Appetite For Destruction - Thursday

I enter the budget hotel car park just as my rival manager H sweeps in with his two bands higher, company car. The vertically-challenged throwback seems to stick to me like a turd on a heel. I’m sure he does it just for another opportunity to taunt me about his superior sales figures. He still can’t reach the bar to pick up his pint though….

‘How’s it going?’ Asks H, as we trudge toward the revolving door without enthusiasm. He isn’t actually interested. Like creepy dark-eyed carrion feeding off others misfortune - he just wants to crow.

I tell him how business is, with the usual poetic licence beloved of sales people the world over. He’s not listening. 

‘Four in the bag already this week,’ he trumpets as we shuffle through the spinning entrance. ‘And multiple offers on two others.’ I’m tempted to jump out of the glass-prison and give it a mighty shove, just to see him spinning inside, little legs pumping like a mini Usain Bolt until he falls and is flattened by the mechanism. But of course I don’t. Imagine the paperwork.

‘Who started this absurd breakfast meeting nonsense?’ Asks H angrily, as I nod at a new eastern european lady behind the reception desk and spot the mis-spelt welcome board detailing which soul-less meeting room we are in today.

‘I think it came over from America in the eighties.’ I tell him flatly.

‘Like Aids then.’ Responds H, nastily.

Political correctness and empathy seem to have passed H by, despite the awareness courses the lesbian in Human Resources likes to run.

We enter the appointed room and an unpleasant waft of congealed fat assaults my nostrils. With dismay, I see this time the breakfast offerings are actually in the same room. Three trestle tables are spread along one wall, covered in disposable paper cloths, and supporting those vast copper containers with lids on. A bunsen burner-type arrangement sits under each vessel, gently stewing the contents that have doubtless been wallowing in their own fat for at least forty minutes. My stomach rumbles audibly. I’m going to regret this.

‘Who’s the new totty?’ Asks H in a louder than necessary stage whisper. He’s indicating an earnest-looking young woman in a trouser suit. She’s almost pretty, in a bookish, boyish way.

‘A new financial consultant.’ I tell him softly. I’ve met the girl once and warmed to her about as much as the solidifying scrambled eggs.

‘She won’t last.’ Predicts H, sitting beside me. Shit on a shoe-style.

‘You can’t say that.’ I hiss. Seeing our bean-counter boss is looking at me challengingly - and that’s before he puts my office figures on the overhead.

‘Just saying.’ Counters H. ‘If she isn’t in tears before the end of the year, she’ll be pregnant.’

If she sits in your office too long, she will be. I think with a shiver.

H doesn’t employ women of child-bearing age except on reception, or in secretarial roles. He’s the sort of throwback that would suit the eighties, except a mullet and shoulder pads would probably tip him over.

I’ve argued long in to the night with H at countless hotel bars, over his misogynistic views, but he remains unmoved and undersized. 

‘Sooner or later they all skive off on maternity leave and end up impacting on the office sales’ figure.’ He argues. ‘Then you can’t employ a proper replacement and they want to keep the cocking company car for the school run.’

I’m hoping Darwin will get him in the end.

‘Bet she doesn’t eat meat either.’ Continues H, as he shadows me to the food station. ‘F•••ing vegans. You don’t get any in African villages, I’m telling you.’

Grudgingly, I have to concede H has a point. The fads and foibles we have to cater for in the workplace have reached epidemic proportions. I’m guessing if you haven’t eaten anything for days but a stale yam, and your mother has trudged five miles to a well, you won’t be demanding Perrier and a Linda McCartney ready meal. Give me the muddy water and something with a heartbeat to eat, bitch!

Just not the sweaty bacon. 

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Learning Curves - Thursday

‘Want to hear the latest rumour?’ Asks assistant manager T as I enter the office.

Not if it involves vapid celebrities, profiled in some journalistic-ability-free magazine airheads read at the hairdressers, I don’t. If I wanted to see overblown tits on a Caribbean beach, I’d rather it was me on holiday, taking a selfie. 

‘Is it relevant to the business?’ I ask T flatly.

‘Of course.’ He fires back, with a hint of irritation. Well he did waste ten minutes, earlier today, discussing some C-list celebrity and her latest flesh-revealing turn on some ghastly fly-on-the-wall television programme. I’m all for diversity in scheduling but I do sometimes yearn for a simpler time, when everyone sat down to watch the Generation Game, even if I could never remember what tat was on the conveyer belt.

‘A new agent is supposed to be opening in town.’ Says T, with a half-concealed sneer.

‘Where abouts?’ Queries big mortgage man M, as he saunters across the office, floorboards creaking.

T reveals the location, a tertiary position at best, one where numerous retail mis-adventures have foundered on poorly written business plans, plus the mistaken believe that just because your friends buy overpriced pushchairs and you love babies, a shop selling kids’ clothing will survive.

‘They’d need a change of use from A1 to A2 planning status.’ I tell T. He looks at me blankly, designer frames catching the light. I’ve urged him to sit some Estate Agency exams, to learn about the legal, financial and construction process but he hasn’t seen the point up to now. And to be truthful, who can blame him when nobody feels it necessary? After all, whoever the new agent in town is won’t need qualifications either.

