Fifth Columnist - Monday

The bean counter boss rings to berate me over the office financial services conversion ratios and I anger instantly. I hate flogging mortgages and insurance products with a passion. Not that I can actually do the paperwork, that’s fat mortgage man M’s domain, I’m just an authorised introducer. Since the dog licence was abolished I’m guessing this is the lowest common denominator of officially sanctioned whelps.

‘Apparently you are not supporting him adequately,’ drones the bean counter, as I wonder just how much support the bloated wastrel requires to stop him from tumbling over, only to bounce back up again like one of those roly-poly weeble things. ‘The quality of leads are poor,’ continues my abacus-fiddling boss. ‘I’m arranging some more training for your staff,’ He pauses as I sense more opprobrium to come. ‘And you.’

Tell him to stuff his crummy individual targets, coaxes an inner voice, let him know his blubber-bellied pet couldn’t close a door in a gale. Inform him you couldn’t give a toss about stitching people up with crappy mortgage product just because the firm get a kick back and I can earn scabby shop vouchers for places I’d never set foot in without a gun to my head. Enlighten the shrew-faced f****er that you’d rather pop your plonker in the hole punch than resort to morally dubious disturbance selling tactics to flog a critical illness policy that almost certainly won’t pay out unless you are bitten by a rabid dog in Dagenham.

‘That should be helpful.’ Chimes a familiar voice and I feel my cheeks colouring in shame as I realise my timid, mortgage-paying, standing-order-laden, overdraft-heavy self has just junked another set of principles faster than a politician with poor poll ratings.
‘You all need to realise this is a multi-sales channel operation.’ Berates the bean counter hitting his nagging stride, before adding hurtfully. ‘Especially old school types like yourself.’

‘Am I noticeably old school?’ I ask the assembled staff as I leave my office and enter the sales floor.
‘You probably went to an old school, judging by your age.’ Ventures B from her lettings desk with a hint of a post-lunch slur.
‘Not that it was much cop,’ Contributes assistant manager T. ‘Or you wouldn’t still be flogging houses at your age.’
‘Houses and associated products.’ I correct him ruefully.
‘Definitely not much cop at that.’ Adds T to laughter, just as M approaches the door all swaying gait. He doesn’t look happy.

‘Any luck?’ Ventures negotiator S as the fat man squeezes through the door sideways.
‘Where’s that idiot?’ Growls M angrily. He’s referring to trainee F in a way I often do, but strangely I’m drawn towards defending the retard, even though he’s probably dropping a set of keys down a storm drain as we speak.

‘Out on some viewings why?’ Asks S sweetly.
‘Those idiots he made an appointment for me to see.’ Grumbles M as his vast belly does the same. ‘He didn’t qualify them properly.’
‘Problem?’ I venture unnecessarily, preparing to defend F against my better judgement, such is my dislike of M’s trade.
‘The kiddie is only in the bloody services.’ Berates M unpleasantly. ‘There’s no way anyone is going to give him life insurance the way things are at the moment. Waste of a bloody fact find form.’

It was the same with the Gulf War conflicts, shamefully the actuaries – their in-house magazine probably what the bean counter uses as jerk-off material – declined to cover any soldier or airman likely to actually die in the service of their country.

‘Surely you could at least place a mortgage-only, with someone?’ Asks S naively. ‘They deserve all the help we can give them?’
‘What’s in it for me?’ Snaps M not quite suppressing a gassy belch as he waddles towards the kitchen and the half-finished bag of doughnuts. ‘I can’t just live of scraps you know.’

‘I wish someone would detonate something under him.’ Whispers S angrily. ‘He can whistle for any leads from me for the rest of the week.’ You go girl, I think proudly, a lass after my own heart. Then it happens again.
‘Not really the right attitude,’ corrects the branch manager – me for the moment – ‘we’re all in this together.’

Sometimes I hate myself.

Waterworld - Tuesday

As the morning meeting splutters to a soggy end, ideas and exhortations exhausted, we watch as the rain sheets against the office window and a lone pensioner struggles by valiantly, one of those wheeled shopping trolleys towed behind her.

‘Let’s hope she doesn’t come in.’ Says assistant manager T nodding towards the waterlogged elderly shopper. ‘If another wrinkly asks me for a bungalow that doesn’t exist, and even if it did they couldn’t afford, I’ll commit compulsory euthanasia.’
‘That’s nasty.’ Chides negotiator S with a scowl and a shake of her head. I try to meet her in the eye as what is known privately as the blouse-bounce, jiggles to a standstill. It gets you like that when the weather and the economy conspire against you.

