Full English - Wednesday

‘Have you seen the papers today?’ Asks the Sybil Fawlty-like landlady who seems to be rather fawning over me since she discovered my profession. She obviously hasn’t moved recently.

I look at the selection of tabloids she’s indicating on a table, to one side of the brightly lit breakfast room.
‘Only there are one or two pieces about the property market.’ My gaze rises involuntarily to the ceiling where a smoke detector seemingly winks at me. My wife kicks me under the table and urges me, with her eyes, not to make a sarcastic comment. It’s not easy, but I refrain and order a cooked breakfast I don’t really want and certainly don’t need on a cholesterol level, before accepting a right-of-centre publication I wouldn’t normally buy.

‘Why do they always think I want to talk about pigging property?’ I mutter tetchily.
‘How would she like it if she came in the office wanting a four bedroom detached for three-bed semi money, and all I asked her about was the difference between free-range eggs and factory, and how to get difficult stains out of undersheets?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Chides my wife picking up the paper. Momentarily I’m tempted to make some ribald comment about a chance to soil the bedding – and not in an incontinent way- would be a fine thing, but the B&B owner is back with a pot of tea.

‘They can’t seem to make their mind up.’ Chunters the woman as I peer into the teapot to see a solitary tea bag that will take ten minutes stewing to even colour the water. I look across at the elderly couple seated across the room from us and think perhaps they’ve been dithering over poached or scrambled, but the landlady is on a different tack.

‘One report will say the market is going up again and there’s a shortage of properties and the next will say repossessions are on the rise and nobody can get a mortgage.’ My wife is nodding sympathetically as the woman adds. ‘I don’t know if I’m coming or going.’
I’m definitely going, I think, before absently pouring a cup of piss-coloured brew and groaning out loud.

‘Why do you always have to be so rude?’ Snaps my wife as we reach the sanctuary of our room, and I eye the en-suite covetously just as the black pudding starts to move.
‘Maybe it’s because I spend my working life having to be polite to every nut-job, dirt-bag, time-waster and dreamer in the world.’ I spit back with an anger that surprises even me.

Some time later, as I advise my wife to give it another ten before she tries to clean her teeth, I find she’s channel hopped to a re-run of that Pile In The Sun, Home or Away nonsense.
‘Aw come on.’ I plead. ‘You know it’s a set-up and hardly any of these numpties ever actually buy anything.’
‘You still love talking about property if you’re honest.’ Responds my wife with laser-guided accuracy.

It’s a paradox. My love-hate relationship with bricks and mortar has me despising the industry one moment, then aching to ring the office the next. For the moment, I’m hating the slightly camp male presenter trying to flog an over-priced farm worker’s cottage on some windswept moor - and loving the woman with the eye-catching double-frontage, offering sunshine, a villa with a pool and change from three hundred grand. But it’s an illusion.

Two hours later we’re walking around another unfamiliar town and I’m tugged towards an estate agency frontage. Just window-shopping.

‘That looks good value.’ Suggests my wife pointing at a well-photographed elevation. And I’m mentally calculating the catch. Crap area? Industrial unit just out of shot? Structural problems? The choices are endless
‘Only,’ continues my wife. ‘There are such conflicting signals you never know when’s a good time to buy. Is the market really recovering, or do you think there’ll be a double-dip?’

I’m not sure. It depends what sort of a week they’re having back at base. Does macroeconomics actually mean jack-all in my own little patch? Where a net three sales a week affect me more than a multi billion pound bailout from the IMF.

Let me know.

Fatty Owls - Saturday

‘Just don’t call the office they can cope without you for a week.’ Instructs my wife as we set off for a half term break. But already my fingers are itching to push auto-dial on my mobile, before we lose the signal.

‘You know what they are like.’ I whinge amiably, while we move into unfamiliar territory, both geographically and relationship-wise. With eldest son at university and youngest on an “educational” school trip abroad, we’re on our own for the first time in years. I’m hoping we’ll still have something in common.

A few hours later as we arrive at a dismally damp seaside town and I argue with both my wife and the irritating female voice on the satellite navigation instructing me to “turn round as soon as possible”, the desire to ring is tugging at me like a smackhead desperate to call his dealer.

‘I wonder how he’s getting on.’ Speculates my wife and momentarily I think she’s thinking about T, my assistant manger, until I see her scanning the youngest son’s itinerary. Does that make me a bad father? I just pray it’s not hereditary.

‘And what do you do?’ Asks the slightly officious landlady, at the boutique bed and breakfast we’re checking in to, and my mood mirrors the weather as she engages and asks animatedly. ‘So what is the market doing?’

