Little By Little - Thursday

Back in the supermarket on another unwanted errand. This time it’s the German lot that are growing faster then Japanese knotweed. Funny, you win a couple of wars and the losers destroy your car industry, then your high street.

Not that I don’t shop there, obviously, or drive a foreign car. I gave British Leyland enough chances. I finally realised that breaking down at the side of the road in a dated car, poorly bolted together by some bolshie Brummies - while some smug bastard in a cheaper, better, Datsun drove past - had to stop. Like the Austin Allegro, as it happens…

‘See what’s in the middle at Lidl.’ Said my wife gleefully, over the phone. When I first started in this profession I couldn’t be reached, by office or spouse. Still not sure smartphone is the right term, for being on call 24/7/. Seems pretty dumb to me. Now I can get instructions to pick up some item I don’t need, any time.

‘Can’t beat the Germans can you?’ Says a hirsute bloke next to me in the centre aisle. Well you can actually beardy, I think, just not since 1945 - and that one time when Michael Owen scored a hat-trick in Munich. 

‘Pretty good value.’ I admit grudgingly as I rummage through cycling tops that appear to be a quarter of the price of one I bought a few weeks ago, and just as thermally efficient, with the same wicking properties. Bloody Krauts. 

‘I reckon before long our towns will be full of German discount supermarkets.’ Says the man, chuckling.

‘And coffee shops.’ I add, with jocularity.

‘Or f•••ing estate agents shops.’  Says the man laughing. I frown at him and he looks, as if for the first time, at my business suit.

‘Err, you’re not…..’

Yep I am you whiskery twat and they are offices not shops. A2 planning use for an office, A3 for a restaurant and A1 for retail, you shaggy-haired track-suit bottomed-wearing, ignoramus. 

Opportunity to make another friend I don’t want spurned, I move on to collect the items I was told to get. My phone throbs twice in my suit jacket  but I ignore it. Do something old school, like leave a message - or write a postcard.

‘Oh no.’ I mutter when I head for the tills and realise only one is manned. This is where the cost-cutting is. Of course they have the dreaded self-scan tills, my personal bete noire. I look in desperation for a staff member who might open one of the other tills, all with a red lane light illuminated. Nothing. And the three women ahead of me in the queue for green-lit lane two all have vast trollies overspilling with enough goods to support a Calais migrant camp for a fortnight. No wonder they are so fat they need to wear voluminous sports wear. Not that they’ll be jogging anywhere. 

‘Unexpected item in bagging area.’ Trills the automated voice, as I can’t decide which side are the scales and which side you put your pre-scanned shopping. Then the two items I’ve been send to collect - of course - refuse to have their barcodes read. Now I’m getting flustered and angry. And needless to say the PA system announces lane two will shortly be opening, just as the red mist descends.

The spotty oik I finally manage to attract, comes across and puts in an over-ride key. Then smugly taps in the barcode manually, the numbers are so small I can’t even read them. Then pleasingly, in a perverse way, he too fails to get the items recognised.

‘I’ll get something else to the same value.’ Says the lad. disappearing. ‘Leave them in the trolley and scan the other items.’

‘There you go.’ Says the employee, having fooled the machine with a citrus-flavoured toilet cleaning product. ‘Just hand this back to me when you go.’ He instructs, leaving me with an oversize lime and lemon polo mint on a backing card, before going to rescue someone else. Flustered I do as instructed as I exit the shop.

It’s only when I get back to the office, that I realise with horror, I walked out without paying.

I’m thinking Aldi, next time.

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The Only Way Is Up - Friday

Back in the budget hotel car park with a lowering sense of deja vu. This time there is some sort of barrier to negotiate and draconian threats of clamping cowboys if I don’t report to reception and obtain the appropriate get out of jail card.

I note a couple of new company cars, for those producing better sales figures than my office and the mood darkens. Then, as if to compound the misery, H my vertically-challenged rival manager, sweeps in with a shiny new German motor. The urge to key it with British Leyland lives, rises briefly, until I realise that the car park is monitored by CCTV. 

I’ve imagined many ways of resigning - with varying degrees of style - but being caught red-handed scratching graffiti on a BMW’s door, championing a defunct manufacturer that built crap cars isn’t my exit of choice. But man, it’s tempting.

‘You have ticket no?’ Asks the slightly stern looking girl on reception, as I make it through the revolving doors without being spat out into the car park again. There's a deep Freudian message in there somewhere but I’m too tired and simple to find it.

‘I’m with this lot.’ I say to the receptionist, indicating the crooked Welcome board where once again they've misplaced a couple of possessive apostrophes on two of the delegations. Not that I’m in a position to complain, I still get them wrong - and still receive reprimands from grammar pedants when I do - but at least someone is reading my output. Far better than being ignored.

‘So Estate Agents, no?’ Queries the girl. The staff seem to have shifted subtly over the past twelve months. I’m sensing a move further east, to newly admitted European nations. One thing is for sure not many indigenous locals seem to work here. The probably don’t get many UKIP delegations staying.

I acknowledge my guilt in ending up in a profession roundly despised by even third world cleaning staff and the girl, with roots badly in need of more peroxide, hands me an exit ticket. If only the career one was so easily taken.

‘I like to buy in this country.’ Says the girl with a crooked smile. I just stop myself from looking pointedly at my watch. No need to be rude before she is.

‘Only,’ continues Tatiana - happy to help according to her name badge - ‘The prices are as high as the mountains, no?’

When she puts it so charmingly it would seem churlish to point out appending NO as a suffix to every sentence tends to negate the earlier statement. So I agree with her and take the proffered, date stamped, escape ticket. Then despite my smile, her mood darkens.

‘And it’s all you peoples fault, no?’ She barks like a concentration camp commandant. Terrific, I think, as I head for the elevator my denial clearly not believed. I should check the back of my jacket to see if I’m sporting some sort of motif to make me more recognisable when the book and negotiator burning starts.

So, not only do buyers and sellers not understand how the market works, I can now add vast swathes of former Russian satellite states’ immigrants, along with “property expert” television presenters and politicians. Perhaps I should learn how to work in Housekeeping instead of housing, at least the shit tends to remain in the pan - or the bed.

The lift doors swish shut behind me and I steel myself for another piss-poor Powerpoint presentation from my bean counter boss. I read somewhere that Microsoft were stopping those tacky Clip Art inserts. The bean counter will be distraught not to have that ghastly graph with the briefcase wielding drone trudging uphill endlessly. Sales is a Sisyphean task, at least I think it is. Look it up, because it’s all Greek to me…

Then I notice the lift carriage is carrying adverts for local business outlets. The cut price clowns with cheap fees and cheap suits are staring me in the face. I spend my life persuading owners that a slashed percentage charge by an estate agent could end up costing them money, but some just won’t listen.

Just hope the lift didn’t have hidden cameras.

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