Data Overload - Wednesday

I’m on another unwanted course in another cheap hotel, staffed by eastern europeans who’d really rather be at home, from their body language. 

As a man who started his career on a basic wage so low that the Job Centre wouldn’t carry the advert, I’m all for sensible salaries as not everyone can walk the commission tightrope. But you have to wonder if the guaranteed minimum wage isn’t dragging Svetlana and Bogdan away from perfectly good jobs at the Razgrad Ramada Inn - although maybe they don’t have a demand for shitty under-lit meeting rooms that require stewed coffee and stale custard creams…

‘This will be another colossal waste of time.’ Whispers my vertically-challenged, rival manager H, as he sits beside me and that unconventionally pretty woman from the city centre office goes and sits at the other end of the table. Damn the little squirt, I was hoping for some distraction from another poorly-delivered PowerPoint presentation.

‘You know what they say.’ I mutter through my amateur ventriloquist’s grimace, as a butch looking woman, in inadvisable trouser suit, enters the room clutching a clipboard.

‘What?’ Replies B.

‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ I croak back, trying to keep my teeth together and wondering just how the fat-arsed woman managed to leave the house without checking her appearance. I’m guessing no full-length mirrors.

‘You didn’t let me finish,’ says H hurriedly. ‘ I meant what the hell is that?’ And he nods towards our bulky guest speaker, about to bore us rigid on the Data Protection Act.

It’s not a chivalrous comment but then nobody at the sharp end of sales has much time for pen-pushing jobsworths who know the minutiae of every laxly-drafted piece of legislation, but couldn’t sell a lifebelt to a drowning man. At least not without  torturously advising him of the health and safety limitations of a non-kitemarked flotation device, as he slowly sinks for the final time.

Strange, how the UK property industry becomes progressively hog-tied by clunky laws that produce unintended consequences often detrimental to the intended beneficiaries, and yet is still one of the few countries in the world where an estate agent can practice without a licence, or any relevant qualifications.

‘We could do with some data protection from that fat backside, way too much information.’ Comments H, as the presenter sets up a projector, bending unfortunately in front of us and nearly blanking out 150 x150cms worth of matt-white, flame retardant/mildew resistant Bi-Office tripod screen.

‘Today I’m going to give you a refresher on the implications and implementation of the Data Protection Act 1998.’ Drones the woman as she indicates her dull first slide, now visible on the just erected screen. I can feel another little piece of my life ebbing away and for a moment I think the gurgling is an audible representation of it, until I see H had got the thermos style coffee pot and is pumping the black button to try and liberate some gravy-like cash and carry coffee. He’ll need it to stay awake.

I wouldn’t mind, but I still don’t quite get how the Data Protection Act and the secrecy required, dovetails with the equally ponderous Freedom of Information Act. Who am I kidding? It doesn’t.

‘Here we go.’ Says H sourly, as a slide listing DataProtection principles pops onto the screen.

‘A raft of extra paperwork to do and special status for ever minority and freak show member under the sun.’

And I thought I was the jaundiced one. Still H has a point. We are already unpaid border control and tax evasion monitors. You begin to wonder just what these not very civil servants actually do?

Three hours later and the stale sandwiches arrive and the dull woman with the oversized arse cheeks comes towards me. I never attract the pretty ones.

‘How are you finding it?’ She asks me, grabbing the last two egg and cress sandwiches.

Hard to miss, I feel like saying, particularly as I had my eye on the final food offerings. But of course I do what everyone will do with the Data Protection requirements. Lie and prevaricate.

‘Very informative thank-you.’

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Muck And Brass - Saturday

‘Do we have to do this?’ I whine ungraciously to my wife.

‘Sometimes you have to get down and dirty.’ She replies pulling on the rubber gloves.

‘But I’d rather watch the football.’ I tell her, wondering if my back will be up to this.

‘Put it on record and you can come back to it when we’re done. You never know you might even enjoy it in a weird way.’

So I stoop down and lift the up and over door.

I must look at scores of homes a week and have seen thousands over my, less than glorious career, but rarely do I see a garage containing a car. Yes, you get the occasional motoring geek who concrete paints the floor and has the whole expanse clinically clean and organised like an operating theatre. The type of obsessive oddball who stencils the shape of his tools on the wall where they must be re-hung after use and who organises half-used paint pots in colour coded order, pastels on the left, bolder colours to the right, gloss and white spirit on a separate shelf. But most garages are like mine, full of rubbish yet to go to the tip.

‘I might need that wood one day.’ I tell my wife half-heartedly, as another sneeze erupts from the dust dancing before my eyes in the watery sunlight.

