>>15174 Mine did the tedious legwork of filtering out fuckwits to select someone who would actually complete, then being quite good at chivying people along, necessary when solicitors bill by the hour, not by the result. They also did a better job of the advert than I would have. I don't particularly resent their fees, in hindsight. Certainly not as much as stamp duty, which is a weird tax that seems to make moving house (for a job, or whatever reason) even more eyewatering. Wouldn't some kind of gains tax (at sale) rather than a flat tax on purchase be better? dunno, obviously. Help FTBs, rein in (or at least share with the state) crazy house prices rises, no?

>>15174

>>15175 lad is right. What many people underestimate is the sheer amount of time and effort that it takes to market and then sell a property. You can fully expect having to deal with up to 20 or more people, of which ten will be complete duds (we call them "tourists" in the business), five will be iffy but still take up your time, and another three to five will be actual contenders, of whom you then hope the seller will pick the right one, who won't call you the day before and call the whole thing off.

If you think you can do all of that yourself, fine. I'm not going to convince you otherwise. It's easier than ever before to sell your house without help from an estate agent. But going by the properties I've sold, estate agents still have their place today. One clientele is elderly folk who don't have a son or daughter close by who can do it for them. And then you've got people like business executives who are so tied up in their job that they simply don't have the time. Or maybe they have to move for their job on relatively short notice. And then, people who simply feel daunted by the idea of showing their home to 20 people, and all the legal and procedural steps you have to take to sell your house.


>Help FTBs, rein in (or at least share with the state) crazy house prices rises, no?

One reason why the property market has spiralled is that you can just flip a home very shortly after buying it without any ramifications. Selling a property again at a profit after one year is just as much tax free as selling it after ten years. There are countries that have a minimum holding period for real estate. Meaning if you sell your property before that period is up, the nominal profit from the sale is taxable income. Italy has a holding period of five years, and Germany even has ten years. France has a more graduated model where the tax you pay on your sale decreases with the number of years. The effect is that in those markets, buyers and sellers see a property much more as a long-term investment, which then also often means that property markets don't spike as much during property bubbles as they do in countries without a minimum holding period.

I'm happy to take silly amounts of commission on heavily overpriced properties during market bubbles, but being on the frontline, I also see what it does to young families who are struggling to simply get a decent place for them to live. So I'd be on board with introducing a holding period like in Italy, Germany or France.

>>15176
When I wanted to buy a house, the local estate agent company for the area I was moving to were the ones selling a house I really liked the look of and could just about afford. I emailed them to ask for a viewing. No reply. I phoned them and they told me to email. Still nothing. In the end, I put in a bid on the house, offering the asking price, and they never even acknowledged it. Lastly, I phoned up another time and told them I wanted to increase my bid to the asking price + £2000, but only if they got back to me the same day. Within an hour, they called back to reject my offer on the house I’d never seen but really wanted.

For the house I bought, I asked when I could come and see it, and they said 11am on a Tuesday. I said that wasn’t convenient. They said it was then or never, because they’d have sold the house by 11:30. So I went.

Sorry if I’ve told either of those stories before. My point is: maybe you’re an estate agent because you’re just super-gay for houses, but one downside of the house price boom is that it has turned the estate agent profession into a magnet for the most inept and worthless get-rich-quick parasites in society. I assume the hardest part of your job is convincing people you aren’t like that, because I think everyone who has tried to buy a house has a story like mine.

>>15177

>but one downside of the house price boom is that it has turned the estate agent profession into a magnet for the most inept and worthless get-rich-quick parasites in society.

I'm not going to disagree with you at all on that. You're absolutely right. Because for starters, the estate business, unlike many others, has a very low learning curve in relation to what you can earn if you commit yourself to it. Practically everybody lives somewhere if they're not homeless, either they rent a flat or they own a house, so there are few people who've got no concept at all of property. It's recommended to get some additional formal training, but you can manage without it.

As you said, it's been very easy to make money in the property market the last 10 to 15 years or so, so even Johnny Big Bollox who left school without his GCSEs and was selling mobile phones until last month has a fair shot at earning a living.