‘Is it me,’ I begin unwisely. ‘Or does it get wetter year by year?’
‘We’ll soon be like that Kevin Costner film.’ Chuckles man mountain M the mortgage fixer.
‘Dances With Wolves?’ Questions trainee F to sighs all round, as I begin to wonder if the sink in the gents is deep enough to drown somebody in.

‘It’s all the emissions,’ suggests S looking pointedly at M as his stomach rumbles ominously and I think I hear thunder. ‘Something has to be done about it.’ I nod sagely in agreement, not through any altruistic save the planet motive if I’m honest, more because I’d pretty much agree to anything she suggests some mornings. Then lose lettings lady B arrives outside, her car mounting the kerb by the entrance door.

‘Look at that.’ Grumbles T. ‘She’s not exactly helping with global warming is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ responds S cattily. ‘She does her bit for mankind from what I’ve heard.’ I decide not to intervene this time, admittedly it is pissing down outside, but there’s a good chance B is pissed too. As B stumbles in, shaking water from her head like a poodle with Parkinson’s, I make a comment about the recent floods in Cumbria.

‘Yep,’ enthuses T. ‘Did you see that town where the high street turned into Venice overnight?’ And a brief distraction begins as we debate how many people felt sorry for the estate agency business pictured ankle deep in mud, window displays hanging drunkenly to one side.
‘Sound like a typical day in the industry.’ Suggests T wryly, as he waits for the quizzical looks and pays off perfectly. ‘Wallowing in other people’s effluent?’
He’s coming along nicely.

‘Hard enough to flog homes as it is,’ I tell them not wanting to be left out of the banter. ‘Without trying to convince punters that the through-the lounge torrent is a water feature and the name of the town will encourage tourists to visit.’
‘What was the name of the town?’ Asks F, several steps behind as usual. And as B re-enters the office from the ladies, three of us chorus. ‘Cockermouth!’

It took an awkward few minutes in my office to convince a testy B that we weren’t referring to her rumoured methods of winning landlords over to a fully serviced rental agreement. As it stands she won’t be lodging a formal complaint to the harridans in human resources, but I had to swallow a lot of humble pie.

Later I’m circling an address, wipers at full speed, searching for a parking space somewhere even remotely near the target house I’m valuing, and a leaden depression sweeps over me. ‘I’m too old for all this nonsense.’ I mutter to myself as I limp towards the house, misty rain sweeping in like a veil of tears.

At the porch, rainwater dripping relentlessly from a defective overhead gutter, I notice one of those cheesy: Welcome To Our Home, doormats. From experience it’s generally a complete misnomer, particularly if you’re an estate agent looking to secure a top-rate sole agency.

I leave with an artificially cheery goodbye. Turns out they just wanted a price in case the husband was made redundant, or as the wife put it, seemingly without irony. ‘A rainy day figure.’ I’m thinking of getting one of those SAD light boxes to cheer me up. Failing that I’ll stand in the window display under the halogens.

Might even flush out an acceptable offer.

Kill Or Cure - Wednesday

‘I’m really sorry you feel that way.’ Soothes negotiator S as she attempts to placate a disappointed buyer. It doesn’t seem to be working as she is forced to move the phone a few inches further away from her ear as a string of guttural sounding adjectives spew down the copper cabling, and I detect the first flush of colour racing into her cheeks.

‘No it’s really not up to me,’ she continues gamely. ‘At the end of the day I’m just a conduit, the owner decides who they want to sell to.’ Another frantic run of Anglo Saxon appears to be venting from the aggrieved party on the other end of the line as the blush on S’s face blooms to stoplight proportions, and I think I detect the first prickling sign of tears in her pretty eyes.

‘There’s really no need for language like that sir.’ She battles as I begin to feel the protective angst stir in my gut. ‘Put them through to me if you like.’ I whisper to S but she cups her hand over the phone and insists. ‘No it’s okay, I’ve got to learn to deal with it.’ Now the rest of the office has fallen silent as, other phones mute, we all listen-in on S’s valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to convince a man whose dream home has been sold to someone else, that we sympathise.

