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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Speaker's Chair - Tuesday

With a cancelled appointment and hair just beginning to bother the ears, I bowl into the barbers without checking the clientele through the window. Too late, I see there’s a bench full of customers waiting and worse still, one of them is a rival estate agent. Spotting my indecision and not wanting to lose a punter, the owner gives me a smile, worse still remembers my name and beckons me to sit with an optimistic.

‘Wait won’t be long.’

It’s a good skill with the name, one I wish I could master, but I recall properties not people after all this time. The barber knows I don’t like to discuss business when in the chair, not least because he’s tried to move several times over the years and you don’t want to upset a man with a cut-throat razor in his hand and an interest in how much his home has gone up in value in the last twelve months.

The luxuriantly haired oily operator from the opposition outfit shifts up grudgingly and equally reluctantly I park my backside next to him. He’s reading a free copy of The Daily Mail, so his political persuasion is fairly clear. ‘Alright?’ I ask with no interest in the answer, unless his office is about to close.

‘Can’t complain.’ He replies, before adding unnecessarily. ‘On a bit of a roll at the moment actually.’ So he’s a liar as well as being freakishly hirsute.

I check out the other customers. The dusty bloke with three days stubble and workman’s boots is scanning The Sun without any apparent embarrassment, and the hippyish mid-fifties man with grey hair, a goatee and an absurd ponytail, is glued to The Guardian. All political persuasions catered for by the astute owner. Just hope nobody wants to talk property. Fat chance.

‘You short on stock too?’ Asks my rival with the plentiful locks. There was a time when my hair had that sort of lustre and grew thick and dark. Too many sales falling through and too many targets being ramped up annually have taken their toll. Now when I give my instructions to the trimmer it’s, ‘just a tidy up ’ and a hopeful, ‘and leave some length on the top please.’ Not much they can do about the grey and I steadfastly refuse to dye it like those fading lotharios trying to hang on to their second Thai wife.

‘We’re doing okay.’ I fib. It’s a tradition amongst sales people to over-inflate their performance and it’s not about to stop when quizzed in public.

‘You two alright to sit next to each other.’ Jokes the barber as he brushes down his just finished customer and the man tips him more than I usually do. I frown and reconsider any sort of gratuity this time. He remembers my name but not always my preferences.

‘Sorry.’ Says the barber ushering in the man with the ponytail who it turns out only wants his absurd facial hair trimmed. ‘I forgot you estate agents like to keep a low profile out of the office.’ There’s a rustle of papers being folded and the whole shop looks at the pair of us with ill-disguised distaste.

‘Go on then you lot.’ Challenges the Sun reader curtly. ‘Tell us why people like me are priced out of the market.’

‘Market forces mate.’ Says my rival clambering into another just vacated chair and getting the young, well-endowed girl hairdresser all the blokes like to use. Not sure if she means to keep brushing you with her tits when she leans in but she gets good tips, and at the end of the day we’re all selling something – unless you’re a civil servant.

I realise everyone is looking at me, now my rival is occupied with whispering his preferences to the girl.

‘Supply and demand tends to drive the market.’ I venture, adding. ‘That and availability of funding.’

‘Too many bloody immigrants and freeloaders.’ Interjects a well-spoken man clutching on to The Telegraph and an image of a country that no longer exists. The Sun man wades in, the hippy with the trimmed beard adds his opinion and I wish I were bald.

Still itching now.

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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.