And accordingly, many estate agents have no idea at all about things like customer service. But that, in turn, also means that if you do, and if word goes around that you treat your clients politely and kindly, then you've got a selling point that sets you apart from a good 70 percent of your competitors. It also doesn't hurt to have a solid business background, like I do.

All that said, the pay as an estate agent isn't spectacular. As a typical, non-management employee at an estate business who does the daily work of helping people buy and sell houses, £25K-£30K is your ceiling unless you've been in the profession for some time. Being self employed can pay considerably more, but it'll depend on your ability to attract higher value properties and clients.

>>15178

Is there a dress code that says you have to dress like Your Dad's Best Friend or is there another reason for all the pink shirts?

>>15179

No, no dress code, but you tend to dress conservatively. Because you and your client are dealing with a lot of money, it's best to do whatever you can to project trustworthiness.

But there are limits. A nicer late-model car is fine and will suggest that you are successful at what you do. But even if you can afford it, don't drive a Porsche to a viewing. Because nobody likes a cunt in a Porsche, and people will think you're just some money grubbing arsehole.

>>15180

Why did you all drive Minis in the 00s?

>>15181

Everybody did. From hairdressers to event managers.

I've always hated them with passion, even before I became an estate agent. On holiday in Tenerife one time, they offered us a free hire car upgrade from a Renault Megane to a Mini, and I refused, only to be swayed by my girlfriend's very disappointed look on her face. I guess it's more a car for women. Not sure if that's why I personally dislike it, but oh well.

Here’s a question about estate agents: how much is it like Homes Under the Hammer? I know that’s auctions rather than selling houses, but the people on there are so soul-destroying. Do estate agents deal with families and first-time buyers more often, or is it 90% private landlords buying their 20th or 30th house?

I ask partly because Homes Under the Hammer is on TV right now and I hate it, but also because I’m curious how much of it is repeat business. When my boiler fell apart as soon as I’d bought my house, predictably, all the heating engineers I called were dicks because they know you’ll only ring them once every 5-10 years. The plumbers were all nice and helpful and friendly, because people always need plumbers so repeat business is a good thing to build up. Most people almost never buy a house, which is why incompetent vermin can do it for years, but “here’s Mahmoud from Leicester who bought the property, speaking to Dion Dublin” probably does limit himself to just the good estate agents.

>>15184

Property shows are usually a dramatised or glamourised version of reality, like most reality TV.

What kind of clientele you deal with really depends on your niche. But if you are in residential property and help people buy and sell homes, then you really meet all kinds. I've sold a buy to let, two-bedroom flat to a company boss who was looking to put a cool £180K of his own money into a long-term investment. And just this March, I sold a modest four-bedroom house to a young family who were first-time buyers.

You do get people who have built their own little property empire, either in reality or in their mind, and who fancy themselves the biggest and most cunning property sharks around. Most of them are absolute cunts to deal with, not least because they try to tell you how to do your job, because, hey, they've got five properties already, so what do I know as an estate agent.

Another kind of buyer I don't really like dealing with are the ones who are mortgaged to the hilt and can just about, by the skin of their teeth, afford the property, or not. You get loads of nitpicking from them, they'll blow minor defects and damage of a property completely out of proportion and try to hustle the seller for a few grand at every turn. Like one time, somebody at a viewing said that because all the water taps and fixtures were from 1990, the year the house was built, surely he'd have to install new ones, and that should cost a good £5,000 for the whole house. So I said, "look, this house has two bathrooms and a kitchen sink. And a water outlet in the back garden and in the laundry room. Are you trying to tell me that if you shop for half a dozen water taps at Homebase, you'll walk out five grand lighter?".

Nowadays, not many people can just buy a place outright, with today's property prices. And that's fine. But don't make the seller and the estate agent feel like it's our fault that you've got no financial wiggle room. You knew the asking price the moment you read the ad, so it's up to you to figure out if you've got enough money before you go to see the property.

There's a lass at work who runs marathons and goes to the gym several times a week, and she's looking to lose a bit of weight for a wedding in a few weeks where she'll be a bridesmaid.

She sits next to this obese lass who has all sorts of health issues for being overweight, and she keeps giving (unsolicited) advice on diet and exercise to her. I mean, it'd be like getting babysitting tips from Gary Glitter.

