Mistletoe And Wine - Thursday

‘Is it me or is the music a bit loud?’ I holler at T, my assistant manager. We’re crammed against the free bar, where every spurious staff member, including weekend workers and new home site reps, are desperately multi-ordering drinks before the float runs out. It’s as shaming as the Brexit shambles.

‘You're just getting old.’ Shouts T, with a grin. ‘Let me buy you one and bring it over.’ He adds. That would be a first, I think fleetingly, until I realise he won’t be paying and by the time I offer to return the favour, I will.

I’ve done too many staff Christmas parties. The music was different when I started, more guitars and none of this drum and bass bollocks, but the end result is the same. Over-wrought women in posh frocks and over-testosteroned men in unaccustomed dinner suits, spoiling for a fight or a f**k.

‘Seen that cracker from head office.’ Shouts a disembodied voice. I have, but so has every other red-blooded male in the room. I’m not about to admit letching from afar and wondering what incredible cantilevered bra-manufacturing process is keeping those breasts from spilling free - especially to someone I can’t see.

A hand tugs on my sleeve. ‘Here you twat, I’m here.’ I look down to see the smirking face of H, my vertically-challenged rival manager. ‘I wouldn’t mind dancing with that piece later.’ he says unpleasantly.

‘You’d probably only come up to her….’ I begin, before realising the odious little short-arse, is smirking even more.

‘These don’t change do they?’ I say to mighty-thighed mortgage man M, whenI get back to the little enclave my office has set up, away from the DJ, who looks like the hasn’t started shaving yet.

‘The totty is different,’ shouts M garnering disapproving glances from negotiator S - looking classy in a black dress - and loose lettings lush B - looking tarty in a similar, shorter, number.

‘I used to enjoy these.’ I say to M, as T arrives with our drinks on a precariously-balanced tray, idiot trainee F behind him carrying an identical set. Yep, the cash will run out before my round. Like a typical Friday after work then, only with more sex and violence.

‘Just get pissed and dance with the prettiest trainee you can find.’ Advises M, downing two-thirds of a pint in one. M hasn’t been paying attention on all those appropriate behaviour in the workplace seminars, held by the mirthless women in Human Resources. I’m already wishing I was at home.

‘There you go boss.’ Says F, plonking a gin and tonic in front of me. I can’d do too many pints any more, irritable bowel to match irritable bloke. ‘I’ve got you a double, just so you know for later.’ Adds F, helpfully.

I sip the drink cautiously, the taxi is booked for midnight, I’ve avoided the hotel deal on rooms at a discounted rate for partygoers. I count myself lucky that on past occasions I only woke up with a cold kebab on the pillow in the morning - it could have been so much worse.

‘I reckon it could kick-off later.’ Suggests T, leaning so close I can smell his aftershave. He must apply it with a sponge, it’s so pungent. He’s pointing to the other side of a room where two rival offices young negotiators are braying loudly at each other. They’ll be goading each other with inflated stories of sales’ figures and target-smashing. It’ll be glasses smashing by the end of the evening, if previous nights are any pointer. You can see why people don’t like estate agents.

‘You enjoying yourself?’ Asks a familiar voice and I look up to see negotiator S next to me. I am now, I want to tell her, but some things are better left unsaid.

‘Smile.’ Shouts B amid a bright flash. She’s just snapped us with her mobile phone.

‘That better not be on Insta-pop later.’ I say uncertainly.

Apparently I’m an old dinosaur who doesn’t know how to party - or do social media.

If only they knew.

Happy Christmas.

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Running And Scared - Monday

‘That’s not good.’ I announce to the office, as I study my Estates Gazette, the publication aimed at property professionals more than common estate agents.  I still read it though, as the company pay the subscription, set up and forgotten after a long-gone chartered surveyor, was once based here.

Nobody says anything, so I cough conspicuously.

‘What is it then?’ Asks assistant manager T languidly. I’m guessing I’ve interrupted his social media monitoring rather than a diligent attempt to progress one of his long-standing sales.

‘Surveyor getting sued for a dodgy valuation.’ I tell the assembled office. B our loose lettings lush, looks up briefly then starts filing her nails again. It’s marginally better than running them down a blackboard, but only just.

‘Is that bad?’ Asks trainee F. ‘I thought you hated all surveyors.’

‘Not hate.’ I counter.

‘Dislike then.’ Offers T.

‘Distrust?’ Contributes negotiator S with one of her beguiling smiles.

‘They are sale wreckers.’ Spits obese finance fiddler M, as he waddles past.