She looks at me scornfully. My DIY skills, or lack of them, are legendary in this household, there’s nowhere to hang rusting tools on any of the wall-space here. In fact, the only hooks I tried to mount on the block-work are now lopsided, with one rawlplug protruding from an oversized hole, as a crooked stepladder hangs at an improbable angle. I’ll fix that later.

The six foot – approx two metres, but buyers should take their own measurements as figures are for guidance purposes only – piece of skirting, is duly posted in the back of my company car, alongside the old pine shelving, several spent bike tyres, a brace of obsolete computers, the once top-of-the-range Sony VHS recorder and my eldest son’s redundant cathode ray television set. Numerous other black bags are wedged in the load space as the car sinks ever lower on its springs. I’m only making one journey.

‘What are these, can we ditch them?’ Asks my wife holding up several hard drives from the spent computer towers. I may not be that handy with a screwdriver but I laboured to remove the old spinning discs from the once expensive machines. You can’t be too careful with personal data and I don’t want some kid in an African village seeing my log on details, or the history I built up before I realised how to, browse in private.

‘Need to keep those, Data Protection Act.’ I tell her officiously. It seems to work. Years of selling have taught me if you say something with enough conviction people invariably believe you.

‘What are these doing here?’ Asks my wife tugging back some big sheets of cardboard I’ve been meaning to recycle for half a decade. I colour up as if she has actually found my Internet search records. Three separate for sale flags, belonging to three different estate agency companies, one of which has gone bust so its board and logo might be worth keeping as a collector’s item, are dustily revealed.

‘Isn’t that theft?’ Scolds my wife as I bounce up and down on the wooden poles and try to break them into manageable sizes. The polypropylene flags aren’t so easily destroyed, I know they burn well every November 5^th but I’m already imagining the difficulty I’m going to have at the municipal dump. They charge for commercial waste and pleading one of the firms no longer exists, isn’t going to cut much ice with the officious waste control operatives.

‘They take down our boards all the time.’ I appeal in mitigation, as I try vainly to fold the fully waterproof, ideal for outdoor applications, fluted sheet advertising hoarding in on itself. Damn that stuff is robust. Not sure which dump bin it will go in, but I’m guessing a couple of millennium to decompose.

I wonder what the score is?

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Please Hold Caller - Monday

‘No calls for a while please.’ I tell the office as I begin the retreat to my own space. I don’t often close the door – not least because it’s lonely in there - but some calls need to be away from the general public.

‘Got to speak to the bean counter’ Asks assistant manger T with a wry smile.

Not sure publicising the nickname for my pedantic little figure-fiddling boss was the smartest move I’ve made, but once the lid’s off the box…

‘I’d rather not initiate a call.’ I tell T as he nods in understanding.

‘Secret girlfriend?’ Suggests lettings lush B with a salacious smirk.

‘He’s happily married.’ Counters negotiator S sweetly.

‘Yeh right.’ Contributes fat mortgage man M sarcastically. ‘We deal with more matrimonials than the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.’

‘You’re so cynical.’ Says S with the sort of naivety that only a girl with a single-hand boyfriend count since school, could muster.

‘If you must know,’ I tell the team, glad of the delay. ‘I’m about to ring a customer help line.’ The laughter takes a while to subside.

‘We’ve got to listen to that.’ Pleads T, tears of mirth not far away. ‘Could you instigate your open door policy?’

I promised myself I wouldn’t use the F-word and I fail even before I dial the suspiciously coded number that will probably cost me 45 pence a minute, or at least the bean counter - an upside I hadn’t expected.

‘I’m guessing it won’t be a pleasant experience for the end-user.’ Suggests S with a smile. I bang on day in, day out, about listening to clients needs and responding positively without resorting to a script. Major on the point of difference someone human can give, if they really go the extra yard – metres are available too you Trading Standards Nazis – and respond to requests by doing what they say, by delivering top-notch service. Without it we’re just another agent that nobody likes much.

‘You should tape it so we can have a giggle later.’ Suggests T. The secret recording equipment was banned some time ago, but not after we had several Christmas parties-worth of tapes where other agents responded to fee enquiries and mailing list requests, with laughable ineptitude.

It’s illegal to record without permission.’ I say limply. I think it is, but then I can’t keep up with conflicting legislation at the best of times. I’m supposed to be the Freedom Of Information Act officer - but I try not to tell anyone. The Data Protection Act just adds to the confusion. The thought of telling the call centre drone that I might record my call for training purposes gives me some amusement though. It won’t last.

‘You’ll probably get some dozy Indian who can’t speak English.’ Snarls B with the lack of political correctness that wins her lots of love from Eastern European tenants, trying to rent without references in English.