‘Terrific.’ I mumble as we close the door to our room. ‘Yes it is nice.’ Chirrups my wife, opening cupboards and checking the tea making facilities. ‘I meant, she’ll be wanting to know how much this place is worth.’ I correct, as I scan the room thinking like countless punters do when they ship-up at our well-photographed properties, that it doesn’t look as good as it did on-line.

‘Christ this town looks run-down.’ I conclude after we’ve trudged along the mist-shrouded sea front and gravitated into the chav-populated shopping precinct. Unit after unit is boarded-up or whitewashed out, and I’ve already spotted three failed estate agency operations, with a morbid mixture of glee and melancholy.

As we circle aimlessly round a tacky gift shop and I speculate just how they’d force me to cough-up if I did smash an ornament and was asked to “ pay for all breakages” other than hearts, a mobile phone bleeps.

Like arthritic gunslingers, we both reach for our hardware. My Nokia looks blankly back at me, no hint of apology on its inactive screensaver, while my wife coos in delight. ‘He’s answered.’

‘When did you text him?’ I quiz accusingly, as we exit without buying and I’m sorely tempted to tip-over a glass collectable, near the door.
‘While you were looking in that agent’s window.’ Mutters my wife, excitedly checking the hour-by-hour listing of where my son should be, on his culture, photo opportunity, fast-food adventure.

As rain dribbles down my neck I crane forward to see my son’s response and laugh out loud, to the consternation of the Big Issue seller sheltering in a vacant shop’s doorway. He doesn’t bother to pitch the magazine, as I cackle manically to my youngest son’s response to his mother’s earlier request, asking how he found the Vatican and the food?

Pope good. Hard Rock Café awesome. Reads the sparse but succinct response.
‘Score one for rampant capitalism and strike one for the Catholic Church.’ I giggle, suddenly uplifted, but clearly, not in a spiritual way. ‘I’m sure he’ll like the Colosseum.’ Mutters my wife, as I stop involuntarily at a lit window.

Through the familiar wire-strung displays, illuminated like a stage in the gathering twilight, I spot a familiar cast. A junior negotiator is standing by a churning photocopier. A bored middle-aged woman is filing her nails at the lettings desk, and a paunchy grey-haired individual in old man’s hitched-up trousers, and shirtsleeves, is standing over his co-ordinator as she taps out particulars.

Just as I’m thinking how the man looks an officious overbearing fool and how he’s obviously too old to still be selling, clad in a garish ill-ironed shirt and fastidiously checking-up on the poor girl’s typing speed when a modern manager would create his own details - my wife says. ‘Oh look, you in ten years time.’

It’s not a reflection I wanted.

Love Don't Live Here Any More - Monday

First in to the office, I stoop to collect the post, scowl, and then grab the keys to the DX box and stumble to the nearby solicitor’s lobby. A youngish woman is in the musty-smelling post-room when I arrive and we exchange brief greetings as she sifts through the envelopes in her company pigeonhole.

Like mine they are all buff-coloured envelopes and jiffy-bags, nothing to make the heart beat faster.
‘Still no Valentine’s cards.’ I say with forced jocularity and as soon as I speak I know it’s a mistake. Not only does she look spooked in the suddenly threatening, closed-off environment, but I’ve contrived to insult her at the very least, assuming she doesn’t think I’m some middle-aged stalker with an account at Hallmark.

The door slams behind her and I’m left staring at my starkly empty company box for the thousandth time, and left lamenting the lack of a card - even one my mum might have written anonymously – for the thirty-somethingth time. And I spit out a swear word and sullenly kick the bank of metal containers. The expletive and the blow are still echoing uncomfortably round the bare walls when the door opens again and another office girl steps in tentatively, giving me the sort of look reserved for something slippery and canine-ejected that you’ve stepped in.

‘How many cards did you get?’ Asks negotiator S excitedly when the morning meeting whimpers and expires like a pensioner who couldn’t reach their pull-cord.
‘One.’ Announces B from lettings unconvincingly, avoiding direct eye contact with me. ‘One.’ Says trainee F probably mimicking B but who knows? ‘I don’t do all that soppy sentiment.’ Reports bloated mortgage man M primly. No, I think, you just masquerade on-line as a svelte lover, by using a Photo-shopped picture of someone else’s body. Does the desperate divorcees social networking site actually allow people to ever meet? If so they’ll be as traumatised as the woman at the post room earlier.

‘I had two!’ Gushes S in a girly-giggle before adding. ‘And neither of them were from my boyfriend.’ I’m not surprised, I think sourly, that lummox can barely walk upright and opposable thumbs or not, I’d hazard a guess he’d struggle to pick up the implement, let alone pen a poem. And suddenly I realise S is looking at me. Everyone is looking at me.