‘It’s a terrible position. ‘ I tell the team, having informed them a planning notice, for change of use, will have to be posted outside the empty unit in question. Nobody has spotted if there’s one up already, so I guess it will be up to be to swing by and check on my next outside appointment. They’ll miss me when I’m gone. Probably….

‘I’ve heard it might be some sort of hybrid set-up.’ Continues T earnestly. ‘Part on-line estate agent, part traditional.’

‘Fat chance.’ I snap back, just as M waddles back from the kitchen. No, of course he hasn’t made anyone else a drink, he’s a financial consultant. A morbidly obese one.

‘Why so?’ Questions negotiators S earnestly.

‘Because you can’t practice estate agency like a call centre.’ I tell her frostily. She should know my views on this by now. I studied and struggled with my industry exams and even now, after several decades, I come across problems and situations my knowledge is tested by. 

Property is a complicated business, and if you retain me as your agent you are buying my skill-set, both negotiating and professional. The problem is, you only realise the quality of agent you have after the buying event. Once you’ve instructed them to sell your home.

‘You don’t think on-line agents will ever catch on then?’ Asks trainee F, mouth slightly ajar.

He could work for one, I think uncharitably, that way nobody need see his face. But on reflection, F with all his faults, is already way better than any bucket shop outfit whose naive investors think selling homes only entails placing an on-line listing on the Internet. That’s the easy bit, the problems start after that.

‘On-line agents and cheap fee outfits have been the next big thing for the past fifteen years.’ I tell my team decisively. ‘And here we are, still conducting viewings, holding keys, re-negotiating sales after surveys and cajoling lazy lawyers.’

‘Problem is the public don’t see that.’ Counters T, accurately. ‘They think it’s money for old rope, one upload onto the portal and we get thousand of pounds.’

‘That’s why we need to stress the points of difference, ‘ I urge. ‘Let people know they get what they pay for and that they only pay when we get them a result.’

The conversation dries up.

Not sure anyone is listening.

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Groundhog Day - Monday

‘How are you feeling?’ Asks my wife as I hop from leg to leg and try to pull my suit trousers up. I can feel the suntan fading even before the material covers my legs until a far off two weeks next summer. It’s a good question. Like most people in sales, you fret before you go away, hoping you won’t miss too many business opportunities and your colleagues keep those plates spinning for you. Then you begin to worry in a similar vein, a few days before you return. Not sure it’s healthy.

‘I hope they haven’t mucked too much up.’ I tell my wife to a headshake of dismay.

‘What?’ I query unnecessarily, as I lurch to one side and catch a trouser leg under my bad foot, tumbling on to the bed in a distant parody of our wedding night – only without the ardour.

‘You need to learn to let them get on with it.’ Chides my better half. ‘They are a good bunch.’

She’s right – although trainee F is a borderline retard, lettings lush B an incipient alcoholic and financial consultant M a glutton for policies and pies…..but broadly, she’s right.

‘I just don’t want my figures to go to pot every time I’m on holiday.’ I tell her as I tug the trouser waistband together and find either an extra inch of gut has appeared since I last donned the strides - or the dry cleaner has shrunk the material.

‘Looks like one figure already has.’ Says my wife with a mischievous grin.

Every year it gets harder and harder to eat drink and be merry without scale-bothering side effects, and every year it gets harder and harder to go back to the office and start all over again.

‘How do I look?’ I ask my wife. It’s a question I rarely pose and she asks every time we go to a social event. Turns out her lies are even less convincing than mine. My shirt collar is nipping at my neck and the throat-constricting clasp of a temporarily unaccustomed tie is already making me feel trapped.

‘God,’ I moan in despair as I glance in the mirror and see an older, browner version of me. ‘I’ve got more chins….’

‘Than a Chinese phone book?’ Finishes my wife flatly.

There was a time when she laughed at my jokes, or at least didn’t remind me she’d heard them all before.

‘The first day back is always the worst.’ She tells me at the door as she hands me my slightly battered brief case. She’s offered to buy me one of those trendy, leather, laptop-sized man bags but it only reminds me of my school satchel and I’m still trying to forget that particular trauma. Some of those teachers would be convicted and imprisoned by today’s standards and if I ever visit that maths teacher in a sheltered home I’ll happily knot all his orange emergency pull-cords at a height he can’t grab from the floor. Try working out the algebraic equation to contact a call centre 3,000 miles away as the cord swings back and forth at a pendulum rate of 30 beats to the minute while lying in a pool of your own piss, you old sadist.

‘Chins up.’ Offers my wife, with a chuckle. I smile all the way to the car, until the sciatic pain I’ve hardly felt when relaxed and in swim shorts, spears its way down my leg like the shock from a cattle prod. Even as I fire up the engine and the battery labours after fourteen days of inactivity, my stomach is gurgling like a washing machine on its first fill-up cycle. They now know labouring in dusty coalmines was ruinous to your health, and asbestos fitters – or at least their beneficiaries – have a path to financial recompense. It’s my bet that in years to come someone will realise continually escalating sales targets and rising opening hours will be an actionable offence. It’ll be a PPI mis-selling and compensation lawyers’ bonanza all over again. You heard it here first.

At the office not much has changed – including the stock, window display and sales pipeline.

I take an indigestion tablet and lift the phone.

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