‘You can’t say that.’ Counters S feistily.

Race Relations Act, I’m 99% certain…

‘We are experiencing high levels of calls,’ clanks an automated voice I already hate as much as that officious woman on my wife’s car sat nav.

‘Of course you are.’ I mimic. When don’t you? I insist my staff answer within three rings but this doesn’t seem to apply in Mumbai. And the accountants think they’re saving the company money by sacking UK staff.

Ten minutes of unlikely 80s soft rock later I’m given several keypad choices, none of which are what I want. I press the # key repeatedly, just for the hell of it. I read somewhere if you don’t conform you jump the queue and speak to a real person. Instead I’m asked for my date of birth, something that really pisses me off.

Far off birthday recited twice, order number parroted in the slow fashion you’d talk to a toddler, or a tottering pensioner, and I’m asked for my home address. The expletive vow fails again.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.’ Chimes the digitised voice. ‘Did you say: 4 Duck’s Lake?’

Close, but no cigar - and no refund. I had to hang up to take a call from my boss.

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Now Wash Your Hands - Friday

I can pinpoint the source of infection even though I didn’t get the instruction. Pretty sure some sort of finicky Data Protection legislation stops me from naming the family and their home address, but I have the germs to prove it.

‘He’s off school with a cold.’ The mother told me as her son sneezed towards me for the third time without raising his hand to his mouth.

‘There’s a lot of it about.’ I replied, knowing I couldn’t afford to point out her snotty brat had no manners, if I wanted the run-down house to sell. Little git probably doesn’t write thank-you letters, sits when old ladies are standing on the bus and doubtless is allowed to eat his dinner sat in front of the giant flat-screen television, I’d thought prissily.

If you are going to turn into your parents, I’ve decided on balance, it’ll be my mother. Some of the post war ethics and manners have stuck despite the punk years of rebellion and injudicious spitting during concerts - before the health risks became apparent. In retrospect, placing your hand over your mouth as you pogoed to The Stranglers might have marked you out as a middle class interloper faking the anarchy anger, but I’d have been in good company.

‘You should go home to bed.’ Advises S my negotiator sweetly. A Lem-Sip blurred vision, not helped by partial deafness in one blocked ear, has me briefly imagining it was an invitation rather than a recommendation. Reality dawns as another percussive sneeze bursts from my nose, echoing round the office despite my, now spattered hand’s best efforts, to block the germ spray.

‘Can’t afford any time off.’ I say in an oddly detached voice. The inner ear infection isn’t helping my balance and I nearly went arse over apex down the car park steps earlier. I’m pretty sure the Big Issue seller I try to avoid, was laughing as I did a baby giraffe impression down the incline, only just managing to stay upright by dint of waving my briefcase around like some faux leather counterbalance. He may have said: “F***ing estate agents”, but like S’s last suggestion I might have misconstrued.

‘You look like death.’ Says assistant manager T unhelpfully as he comes back into the office. My desk drawer is open as I search through more half-used pharmaceutical products than an entire mid-African hospital could muster. I’ve inhaled more menthol than a chain-smoking Sterling Superkings addict and my teeth have a sticky synthetic cherry coating I’ve sucked on so many Fisherman’s Friends.

‘Bloody public.’ I rail as I tilt my head and a seeming torrent of fluid sloshes in my ear. ‘If they’re not giving you grief, they’re giving you viruses.’

‘You’ve got it bad.’ Says T ambiguously. He doesn’t know the half of it. My phone line rings, at least I think it does. I glance plaintively at T and he nods.

‘Yes?’ I say to nothing but a fuzzy noise reminiscent of when television programming finished before bedtime. T points to my other ear and I swap the handset over.

‘It’s the bean counter on line three.’ Says S apologetically. Terrific. I have a thumping in my head like some insane overwrought 1970s drum solo and now I’m about to be criticised for my office sales figures. Bang out of order.

‘Whoa there, not sure you are supposed to do that.’ Admonishes fat mortgage man M as he walks in on me in the gents’ toilets. I’m not feeling that well, yet. Instead, I’m ramming a cotton bud into the side of my head with ever-increasing intensity. I know it says: Never Insert In Your Inner Ear on the tub but if you no longer have a baby what else would you use them for? Might as well stencil: Never Place In A Body Cavity on a box of sanitary products. Ridiculous.

‘I just want to burst the bubble.’ I say plaintively.

‘You and all those losers on the House Price Crash forum.’ Chuckles M. before entering the cubicle and seconds later unleashing the most monstrous of farts. I heard that, even through a clogged, fluid-filled membrane. The smell is deeply unpleasant.

Who’d have thought earwax reeked that badly?

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