Surely they don’t think I sent her one? I mean, after my wife announced - for the avoidance of doubt - that we didn’t need to do presents or over-priced cards at our age, I forgot about the tawdry marketing exercise. It was just as well because since head office clamped-down on expenses, last minute floral arrangements from Texaco’s forecourt have been a no-no anyway. The fuel card only allows unleaded, diesel or motor oil. No space on the chit for slightly wilted carnations.

I can feel my cheeks beginning to glow now, as the expectant group wait for me to confess. They think I sent S a card. S thinks I sent her a card. Hell, they don’t know me at all. If I wanted to splurge several quid on a wild flight of fancy that was never going to come to anything, I’d have bought several Euro Lottery tickets not coughed for a soppy sentimental hearts and roses con.

‘Come on then tell.’ Urges assistant manager T, who incidentally has yet to report his score.
‘Yeh, how many did you get?’ Presses F, bailing me out. And for a moment I could kiss him, which as it happens is far more likely than a lip-to-lip meeting with S – although immeasurably more disturbing.

‘None?’ Echoes M with a big-bellied laugh as I retreat to my office. ‘Doesn’t surprise me.’ And as the door shuts and I stare at a forbidding bunch of brown, and white window envelopes, I’m transported back to schooldays and the ritual humiliation the whole exercise brings every February 14th.

It’s too late to buy a card for my wife now and chocolates are off, with the latest diet. I’d only end up comfort eating the whole box - bar the coconut one’s - and we already have one member of staff with bigger breasts than the girls.

Maybe next year.

Dress Code - Wednesday

I’m wedged between the property display and the plate glass like some cut-price hooker in an Amsterdam window. ‘Just hand me the photograph.’ I instruct assistant manager T tetchily. The halogen lights above are beginning to fry my exposed scalp and short of wearing a knotted handkerchief like some northern holidaymaker, I’m risking third-degree burns if I lurk any longer.

‘Not sure if this is worth putting in prime position.’ Ponders T languidly as he looks at the over-priced home in his hand and I begin to feel the face cream my wife said would clear up the dry patch of skin and not smell effeminate at all, start to melt.
‘Just hand me the friggin photo.’ I snap, snagging an ankle on one of the taut display anchoring cables, and nearly falling arse over apex.

My school of management – such as it is – has always been predicated on demonstrating to your staff that you’ll take on the most mundane tasks around the office when necessary. The theory is, it will make them feel included and valued and they might just take it upon themselves to refresh the point of sale display without a size ten foot up their backsides. Not sure it’s working.

The bean counter boss on the other hand and my more successful but considerably shorter rival manager H, both work on the basis of remaining aloof and distant from their minions. The bean counter manages by memo and spreadsheet, and H just uses his staff until they are burnt out, or suing for sexual harassment.

‘Oh god that’s all I need.’ I mutter dejectedly, as I spy one of the opposition marching down the high street. I look like some hopeless trainee wedged against the glass, which is ironic because I already have one - F - only he is off sick again and rumoured to be wedged against his kooky girlfriend with the wild hair and the nose piercing. Maybe they’ve become irrevocably entangled I think fleetingly, as the other agent passes.

‘What a dick.’ I announce to the office as I ease myself out of the narrow confines, a bead of sweat running uncomfortably down my collar and lodging somewhere around the buttocks.
‘You’re just saying that because he stuffed you on that instruction you wanted last week.’ Suggests negotiator S disloyally and I look at her askance. Surely she doesn’t fancy the prig?

‘He’s just the sort of poser who gives the profession a bad name.’ I tell her primly, and go on to list his faults with the sort of detail that might suggest malice aforethought to the casual observer. The mid-twenties man walks just too fast and with the type of mincing steps that suggest some sort of foreign object is wedged where it shouldn’t be. The suit is slightly too edgy and doubtless too pricey for my liking, and double cuffs are protruding from the sleeves with a jaunty top-pocket handkerchief on display.

‘He seems okay.’ Ventures S defiantly.
‘Okay?’ I splutter. ‘He always has a mobile phone glued to his ear as if he’s clinching some multi million pound deal, rather than talking to his mother. And as for his choice in ties…’ and I run out of steam and turn to T for support. He shrugs as I spot his rather garish silk neckwear and I resolve to make sure he’s in the window display next week, getting cobwebs in his perfectly coiffured hair.

‘I think a pink tie can work if a man is macho enough to pull it off.’ States S resolutely and I realise I’m fighting a losing battle.
‘Yes I agree,’ slurs B from her lettings desk. Like a jackal sensing a wounded antelope she joins in for the kill before adding bitingly. ‘It’s probably the sign of a homophobe when they make observations like that.’
‘Or a closet gay who’s yet to come out.’ Chips in T to laughs all round and a guarantee of not having to make the tea for the rest of the day.

After all this time, I still don’t seem to have the hang of management – it’s a queer business.

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.