‘I’m employed to act in my vendors best interest.’ Continues S doggedly. ‘Yeh you tell them girl.’ Chips in mortgage man M as he loses interest and waddles towards the kitchen. ‘Scumbags wouldn’t do the finance or insurance through me.’ I shake my head as M disappears to audibly tear open the biscuits I bought earlier. I still hate having to flog anything other than homes, particularly as it brings compromising conflicts of interests when you try to juggle acting for the vendor and the purchaser simultaneously.

‘It’s not about a few extra pounds worth of commission.’ Informs S gulping in frustration as she tries to nail another common misconception. ‘We just want to get the best possible price for our owner.’ ‘And the best possible buyer.’ Adds M maliciously, in a cloud of Hobnob crumbs.

S falls silent as another tirade vomits forth from the under-bidder, her face visibly crumpling now, as I beckon her to give me the phone, half hoping she will and half hoping she’ll appease the bully herself.

‘It won’t be any different if you speak to anyone else.’ Says S. ‘I’ve given you the facts and I’m genuinely sorry you’ve missed out.’ Her head jerks back as if she’s been given a virtual slap down the line. ‘I am, as it happens,’ she continues gamely. ‘I only wish I had two more like that to sell, then I could please everyone.’

‘His name?’ Queries S with an apologetic shrug in my direction and a visible wilting of will. And as B in lettings tries to disguise her obvious mirth, S spills the sort of information I try to keep secret. ‘He wants to speak to you.’ She finally says shoulders sagging, breasts still perky. Reluctantly I retire to my office to take the call where the insults can be absorbed more readily.

‘Are you the branch manager?’ Rages a voice fluctuating wildly, just the safe side of sanity. I acknowledge the unpalatable fact. ‘What sort of f***ing shambles are you running?’ Screams the man, in an uncomfortable echo of my last one-to-one with my bean counter boss and a simulacrum of this morning’s meeting, when I bollocked trainee F again over some missing keys.

‘How did that go?’ Asks S as I re-enter the front office ten minutes later, ears ringing like church bells.
‘Safe to say we’re off his Christmas card list.’ I offer to dry chuckles.
‘Why do they all hate us so much?’ Asks S innocently.
‘Because we have something they don’t’ have.’ Suggests B.
‘Like chlamydia?’ Sneers M unpleasantly, but uncharacteristically wittily too.

From long experience of the adversarial nature of property transactions it’ll take more than penicillin to cure the public’s inherent dislike of our profession. I guess I’ll just have to live with it.

Mass Media Device - Friday

Spotting the near neighbour hurrying towards my car I’m tempted to ignore him. It’s what he did to me, when gallingly giving his home to another agent to sell. But curiosity gets the better.

Of course it’s a mixed blessing trying to flog a house or flat in your road. With the market still uncertain as a learner at traffic lights, stroppy sellers, or bolshie buyers knowing where you live can be a distinct disadvantage. But on balance I’d rather see my own board as opposed to an opposition one – as long as it doesn’t state ‘for sale’ for too long.

‘What’s the market really like?’ He puffs as I crack the window and endeavour to establish how much longer his sole agency runs, without divulging too much detail to help him shift his home before I can snaffle the instruction.

An hour later I’m sat in another soul-sapping sales meeting with the bean counter and fellow managers, as the same question the unsuccessful seller asked earlier is bounced around the table. As usual with estate agents, the answers run the full gamut from bullshit to bleak, as the bean counter fiddles nervously with his laptop, formulas on his beloved spreadsheets still not used to calculating income reductions.

Then with dire warnings about costs and staffing levels still needing to fall, reverberating across the remaining bacon sandwiches, the guest speaker arrives fashionably late.

‘I want to talk to you about managing the media.’ Begins the marketing man from head office. He’s the only male in the room not wearing a tie and if he truly is able to act as a barometer for the company he ought to be feeling the groundswell of antipathy in the air.

And the open-collared post-graduate, who probably waxes his chest by the look of his exposed skin, proceeds to insist all press enquiries are channelled through his office.

‘We have quite a few good contacts with the local rags,’ I say stubbornly. ‘They’ll give us free editorial features on unusual homes if we play ball.’ And I notice pleasingly most of my colleagues are nodding in empathy, until the bean counter interjects reiterating the no comment rule, causing my fleeting support to evaporate like a morning mist.

‘So tell me what’s the market like? Honestly.’ Asks my afternoon valuation. The woman is sharply tailored and her eyes shine with intelligence, so I’m nervous already.

