Black Pudding - Friday

‘If I see another f***ing PowerPoint presentation I’ll top myself.’ Hisses my vertically challenged rival manager H as we settle into another bland hotel meeting room and the bean counter boss unfolds his laptop.

He has a point. The graphic of the be-suited man climbing some sort of snakes and ladders sales mountain had a certain novelty value about a decade ago, but now I just long for an old-fashioned overhead projector and a couple of acetates. Maybe even some A4 handouts.

‘The first and last refuge of the terminally dull presenter.’ I tell H, as I sit reluctantly next to him after missing out in the unseemly scrabble to be seated by the new and smoking hot female manager, who is having some early sales success in an office where the last incumbent spent more time downing measures, than measuring up.

‘She won’t last long on top.’ Sneers H, conjuring up a vision I have trouble shaking, until the eastern European girl with the embryonic moustache and the unflattering nylon housecoat turns up, with pots of stewed tea and coffee strong enough to strip the enamel from your teeth.

‘She’s producing some good instruction figures.’ I tell H, pouring a dark and suspicious smelling brew into the already stained cup in front of me. And I look at my new colleague and give her, what I judge to be, a companionably but in no way salacious smile of encouragement. She smiles radiantly back and I realise why she’s getting quite a few sole agencies with boards - at least from the male vendors.

‘It won’t last.’ Gripes H ungraciously. ‘They always get hormonal or pregnant once the first flush of enthusiasm goes.’

He really is a whole heap of chauvinistic unpleasantness for such a small package. It really irks me his office outperforms mine, ten months out of twelve.

I watch the bean counter as he fiddles with his tracker pad and tries to line up the first image, one his secretary probably prepared for him, with the portable projection screen. Despondent, as I imagine scores of slides a ten year old would be ashamed to produce flashing before my eyes for the next ninety minutes, I look at the pile of dusty Imperial mints in the saucer in front of me and wonder how long it would take to overdose on sugary spheres?

How did I get here? Asks that annoying inner voice, one that grows in intensity with each passing year and each newly increased sales target. A salesman’s career is finite, like any other, but unlike say, a doctor or lawyer improving with the accumulation of age and knowledge, estate agency is essentially a young man’s – or woman’s – game. There are only so many late night viewings and valuations you can do with utter wasters before you start to lose that youthful enthusiasm. Next time round I’ll definitely pay more attention at school and try not to grow up in a dysfunctional family.

‘Financial service performance is far from acceptable.’ Drones the bean counter, as I begin to yearn for the temporary high of the soggy bacon butties that we’ll be having at the comfort break. I already have virtual indigestion, the physical version might as well accompany it once the industrialised white baps and water-pumped bacon arrives. When the absurd, Americanised, breakfast meeting idea arrived on these shores, it seemed radical and not a little exotic. But budget cuts soon ditched the full English for poor man’s transport café fare and the realisation that the whole charade of shared sustenance and team-building was just an excuse to get you out of bed a couple of hours earlier, and back in the office before opening time.

‘I hate clapping for someone else.’ Gripes H as I think welcome to my world short-arse. The pretty new manager has just collected a bottle of cheap bubbly and the embarrassingly naff, new instruction performance cup. At least she has the good grace to blush – it will soon fade.

‘We’ll see if the bitch has sold any of them next month.’ Says H poisonously.

The Imperial mints are rattling around in the car coin tray. Not sure I’ve stolen enough.

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Plasma Scream - Monday

I feel the sharp tug of the blade and hope against hope it won’t bleed. You don’t need a shaving cut when you are already running late and facing a meeting you’d rather not attend and a day you’d rather not have. I wait for those few seconds that taunt the unwary bristle-cutter, just long enough for a little hope to bubble to the surface, before the claret does.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’ I shout in anguish as the surprisingly vibrant crimson liquid, given how tired I feel, oozes through the snowy shaving foam.

‘Are you alright in there?’ questions my wife, as I stare morbidly fascinated at the blood pumping from the cut. ‘Did you want the laxatives or the Diocalm?’

‘Different type of shit.’ I mutter, as I wipe at the place in question and a tomato sauce-like smear ruins the perfect juxtaposition of virgin white and little bleeder.

‘Have you cut yourself?’ She asks unnecessarily as I slope from the en-suite with a piece of coagulating toilet paper welded to my face. The options for lacerating sarcasm are endless but there’s been enough slicing for one morning.

‘Do you want to wear a blue shirt rather than the white?’ Asks my wife, as I try gingerly peeling the hardened tissue from the wound after breakfast. ‘Does it make any difference?’ I ask testily, as a sharp pain makes my eyes water when the temporary fix parts company with my face. I wait again, peering in the hall mirror pessimistically. It takes a fraction longer, but the blood starts to flow again.

‘Do you ever get the feeling someone up there doesn’t like you?’ I say rhetorically, as I hurry up the stairs again to the bathroom. I’m running short of time and my heart is thumping by the time I make the last step. Something guaranteed to keep the wound open and flowing. A fact confirmed as I look in the shaving mirror again, to see a tear-shaped rivulet of red weeping down my face. Too many metaphors to choose from, I think gloomily, as I wonder how stupid a plaster will look and how much grief I’ll get walking in to the meeting sporting a flesh-coloured face-appendage. Salespeople are not renowned for their compassion.

‘Nobody will notice.’ Speculates my wife absurdly, as I come back down with a blue shirt and an even bluer demeanour. I’ve opted for another scrap of tissue, one that has now darkened to a crusty brown hue, rather than a plaster. I hope to peel it off in the car park and pray some clotting has formed, other than in my heart arteries, by then.

Bad enough facing a bunch of braying colleagues, keen to fall on the weakest pack member to deflect from their own failing and sales figure, but I have a string of valuations later in the day. Like the clean shoes fetish I have and the matching shirt, suit and tie obsession, I know the slightest perceived slight or oddity can cost you the business. Look wrong, or look at the wife, daughter or boyfriend wrongly and the business flows away faster than an opened vein. It’s a bloody nightmare.

‘Hah. Who smacked you in the mouth?’ Laughs H my poison dwarf of a rival manger, as I slide into the meeting room, absurd circular plaster on my face after a failed attempt at a clean removal of the blotting paper-like bog roll, in the car vanity mirror. The blood took a little longer to rise to the surface but it came in the end.

‘You’re late.’ Snipes the bean counter from the head of the table, lifting his weasel-featured face from the laptop just long enough to see who was going in the bad books. Loss column presumably.

‘Angry punter?’ Asks H loudly, to a round of laughter from the table.

‘Who’d you shaft?’ He continues on a roll, other than the half- eaten bacon one in front of him. ‘Buyer, owner or their pet?’ I’d like to impale him with a suitable implement, but the budget hotel only supplies plastic cutlery and my wit is no sharper than my razor.

Cuts like a knife.