It’s more complex than that. Surveyors have a tough time of it too. When I first entered the industry, pre-internet and coloured photos on sales particulars, a surveyor was a much respected professional. Most partnerships required you to be qualified to enter the firm, and legions of minor public school under-performers would become  Chartered Surveyors as they were too dim for medicine or law. Before long they were taking extend lunch hours, learning golf and doing surveys nobody took any notice off.

Those who qualified too late to enjoy the instant millionaire sell-offs of small partnerships to banks, building societies and insurance companies, began to work for their money. When valuations were wrong in a rising market nobody cared or noticed, but when values fell, lenders cut up rough to find the tertiary development they’d lent millions on to a dodgy developer, was worth less than half the loan, once the borrower hand gone bust. That’s when the lawyers, who use to bully the surveyors at school, really started to bugger them…

‘Are they sale wreckers?’ Asks F, still doggedly trying to learn despite the fact I’ve covered this ground before. There must be retarded goldfish with better retention skills than him.

‘They just cover their arses most of the time.’ I answer. ‘If they knock the agreed sale price by 10% some of them seem to think it will stop them getting sued retrospectively if the market goes belly-up.’

‘Like I said, sale wreckers.’ Concludes M smugly.

‘Give us the gist.’ Says T, waving at the periodical in front of me.

I relay the familiar tale. Big loan from unheard of city lender on an ambitious build project where the developer has pinned his business plan on ever rising values, not built-in value. As often the case, the figures don’t add up, builder wants more money and someone looks again at the original valuation and finds the cupboard is bare. End result, lawyers laughing, surveyor crapping himself in court. 

‘So they’ll be even more scared of their shadows when they value any of our sales.’ Predicts T with a sneer.

‘And we’ll have buyers unable to complete, or trying to re-negotiate the price.’ Adds S, with a frown.

‘And big PI problems.’ I add.

I see F frowning at me again. Granted I hate it when people use unknown industry acronyms, but I have told him before.

‘I’m not referring to Magnum, when I say PI.’ I tell F wearily.

The whole office looks at me blankly. M has disappeared so sadly nobody else is likely to remember Tom Selleck’s finest hour - or moustache.

‘You don’t mean the ice cream do you?’ Ventures F hesitantly.

God I feel old some days.

Professional Indemnity Insurance (PI) explained to an increasingly disinterested audience, I look to move on. Then I see Bomber, our own local sales destroyer, striding across the road towards the office door.

‘Tell me that dickhead isn’t valuing one of our deals.’ I plead, as everyone else spots the harbinger of doom.

‘Oops, I forgot to tell you.’ Admits F, face reddening.

You don’t need to be a detective to guess what happens next.

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Media Mogul - Tuesday

‘Usual crap?’ Asks H my vertically-challenged rival manager, as we meet in the hotel car park. For a moment I think he’s referring to my ageing company car - replacements delayed as part of the bean counter boss’s budget cuts - but he’s thinking about the forthcoming managers’ meeting. 

‘Nothing much is new.’ I tell H, blipping my remote and getting a lifeless soft-touch click in return. The battery has gone and I haven’t got round to facing the copies in triplicate grief, arranging a replacement will entail. Ignominiously I have to walk back to my car and secure the doors manually. H doesn’t help matters by clicking his Ultimate Driving Machine fob from several paces away. Higher office turnover, higher band and on the car list. It’s the only think lofty about the little twerp.

‘I reckon these are a waste of time.’ Pontificates H as we walk towards the entrance door, one of those intimidating revolving ones. I clutch my briefcase handle tighter still. The wedged document receptacle in a spinning lobby door incident, still hasn’t entirely faded from my memory. Expensive counselling might erase the trauma but I like to spend my time on vendors’ couches.

‘That’s what my staff think about my morning meetings.’ I tell H as we have that embarrassing will you, won’t you moment when the door spins our way. I end up in the same personal space as him and have to do the dolly-steps shuffle, keeping just ahead of the door panel snapping at my achilles tendon without entering the short arse…

‘I don’t bother with morning meetings most days.’ Says H, riling me unnecessarily. He already has the best catchment area and a lower rent than my office. If you asked me I could do better than him if we swapped places - but nobody asks me.

‘You need to plan and prepare, need to communicate to your team what you expect.’ I say, rising to the bait despite myself. H grins, nods to the Romanian girl on reception and says. ‘We’re too busy fielding offers to do all the crap you do.’ I should have shoved him into the door mechanism when I had the chance and claimed an industrial accident. I’ve thought of it enough, believe me.

‘Here we go.’ Whispers H as the bean counter arrives in the meeting room a few minutes late. If the roles were reversed I’d reprimand the figure-fiddler for tardy timekeeping. Sadly, it seems accountants, not the meek, are inheriting the earth - or at least what’s left of it once depreciation and dilapidation figures have been offset against built in obsolescence.