Contrary to popular belief honesty isn’t always the best policy. It’s something I was reminded of recently when a potential vendor requested suggestions to help her home sell more readily. I should have guessed the garish, slightly edgy décor in the daughter’s room, indicated a wannabe interior designer. My recommendation for neutral silk emulsion coupled with a sole agency fell on less than receptive ears, and the opposition’s board was up a day later.

The woman I’m with now looks suspiciously at me as I cough-up the usual platitudes about pricing realistically and utilising our extensive marketing plan to lever maximum exposure, in order to realise optimum price.
‘Can I quote you on that if it doesn’t sell in ten weeks time?’ She asks unsettlingly, as I wonder if the laminated attachment I can half spy on the coat draped over her sofa, is a press badge.

‘Journalist on line three wants to ask you about the market.’ Announces assistant manager T late afternoon, with a grimace. They’re not known to me, so I toe the corporate line and instruct T to bounce them across to the boy with no body hair.
‘Tried that,’ continues T apologetically. ‘He says he doesn’t want the sanitised version, he’d rather talk to someone at the coal face.’

Following the earlier meeting I’m more nervous than ever about market predictions, I’m also painfully aware of what happened to the miners, so I ask T to take a number and promise I’ll call back.
‘Will you ring?’ Questions T as he drops the contact details on my desk.
‘Not a chance.’ I tell him with a wink.

T’s not aware, but one thing I do know is publishing works to stringent deadlines. The hack will doubtless have moved on to someone more malleable by closing time.

My secret’s safe for now.

Rocket Science - Monday

Reluctantly I go to another friend of a friend’s fireworks party. It’s curious how with the blurring of months and years, marked mostly by relentless pursuit of sales targets that dance ever further away as if some malicious god has you as the donkey and the deity as the carrot-dangler/stick-wielder, that the passage of time is signposted by another annual festival arriving.

‘I don’t really want to go.’ I grumble as we make our way through the darkened streets and I spot a new opposition For Sale board on a house I valued a few weeks back. ‘You used to love fireworks.’ Chides the wife, oblivious to my growl of protest at the betrayal the flag is illustrating all too obviously. Momentarily I tempted to uproot the hated board and add it to the pile undoubtedly waiting on the bonfire we’re heading for. The public’s dislike of estate agents manifests itself yearly in the pyre of correx flags that burn like phosphorus once you get them going.

‘I used to enjoy it when the kids were still young.’ I tell her. It was the same with Halloween briefly, but this year with the eldest at university and the youngest in the sixth form and eschewing parents carving pumpkins, and extorting only cash not candy, I decided to pass. Without the crutch of kids as a reason to participate there’s something slightly sinister about waiting in the hall with a tray of sweets for strange fancy-dressed children to call. Probably end up listed on some sort of illuminated- squash offenders’ register, if you have a misunderstanding with a finger of fudge.

‘That twat from last year will be there baiting me about property.’ I grumble as a loud bang detonates nearby and I nearly have a cardiac. The oiled-up oaf wanted an argument about how we supposedly manipulate the market last time and I’m not expecting his opinion to have changed, any more than my circumstances.
‘When did you become so angry?’ Asks my wife with a hint of despair and we fall into a silent walk punctuated only by the odd explosion and the excited chatter of unseen children behind garden fences.

And I ponder once again where it all went wrong. There was the faux anger of youth dovetailed neatly with punk rock and the standard testosterone-rich rage that went hand-in-hand. The rather more caring and inclusive new romantic phase when I mellowed slightly and thought I could be a writer, rather than just a writer of room measurements. On reflection, I guess it all started to go pear-shaped when all that acid/rave nonsense started, about the time I got my first child, first manager’s post, and the pressure to perform began to skyrocket.

‘Hear he comes.’ I mutter acidly to my wife after we’ve handed over flowers, a tenner towards the communal incendiaries and a bottle of Bordeaux. And with demoralising predictability the drunk from last year approaches, cheeks ruddy with wine.
‘Ah-hah the property purveyor.’ Stumbles the oaf as I calculate whether my back is strong enough to heft the bore straight on to the bonfire, where at least one of my boards is burning brightly.