>>15188
It’s like how the town’s best cobbler has children with worn-out shoes, because he’s too busy doing everyone else’s shoes. You wouldn’t want weight-loss advice from a thin person; what do they know about needing to lose weight?

>>15189
I dunno, I don't feel like I'd want health tips from someone who can get out of breath from going up a flight of stairs.

>>15190
I'm not sure - one way or the other the fat person has felt an extreme of diet where the most the fitter person has is dairy bloat from a throth-uccino. Discipline lacking ofcourse but what're you really trying to learn? Tips and tricks about engery/weight ratios and recipes, or advice on how to sludge it at the gym? I'd rather eat well enough that saving food for later becomes a conscious choice. I see that happening far easier if the prompt was coming from someone who clearly appreciates food. Fat bakers get more business, must do.

>>15191
>Fat bakers get more business, must do.
They're definitely better stockists. Thin bakers will often sell out before EoD but fat bakers always have rolls.

>>15188

I used to be obese, I assure you, fat people know more about how to lose weight than anyone, because it's very easy to research how to do it, and very hard to actually consistently do it. There's a good five to ten years in most fat people's lives where they might as well have a degree in sports science, but still eat 30 bags of crisps after the gym.

Blob trees and mood mountains.

The gist is you get shown an image and you have to point to the character in the image who represents you so you can all talk about how you feel. I hate this exercise not only because it's a lie and you have to express yourself in a pre-set template of office acceptable emotions but because it's used by lazy people to pad out the meetings they run.

By all means these exercises are mandated and everyone treats them as a bit of a joke when really you might find out how someone is doing down the pub but there's something about just slotting one into a deck and having people spend 5-10 minutes of their lives talking about it that irks me. Not least because if I ever have to run a meeting I'll always try something new and different which even if it doesn't work energises people with novelty and also because I've yet to see anyone who actually enjoys doing them.

When someone starts emailing or messaging like a situation is of reactor meltdown importance and then gives you total radio silence once you engage. Are we all going to die if this isn't done by half-four or not?

First time in the office in about 12 days and I've had a runny nose pretty much ever since I came in.

My organisation recently had an open call for everyone to pitch ideas for new innovation, that if picked up would go through multiple rounds to refine with additional resource.

I decided to pick up on an idea I'd had for awhile based on interactions with other people but hadn't got anywhere due to a lack of capacity. I told my team that I was working on something and I worked at it in my own time as a passion project because I felt it was important and a missed opportunity. On the deadline day I shared my idea with my team and didn't get any comments at the time.

Today in my 1-1 with my line manager they told me off for doing it, said that I should have asked for their help, told me that I should not have spent time my doing it and that they can find me something else to do if I have spare time. My boss also picked at minutia in my idea itself and pointed out that I hadn't spoken to other teams even though for the initial pitch I wasn't expected to and I explained within my pitch that this was to be explored. It was very hurtful after I'd worked on it and I haven't even heard back from the review panel yet.

Why are some people like this and why do they always seem to be in management?

>>15202

Translation: "Why did you keep this obviously good idea to yourself and not let me swoop in to steal the credit for it, you bastard. You were supposed to do all the work for no reward so I can talk it up to my boss and make it sound like it was my own."

Your manager is a self serving cunt. That's by and large how you get to be a manager.

It's the paramount cruelty of our times that only managers are permitted to be passive aggressive shitbags in emails.

>>15203

Some companies just purposely stifle independent thought. Because potentially, ideas like that can upset the status quo and challenge authority of those who are above you in the hierarchy. And there's also something like respecting the proper channels.

Reading otherlad's story, maybe he should have spent his time working on the actual tasks at hand, and if he had free time left after completing them, he should have told them that he was ready to take on other tasks that they saw fit to hand to him. Then again, if by "in his own time" he meant that he was working on his ideas during hist time off work while sat at home, then they can just go fuck themselves because what you do after you've clocked off isn't any of their business.

It turns out I've already eaten the emergency toffee crisp that I kept in my drawers. I was looking forward to it.

An announcement has been made today that they're going to grant annual leave for fewer people over Christmas this year, in case the Budget getting pushed back to late November means we have an extremely busy December.

The joys of working in financial services.

