.’ I persist pointlessly. Two days ago in a grubby ex-local authority semi, a snot-nosed kid decided to follow me round the house as the sole source of entertainment, after his X-Box 360 lit up with the three red rings of death. His mother – no visible sign of a father – seemingly too busy to instruct the tyke to place his hand over mouth as he ballooned a million bronchial mulch spores into my face, when I bent down to measure his cluttered bedroom.

‘Just take some tablets.’ Instructs my wife prissily. ‘Because it’s pointless telling you to stay at home.’ Mournfully, I rattle down a brace of cold relief capsules, swiftly followed by an Omega 3 fish oil combo – for supple joints and circulation allegedly – topped off with one of those disturbingly green Echinacea tabs that nobody, chemist included, is sure how to pronounce. I’m just waiting for some wag to buy me the Sanatogen pills and my life will be complete.

Successive surveys stating the sodding obvious conclude that the private sector absentee record is about half of the public. Of course that’s because in sales if you don’t perform you don’t get paid other than a derisory basic salary. One that skirts the working time directive you are cajoled into opting out of and somehow avoids litigation for breaking the minimum wage. Not much call for trade unions in this industry.

My desk at work resembles a miniature apothecary kit. With Lem-Sips, pocket sized tissues, throat sweets, Vic nasal inhalers and a collection of various painkillers. My team hate me for coming in, as it ramps up the pressure when they want to pull a sicky. But personally I think a sterling attendance record is not to be sneezed at.

‘God you look grim,’ announces assistant manger T, as I wheeze my way through the morning meeting. Head thumping like a jackhammer as I feel the Paracetamol, caffeine and Phenylephrine hit kicking in, and start to float into one of those out of body experiences again.
‘Have you tried taking Echinacea?’ Asks negotiator S. ‘It’s good for colds.’
And a brief discussion circles the desk about how best to pronounce the herbal remedy that is probably just a lime-coloured placebo for all I know.

‘Come in,’ says the prospective vendor I visit mid-morning, just as the drugs are wearing off and my nose begins to fill like a defective cistern with a buggered ball cock. ‘I’m afraid we’re all a bit under the weather.’ She announces apologetically, as I notice the hand I’ve just shaken is now clutching a soggy clump of tissue removed from her cardigan sleeve. ‘But we thought it would be a good time to get you round.’

Not sure if it was too ethical coughing violently over her kitchen work surface when she went to answer the door. But as it was another agent turning up early to value and she wanted a cheap fee, I’ll soon recover.

Winter Wonderland - Monday

Out by the car earlier than usual I sweep the overnight deposits from the glass, shivering with the cold and also with a long distant half-remembered thrill, as I remember what snow meant as a child.

‘Do you think school will be closed?’ Hollers my youngest son as he puts his nose out the door, eyes alive with excitement despite contriving to be a moody teenager in all other weathers. Shaking my head in bemusement I tell him, slightly embellished, how I used to battle to my way through frozen squalls, ice storms and broken down British Leyland cars, to get to my junior school back in the day.

‘They won’t cancel lesson just for a few flakes.’ I predict mockingly, as the phone rings inside the house. I’ve just finished de-icing the screen, engine running, inside warm, when the lad skips out to gleefully inform me he’s off for the day. All lessons cancelled, namby-pamby teachers apparently unable to face a day filling out health and safety assessment forms, and risking putting the odd plaster on an upended kid, for fear of prosecution.

Wheels spinning sickeningly, traction control light winking accusingly at me on the dash, I gingerly make it out of my road. Utter chaos. This probably isn’t happening in most of Eastern Europe, I think sourly, as the local radio reports a lengthening list of schools closed for the day. I spot the occasional child, battling along the pavement. I ought to stop and inform the slip-sliding children they’ll be disappointed when they find the school gates locked, but of course a solitary man in a car dare not talk to a child.

One of the few motors in the municipal car park, other than a couple cocooned in snow which drinkers abandoned the night before, I blip the remote and tiptoe across the icy surface. The park, for once devoid of boozers and beggars, has an ethereal glow where the watery sun is trying to battle the thinning clouds. A few solitary daffodil shoots poke gallantly through the dusting, and momentarily I feel good about the world.

Fifteen minutes later, heating wheezing at full tilt, my upbeat mood has turned as frosty as the weather. I’m the only one in the office and the morning meeting has proved a rather one-sided experience. No change there, on reflection. Then the phone rings twice in quick succession.

Mortgage man M is the first to cry off, quickly followed by lettings lady B who without a hint of shame informs me she’ll be staying in bed. I’m tempted to ask whose mattress she’s on, but I doubt if B’s caught his full name.

Then as I gaze out at the curiously quiet street, realising belatedly there are no buses running, negotiator S bounces jauntily across the pavement.
‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ She asks breathlessly, slipping across the damp laminate floor like some top-heavy Bambi.
‘Not the word that comes to mind.’ I grumble, secretly wishing we could adjourn to the park and build a snowman - and a relationship.

The phone rings again. Saved by the bell I think as I recite the company greeting only for assistant manager T to cut across me.
‘Oh I didn’t think there’d be anyone there,’ he begins and I have to stifle an urge to ask why he decided to dial then. ‘Do you want me to bother to come in?’ Continues T flatly.

‘Where’s Stalingrad?’ Asks S cautiously after I’ve subjected work-shy T to a blizzard of my own, heavily laced, invective. Before I can finish my uncertain explanation about snowy sieges and dogged resistance, trainee F stumbles through the door wearing a pair of those absurd furry Ugg boots.

‘Can it get any worse?’ I plead, as the gangly goon slides like some improbable giraffe on its first skiing holiday, across the floor.
‘No, I think it’s beginning to clear up.’ Suggests F undaunted, as he clambers out of the comedy footwear to reveal mismatched socks. His face drops as he catches my scowl.
‘You didn’t bring any other shoes did you?’ I ask wearily.

Thank goodness for footwear retailer liquidation sales. Now I just have to get the receipt past the bean counter. Happy days.