Like an overgrown schoolboy who has tired of detaching legs from spiders, the piss-head has moved on to bar-room rhetoric about bankers and estate agents ruining this once proud nation. I’m hoping he’ll start ranting about foreigners taking all the plum jobs in chicken processing plants then at least I might get some grudging kudos for punching him in the face as an exit strategy.

‘You lot,’ babbles the man finger jabbing aggressively. ‘Are the reason my children can’t afford to buy a house.’ My, you are just looking for a fall guy gag falls on deaf ears and the jibe about him not being a very civil servant and needing to get a real job only adds flames to the fire, so my wife pulls me away.

‘Can’t take you anywhere.’ She hisses in tandem with a launching pyrotechnic.
‘Sticky situations wherever I go.’ I tell her forgetting about last year, reaching for a toffee apple, and beginning to enjoy myself.

Could have done without losing the filling.

Surveying The Wreckage - Monday

A familiar car pulls-up outside and a collective groan echoes around the office. It’s the sort of terminally resigned sound you might imagine emanating from an expiring pensioner, moments before the beneficiaries start ringing estate agents for valuations.

‘Now there’s someone that weasel of a warden could happily issue a ticket to.’ Announces assistant manager T to nods of universal approval, as the object of our scorn looks furtively up and down the high street before activating the hazard warning lights – surely a metaphor for his approach – and hurrying towards us.

‘What do you call a surveyor at the bottom of the sea?’ Asks negotiator S with a pleasing chest-chuckle and I prepare to humour her, only trainee F jumps in before me.
‘A revenge attack from an agent whose sale he keeps trashing,’ rushes F with the sort of haste that indicates a good deal of forethought. ‘Someone who kidnapped him in an empty house, tortured him with heated-up paperclips, then tied a weight to his feet before dumping him off-shore.’

We all look at F askew, as the oblivious surveyor approaches the door.
‘Actually the answer is: a good start.’ I tell him warily, making a mental note to go easier on the fool at his next appraisal and maybe allocate the stationery ordering to S for a few months. F just glowers at the un-loved man as he breezes in, and fiddles ominously with some unseen objects in that muli-compartment tray we all have sitting in the desk top-drawer,

‘Morning troops.’ Announces the surveyor all false bonhomie. He’s sporting a pasted on grin that could easily morph to a leer. The sort of blank-eyed look you see in police mug shots of perverts and paedophiles. He’s wearing fawn coloured trousers, which his mother he doubtless still lives with, would call slacks, and a checked faux-landowner shirt, twinned with a tweedish jacket featuring leather elbow pads. If it wasn’t for the cobwebs in his hair you might think he spent his time supervising pheasant shoots on his family estate, rather than poking his head in everyone’s loft and business - and bombing sales.

‘How’s the market?’ He follows up with only slightly less bombast. It’s the sort of question you can only ever get wrong. If you are too bullish he’ll only down-value the home he’s about to value on account of your over-optimism. And if you err on the bearish side, he’ll still trash the price you’ve agreed, in an underpinning of his consistently pessimistic view of lending practices and the deleterious housing stock. Stock that he’s certain is doomed to succumb to subsidence, both types of rot, and roof spread that spills over more alarmingly than bloated mortgage man M’s belly.

‘Hope you’re not going to trash this one,’ I say as jovially as I can manage as I hand the man a set of details along with a bunch of keys. ‘We could have sold it twice over.’
‘Ah they all say that.’ Murmurs the surveyor as he signs the keybook with a prissy flourish and F makes stabbing motions behind his back with a letter-opening knife I swear he’s been sharpening.

‘I have to cover my back you know.’ Continues the man, more accurately than his valuation is likely to be, as F starts to growl alarmingly. ‘If you’ve had more than one buyer bidding the chances are they’ve paid over the odds.’ He concludes with a nasally presumption, as I wonder if he was friendless at school too, or if it happened by default when he qualified as a Chartered Surveyor.

It was no different in the early-nineties, I remember. Surveyors were being retrospectively sued by lenders who not many months earlier were encouraging them to rubber-stamp rash loans, with impunity. Once again banks are looking to recoup losses on irresponsible lending by pursuing valuers with the sort of 20/20 hindsight normally reserved for historians or lawyers. I ought to feel a little sympathy for the maligned man. At one stage when they were respected and a gateway to a partnership, I thought about training to become one.

‘I bloody hate those guys.’ Hisses S with venom as the surveyor leaves with a self-conscious wave.
‘Me too,’ I endorse. ‘Me too.’