Ninety minutes in, the fatty bacon sandwiches churning in my stomach like a cheap tumble dryer, the bean counter gets to item nine on the agenda. I look again, intrigued, as he toggles his laptop and the heading Social Media rises from the bottom of the overhead projector.

‘Do we really need to be doing this?’ Asks the bean counter, as I think if only he knew.

‘Corporate blogs and dull product placement Tweets are worse than no presence at all.’ Suggests the woman just back from her second maternity leave. The bean counter didn’t like her being away twice in three years and word is he won’t recruit another female at management level if they haven’t passed the menopause yet. I’m hoping I can sit in the public gallery at the tribunal - heavily disguised of course.

‘I couldn’t think of what to say.’ Offers another manager. That’s because you have the charisma of a carrot, I think sourly.

‘And you’d have to vet anything you wanted to publish.’ Adds a third voice. ‘The slightest contentious point and some tool would want to sue us.’

That’s why I do it anonymously I think, trying not to grin.

‘Agreed,’ responds the bean counter. ‘But I still think we need to have a profile.’ He pauses before adding. ‘Would anyone like to volunteer to pilot it?’

‘I’m too busy.’ Says H woundingly. He managed to sit beside me, despite my best efforts. Just trying to make himself look big if you ask me.

Meanwhile - I’m keeping a low profile. 

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Something For The Weekend - Saturday

I’m drumming my fingers on the desk like an over-wound metronome. The noise echoes round the empty office as the clock ticks relentlessly towards opening time and still I’m the only one here. A tertiary background noise is thrumming in tandem with digits and second hand and I’m momentarily puzzled, until I realise it’s my heart running at an unhealthy beats-per-minute rate. I just need the teeth gnashing to start and a complete meltdown is only moments away.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Puffs the weekend lady apologetically. She’s too mumsy and polite to shout at, despite the ringing in my ears and the latent anger of having to be working at the weekend. An annoyance that has lasted more than two decades, while contemporaries who paid more attention at school play golf, squash or shag their neighbour’s wife on a Saturday. I mutter an acknowledgement and scan the diary to double-check a sea of viewings that will challenge my navigational skills around a busy town centre, given some of the timings. I’ve already gathered more keys than a pedantic prison warden would keep and my clipboard has print outs of the appointments and property details clipped to it in chronological order. It borders on obsessive compulsive, but with better dress sense and no vegan dishes on the menu.

Finally the door opens five minutes after the published start time and B our loose lettings lush stumbles in looking dishevelled.

‘Morning.’ She mutters with the hint of a slur. I only just stop myself from uttering a sarcastic, good afternoon, as she wobbles to the kitchen and the kettle is audibly filled. The weekend lady, totally oblivious to body language - as her woeful viewings and financial service performance confirms - starts to dribble on about her children and some school event she attended in the week. I’m not in a good place.

‘Nice sports jacket.’ Mocks B as she returns clutching a steaming mug of something that might just have an alcoholic addition she thinks I don’t know about. There’s no sign of a drink for me, or the rotund mother who can’t make mortgage or valuation appointments but thinks I might be interested in her nine-year old daughter’s performance on the recorder. A scream at this juncture seems a reasonable option. I agonised over the non-matching trouser and jacket combo long and hard and now any fragile sartorial elegance confidence has been undermined by a slack slapper with gin in her veins - if not her coffee - and what looks to be last night’s blouse still on.

‘Dress down Saturday.’ I tell her, thinking viciously she has one every day, usually with a different bloke. I know there’s a lot of choice on the Internet but surely her dating profile must carry some sort of virus warning by now?

‘I prefer a man in a suit, or true casual like chinos and a polo top.’ Posits B. And I thought just trousers and no school homework to do, was her benchmark.

‘I think it looks very smart.’ Says comfy cardigan lady, finally tapping in to this earth’s atmosphere. It’s not the sort of endorsement I really want but better than the one for speeding I picked up when late for an appointment last month.

When I first started in this benighted industry I thought a blue blazer, with shiny gold buttons and grey trousers was suitable attire for the Saturday/Sunday stint, but then I also had the faint trace of a mullet hair cut and flirted with a moustache briefly. I’ve always been judged on sales figures but thank God they didn’t monitor fashion sense back then. At least pre-social media era there’s no digital traces on-line of that particular history.

‘Got much on?’ Asks B, bringing me back from my reverie with a start. Briefly I think she’s still referring to my clothes until I realise she’s talking appointments. I recite the list that will keep me out of the office for most of the truncated working day while others wash cars, watch live football in the pub or waste estate agents time viewing properties they have no intention of buying.

Happy days.

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The book nobody tried to ban..

http://amzn.to/ttGZ4j