Fly Me To The Moon - Friday

‘Much happening?’ I ask trainee F, as I return to the office. It’s a double-edged question. I want the good news, but there’s an equal amount of unwanted tidings in property. The worst being a sale falling through. I’m guessing on-line agents aren’t that bothered if a deal collapses as they get paid irrespective of result. But the traditional, full-service-agent, gets diddly-squat, nada, zip, if a sale doesn’t proceed to completion.

‘Drone salesman called in to see you.’ Announces F, with a soppy smile.

‘What was he selling?’ I ask frowning.

‘I told you.’

‘You told me he was boring, and talked too much.’ I answer shirtily. ‘But then I’ve said before, selling isn’t telling. You remember the two ears, one mouth rule?’

F looks at me bemused. He has the attention span of a cerebrally-challenged goldfish, so I realise he may not remember the old sales’ adage that you must listen twice as much as you speak. As ever negotiator S comes to the rescue.

‘He meant a salesman that sells drones. Those hovering things that you mount a camera on.’ She enlightens, gently.

Now I realise it’s me who is the fool, it’s not a new phenomenon but it smarts every time.

‘You told him I’m not interested.’ I say to F.

‘Not exactly…..’

‘Tell me he’s not coming back?’ I ask groaning.

‘Well he was in town anyway, seeing one of our competitors.’

‘He wasn’t.’

‘He said he was.’

‘How many times, have I told you?’ I demand wearily. ‘Don’t believe most of what a salesman tells you. He’s on commission.’

Reprimand issued, mostly to cover my embarrassment at misunderstanding a drone salesman, I head for the message book to see what fresh hell has been inked in there for me. The salesman is, having a coffee, somewhere up the high street and will be back shortly. The truth is I can’t make purchasing decisions any more. It’s all been re-allocated to head office, where some jobsworth constantly renegotiates our supplier contracts, presumably for free lunches and crap branded pens that break in your pocket and leak ink over your suit. Invariably, we end up with a more complicated purchasing system and a national supplier who is half as efficient as the local business that preceded them, was.

‘I think it would be great.’ Says F gushingly, as I return to a spare desk and nurse a cup of tea, no sugar - I’m on a diet again.

‘Don’t you need a special licence to fly them?’ I ask flatly. ‘To stop people taking out an Airbus on final approach.’

‘They take the footage for you, I think.’ Says F. ‘Or maybe there’s a training course?’

Terrific. Another patronising teacher who tells because they can’t sell, is all I need. And sending F, as the youngest, supposedly most tech-savvy staff member isn't going to work. He still hasn’t mastered the colour printer. The clown causes more jams than a broken-down lorry on the by-pass.

Many of these, drop-in as they are passing salesman, have vanished as more and more business is awarded centrally. Others have died a death, as their product suffers the law of Darwin, rendering them extinct. Time was, I was plagued by map salesman trying to flog you overpriced handouts for lost punters, which they’d lifted - sometimes with dubious legality - from a Ordnance survey sheet. If you showed interest, they wanted names and numbers of all your local business contacts, to try and flog them advertising space in the margins of the expensive street plan. Google maps finished that, thankfully.

‘Why would I want aerial views of half the shite-holes we are trying to flog?’ I ask sourly. ‘It’s not going to help unload an ex-council house someone bought at a knock-down price with right-to-buy, by showing they have a load of spent white goods in the back garden and haven't cut the lawn for three months.’ 

Then in he comes, with a bad suit, sickly grin and an over-sized briefcase.

‘Have I got something you are really going to want.’ He begins gushingly.

You haven’t.

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The God Of Small Things - Friday

‘You’ve a studio flat to look at later.’ Announces negotiator S as I re-enter the office after the joyless  run to pick up a low-calorie, taste-free, meal deal.

‘What’s that going to be like?’ Asks trainee F gormlessly.

‘The stationery cupboard.’ I tell him, dumping the wafer-thin sandwich, pseudo-crisps and tired-looking fruit combo on the desk.

I follow F’s gaze towards the aforementioned paper and pen repository. God, I sometimes long for less litigious times when it was acceptable to clout a dozy trainee around the ear, or just ask for his office keys, without verbal warnings in writing and a multi-stage disciplinary process monitored by Human  Resources' drones and legal insurance companies. I’ll have to settle for sending F on an afternoon’s leaflet dropping in the rain.

‘He means it will be compact.’ Says S to F, gently.

‘Cramped.’ Adds assistant manager T, who seems to have ducked the undersized valuation somehow.

‘Bijou, even.’ Contributes fat mortgage man M with a chubby-chopped smile. That confuses F even further, until lettings lush B adds:

‘Shite.’

I vividly remember when I first visited a studio flat, back in the late eighties when developers and speculators were busy maximising profit and minimising square-footage, in shabbily converted, once grand, Victorian family homes.

Tagging along with the kindly surveyor I was training with, we entered a top floor roof space, once designated for servants or Not Needed On Journey labelled packing cases, to find a plaster boarded space with sloping roof lines, fit only for Snow White cast members.

As I tried to hold the old-school tape measure to the widest extremity, I was thinking if this was the lounge, with a DIY style galley kitchen incongruously in one corner, how pokey was the bedroom going to be?

The first door I tried was minuscule shower room with no natural light, a wheezy extractor fan, and a toilet wedged so tight to the angled ceiling that you’d never piss standing up. The second door I tugged, expecting to find the sleeping accommodation, turned out to conceal a clumsily-lagged hot water tank.

‘So they sleep in the lounge?’ I remember asking, hesitantly. A somewhat smarter, and smarter-dressed version of F, on reflection.

‘It’s a new concept.’ Enlightened the old, Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with a frown. ‘It won’t catch on. I’m going to down-value it.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want to buy a flat that small.’ Speculates F, once he’s finally grasped the concept of turning your sweaty sofa into a bed at the end of an evening.

‘Just as well, you couldn’t afford it on your salary.’ Says M with a hearty guffaw. ‘Particularly when you’re on commission. Not even I could fudge the employer’s reference enough to find a lender for you.’ He adds, unkindly.

‘We all have to start somewhere.’ Counters S, fiercely. 

‘Yeh? Well if I can’t bolt on endowments, or PPI sales any more, I’m not about to risk my licence fabricating income am I?’ Sneers M.

‘Can’t he self-certificate?’ Asks B from her lettings enclave.

Only for sick notes.

‘We need to trade up.’ Says the earnest young woman later. She has an obvious swelling in her belly, as her stooping boyfriend nods in agreement and tries not to bang his head on the ceiling. There’s not enough room to swing a cat in the tired-looking conversion, and yet paradoxically, they have a hissy furball in residence, one that is weaving between my legs, purring aggressively and shedding fur all over my dark blue trousers. I can feel the first sneeze bubbling up.

I can’t see they’ll even get back what they paid for the pokey little studio flat. The dodgy developer helped fund the deposit, probably on the back of an inflated sale price and a complicit broker. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, particularly as the poor women is expecting a baby shortly. I wouldn’t mind killing the cat though.

Not a great success.

Price upset them.

Suit needs cleaning - and turns out she wasn’t pregnant.

Fail.

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