>>15208

I never take leave over Christmas. I basically just have a day off here and there throughout the winter months, and then when I've got loads of leave to use in the spring and summer, people are asking me why I have so much leave. Well, it's quite simple, I didn't spaff it all in December.

>>15209
I mainly take leave at Christmas because it means I can have a full week off without having to use five days, plus I quite like that period where time loses all meaning while I watch World's Strongest Man and eat a tub of peanuts.

>>15210

This is one of the reasons I actually like working shift patterns without fixed days. I do a four over seven currently, so that means occasionally I'll get lucky how the blocks line up and I can use a day or two of leave but end up having a week off.

A friend just got spotted on a dating app profile by her boss. However that happened. And he asked her to "tone down" some of her more revealing pictures because it would reflect badly on the company. I've looked at them, the only "revealing" photos are of her in a bikini with the top on, and it's no suggestive pose either. Just a snapshot or two on a beach somewhere. She rightly told her boss that her profile makes no reference whatsoever to where exactly she works, and that it's her private matter. He then said that yes, but her profile picture is also on the company's website, and people might spot that.

Is this something that your boss can have a say in? I'd tell him to get fucked, in more ways than one.

>>15214
If it's a big enough company with HR, she could make a complaint that her boss is making comments on her body that make her feel uncomfortable.

>>15214

I don't know exactly where the law stands on these things but I remember once when I phoned in sick to my shitty retail job in about 2009, my manager pulled me up by showing me the photos that had been posted on Facebook about me being out drinking a couple of nights before. I thought back then, that's utter bullshit and what I do in my time off is none of work's business, and shouldn't be admissable evidence in bollockings. I've kept it consciously separate ever since because I saw the way things would go.

If I was her I wouldn't have used the same picture. That's a bit of an unforced error on her part. So she should rightly tell her boss to get fucked, but also take that photo off her profile.

>>15216

>If I was her I wouldn't have used the same picture. That's a bit of an unforced error on her part. So she should rightly tell her boss to get fucked, but also take that photo off her profile.

No, she didn't post her company profile picture on her dating app profile. Apparently her boss thinks people will simply see her dating app pictures and recognise her face from the photo that is on their website. Or vice versa. Which is a bit of a stretch in a city as big as That London, with a large dating pool and potentially thousands of women who look a lot like her.

>>15217
>her profile picture is also on the company's website
Was this supposed to mean something other than what it literally says?

>>15218

Yeah, I guess that was a bit misleading. Not sure how that happened. No, she's got a portrait picture (maybe that's the word I wanted to use) on their website where she's all done up business like. And on her dating app profile she's got an assortment of random, point and shoot snapshots. And her boss thinks people will recognise her, and I guess having pictures out there of his employees in a bikini is something he doesn't agree with.

But honestly, as long as she makes no reference to her employer (she just lists her occupation as "business/finance"), I don't see the problem. As long as you do your job, and do it well, then whatever you do in your personal life should be nobody's business.

>>15216
Been a thing forever. A friend of mine got sacked from her job because she ranted about her store on Livejournal in about 2003 and somebody dobbed her in.

>>15220

I don't know how people with proper jobs do it. I might be underpaid, overworked and at constant risk of premature death, but at least my free time is my own. As long as I get the job done, no-one cares if I show up with a hangover or support ARE TOMMEH or have a record for ABH.

Everyone at work should drag the manager into the carpark and kick the shit out of him. End of.

>>15221
I work a proper job (where I can't set fire to asylum seekers) and nobody here would care about a dating profile. In fact I'm pretty sure that if someone broke the rule by bringing up someone's dating profile without good reason then they would be receiving a stern talking to. Bitching about work on social media is another matter but that's publicly bringing the employer into disrepute.

Although I was led to believe that a proper job was something involving a shovel and roads. And a hardhat. Rather than getting distracted at 10am while I work from home.

>>15223

> Bitching about work on social media is another matter but that's publicly bringing the employer into disrepute.


What I find a bit restricting is that potential employers look at social media profiles of candidates, if they can track them down.

I'm both a social media luddite and I haven't had to apply for a job in a long time, so I've really got no first-hand experience, but where do they reasonably draw the line nowadays. There are probably some scenarios that are true red flags, but I'm not sure somebody is unfit for your nine to five office job just because there are photos of them on instagram partying with the lads off their arse.

