Not For Sale - Friday

‘Can I have a word?’Asks negotiator S after tapping at my - nearly always open - door. You can have three I think, politically incorrectly. She does look good though and a lot more attractive than some of the other rubbish in the office window. Injudicious thoughts shovelled to the back of my brain, I answer in the affirmative.

S take a half-step in and pulls the door semi-closed. Not sure if my gulp is audible but it’s certainly inappropriate. I wait in anticipation, nagging voice at the back of my mind already pushing unhelpful scenarios. If she’s resigning I’ll be gutted. If she’s pregnant I’m not sure, even with two decades worth of sales experience, if I could feign any form of delight. Fortunately it’s neither.

‘There’s a dodgy looking guy in the office.’ States S, hand over her mouth as she whispers.

‘Could you narrow it down a bit.’ I tell her, craning to look into the main sales area.

‘Good point.’ Concedes S with a disarming smile. ‘He ’s asking if he can have a word with the manager.’

‘Complaining or selling something?’ I probe, still trying to spot the character in question. F the idiot trainee is stood in my line of vision, waving his hands about excitedly. He’s either just taken an offer or about to have a seizure - either comes with a lot of paperwork and arguably, both could have a favourable outcome…

‘Definitely wants something from us.’ Predicts S. ‘Far too polite otherwise.’

‘But shifty though?’ I press.

‘Oh yes,’ confirms S. ‘Made me feel bit uncomfortable.’

It happens.

‘Alright.’ Begins the scruffy haired geezer in a rhetorical opening gambit, when he’s been ushered in to my office by S. He’s dressed in stained jeans, a t-shirt barely retaining a bulging beer-gut and a bomber jacket that has seen better days. I was, until you washed up like a turd on a beach I think, as I catch an unwelcome whiff of nicotine, carrying halitosis and body-odour-laced undertones.

‘I wondered if you might put some business my way.’ Says the man with a yellow-toothed grin, as he proffers a business card. I take the offering and peruse his details as he adds. ‘For the usual consideration of course.’

Great, everybody thinks all estate agents are bent. Plenty are of course and if you don’t have any licensing standards or exams for entry - like most other countries do - it’s not surprising some dubious characters get to don a suit and con a punter. I’ve never taken a back hander - although a few people have tried to slap me - and even after all this time, when someone offers me a “brown envelope” full of used notes I still take offence. 

‘Not interested.’ I say curtly to the man’s obvious surprise.

‘We do a lot of business with…’ And the man names one of our less professional competitors. It doesn’t surprise me.

‘We’ll do any house clearance, you know, goods and chattels if someone’s popped their clogs and the family aren’t nearby.’ Continues the man odiously. Do I look like an unprincipled bastard?  I think angrily, and the unhelpful inner voice gives me an answer I don’t need but the charlatan in front of me, clearly subscribes to.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been offered bribes by developers and speculators to favour them with the chance to buy at a reduced price and with no competitors but now the f***ing rag and bone man thinks he can buy me. Trouble is, plenty of agents take the money rather than offence. No wonder the press and the public vilify the profession.

‘He left in a hurry.’ Says S when I follow the man to the door, just to make sure he’s off the premises.

‘Not quick enough.’ I reply watching as the man sidles across the road to the office of the competitor he named. No doubt they’ll be laughing at me in there, shortly.

‘What did he want?’ Queries S.

‘To buy me.’

‘God don’t you hate that?’ Says S.

Gulp. Yes…

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Until You Drop - Saturday

‘What do you think?’ Asks my wife. It’s a question more loaded than the potato skins I was daydreaming about, before she emerged from the changing room. My stomach rumbles and my brain stumbles as I try to take in the first dress she has tried on.  Unhelpfully another question forms in place of an answer: Does her arse look big in that?

I knew as soon as the shopping trip for a Christmas party frock was suggested I was on a hiding to nothing. I’m all for equality of the sexes but there are some things a man just can’t do. Like childbirth, advising on women’s clothes - unless you’re a camp fashion designer - isn’t something a male should attempt.

‘I like it.’ I say unconvincingly. I’m usually better at flattery. After all I value people’s homes six days a week. Something you learn fairly swiftly in the property industry is very few people want the unvarnished truth, when it comes to their number one asset.

‘You’re just saying that because it’s the first one I’ve tried on.’ Says my wife, spinning, quite elegantly I think, on her shoeless feet and disappearing into the changing cubicle. Another browbeaten bloke is sitting opposite me in those chairs I imagined were only for dizzy pensioners waiting for an ambulance, or perverts trying to get a glimpse through the curtains. The man is clutching a mass of expensively branded shopping bags. He clearly started earlier than me.

‘What can you do?’ I say with a shrug.

‘Just pay the bill.’ Answers the man ruefully.

‘I’d happily do that,’ I fib a little. ‘But she wants my advice.’

‘Poison chalice’ Replies the man with the sort of certainty drawn from bitter experience.

When this unwise expedition was first mooted and after I’d hoped the weekend staff would ring to say they needed me in the office, I turned to Twitter for advice from fellow members. The perceived feminine wisdom boiled down to: don’t ask the price, don’t ogle other women in the changing area and don’t expect to get home in under four hours. The blokes said: go to the pub then come back with your credit card when she rings.

‘There are no prices in the window.’ I caution, as we stare in Karen Millen’s shop-front. Top-end agents do that trick with country homes. One’s where they haven’t a clue on value, or where they want to deter time-wasters and dreamers. It’s called POA – price on application. The marketing thrust is, if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it. Now I can just about stomach that for substantial bricks and mortar and a forty acre estate with servant’s quarters, but for half a yard of taffeta and a few sequins I’m wanting to know the downside before I step over the threshold.

‘What about this one?’ Questions my wife, with a slow spin. We’re in a department store now on a floor I’ve never felt the need to visit. It seems each designer outlet has rented a bit of square footage so you can pad from one overpriced range to another without replacing your high heels. I haven’t been so out of my depth since that brief, dunk-a-baby fad of throwing learners in the pool so survival instinct taught them how to swim – rapidly. It was pre- health and safety rules, obviously.

‘Well does it flatter me?’ Continues my wife, as I splutter back to the surface, another unwanted childhood memory banished until the next nightmare.

It makes her look a little bit pregnant I think and the hesitation does for me. She spins, a little more clunkily this time.

‘Well you needn’t say anything.’ She huffs and disappears inside the curtained inner sanctum.

‘Are you waiting for someone sir?’ Asks a frosty, mutton dressed as lamb, assistant at the next emporium. My wife is in the nearby cubicle. I can see her ankles through the cut-off door. I put my phone away, realising it might look as if I’ve been taking surreptitious video clips for ChubbyCalfs.com. I tell her my wife is trying on a dress – her ninth.

We bought the first one.

Eventually.

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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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