It looks to me like the predictable consequence is to not only streamline your CV for employability, but also rid your online personal life of anything that can hurt your job chances. Total self optimisation. Which is already happening with many people, and to me it's an acknowledgement that your employer owns you beyond the time you spend at them every day. Which should never happen. But yeah. I'm old. Things were different when I was a younglad.

>>14850 here again.

She's sent an all staff email this morning despairing that she has found three unbroken Starbucks glass bottles, which can be recycled, in the broken glass box, which should only be used for broken glass because she disposes of this at the local tip in her own time.

>>15226

If she's got time to moan about that sort of thing, then clearly she's not working at full capacity. Maybe her position isn't needed at all.

>>15227
She definitely isn't. I think her husband is loaded so she doesn't really need to work but does so for a bit of spending money and to pay for holidays.

>>15225

If I remember correctly, there's a utility available on Kali Linux where all you need is a person's email address to find all the social media accounts linked to that email (including things like pron sites etc). Don't think employers would go that far but it's advisable to have a burner email account for social media stuff and a more polished account for things like your CV / professional use.

>>15228

Sounds a bit like that one job I had, small company, seven or eight employees in total, give or take counting the part timers, and the company owner's wife was working there too. Her job description was sort of anything and everything. Personal assistant to her husband, supervisor to us employees, and nagging bint whenever there was something she found objectionable. The worst days were when the boss was out on business and left her in charge to run the place entirely. Because this was an ad agency and she knew fuck all about the business, I think in her own life she was a failed painter and sculpturer, which she somehow thought gave her authority to critique what we were doing, and as I said especially so whenever her husband was away.

Eventually her husband realised that she was a drain on our productivity, and from that point on she gradually shifted to strictly clerical and administrative duties.

>>15230
There's about 30 people there but the senior management still act like it's a much smaller company. The managing director in particular is out of her depth, so there's very much an amateur hour feel about the place.

I'm not complaining too much, I'm paid pretty much the top of the market for my role without the usual demands that'd come with this kind of salary.

Last week for four days I did 6+ hours per day of e-learning. The people running the induction said they expect it to go over our heads until we're actually doing practical things. Two people I know who work for the same organisation said that they and everyone they know views the e-learning as a waste of time and get nothing from it and just click through it to get the completion flag but not learn anything, as they learn when the practical things start. But I still had to do it.

I do understand it's important for us to have the boxes ticked on our learning record, to say we have learned the things. But if everyone involved acknowledges it as a waste of time, what's the point?

>>15232

... To tick the boxes, lad. You don't want to find out what happens when boxes go un-ticked, do you? No, but more seriously, that kind of thing usually seems to exist as a sort of failsafe and administrative buffer. You've got various levels of management and HR between the people devising the training, the people delivering training, and the people doing the job; so by the end of it it's almost guaranteed to come out as completely detached from reality; but this is how large organisations have to work to account for the fact that each worker individually is probably a fucking idiot.

I've worked in enough Kafkaesque office places that I think I could start to write a fancy philosophical book about how that kind of multi-level beuereeaucracy operates. It's a really interesting subject to think about, actually, like the mass psychology of how you actually maintain the coherency of hundreds, thousands of people, none of whom can really be said to be arsed whatsoever, and yet still have it all tick over day after day. But I still can't spell bereuruecracy.

>>15232

>what's the point?

Shifting liability. The e-learning creates a paper trail "proving" that the company trained you to do the job properly and in accordance with all relevant legislation. If you cut your arm off or grope your colleague, then the company can point to the precise moment when you were trained not to stick your arm in that machine or your finger in that secretary's chuff. As long as they're not stupid enough to actually write down "we know that nobody pays any attention, but it covers our arse", then their arse is quite well covered.

>>15234

Exactly this. There's the regulatory stuff but the really dumb stuff too like the employer equivalent of telling you not to store petrol beneath the staircase or eat dog turds. Stuff like that.

The most annoying coworker I have and the most boring coworker I have are both also in work tomorrow, which is out of the ordinary. For the record I'm the funniest, most sexiest and most intelligent coworker they have. I am also the worker who would most like to be left in splendid isolation.