The cost of it all

We are reviewing our cost structure. Surprisingly, early indications are that are costs are *not* too low. That's right. On the other hand, we've no definitive information to hand as our bookkeeper still needs to get all the numbers bashed into the accounting package from which financial reports are generated.

Frank is impatient. He demands - strong lanaugage indeed - that Hamid produce a profit-and-loss statement on the spot based on the data that has in fact been entered. Hamid diplomatically points out that such a report is totally without value until all the relevant data has been entered. Frank pulls rank, "I want it on my desk in five minutes."

Seven minutes later, Frank and I are alone in the conference room. Frank is greatly irked by the report that says we lost Euro 56K in February alone. "Maybe," I point out, "it's because all the costs have been entered into the accounting system but not all the revenues."

Frank won't be fooled with such remarks that are clearly intended to throw him off track. He leaves to investigate how we formally need to file for bankruptcy.

The day in brief

• Got up earlier than everyone else to buy muffins for weekly breakfast meeting.
• Muffins consumed in silence. No thanks. Crumbs left on floor.
• Last minute deal-sheets appear on my desk in the scramble to get commission this month (and not let it slide into next month).
• Strong talk with Jimmy as he revenue numbers suck loudly, he's been on holiday, he's sick on his return, he requested more holiday.
• Askance looks at bookkeeper.
• Bookkeeper looks askance back.
• Meet with Chuck to discuss real-estate brokerage arm of business.
• Chuck feels like he's being gypped.
• Reviews numbers. Feels less like he's being gypped (but cannot admit it).
• Marcus is editing a picture of bathroom - trying to remove the mold.
• More salary admin.
• Pay taxes to tax guys.
• More salary admin.
• Read 23 page purchase document in Dutch for property I want to buy (11.00 at night now).
• Crash.

Ants

The Dutch have this great term ‘miereneuker’ that is used to describe someone who unreasonably focuses on irrelevant details. The term is English is approximated to ‘a person who likes to have sexual relations with an ant.’

In my day-to-day muddling in everyone’s business at Ideal Housing – the prerogative of the Managing Partner –, I’m abstracted out of the hue-and-cry of negotiating prices, extra beds, the removal of lamps and the painting of scuffed walls and, in general, escape having to kowtow to mireneukers that are, in fact, our rental clients.

Yesterday evening something surprising and depressing occurred. My offer was accepted on the purchase of a monster apartment on a canal in the Jordaan. From that instant – the nanosecond between being a contender and winning the bid – I found myself transformed form a well-balanced, easy going and pleasant individual into a person who likes to have sexual relations with an ant. I’ve already called the seller fifty times asking if this or that is included, was that scratch on the wall when I last viewed the place, the gate seems creaky, the intercom crackles, there’s a leaf on the roof, it looks like rain and the temperature has dropped from warm to chilly.

The owner has this tone that yells ‘ant boy!’

I have a new understand that verges on sympathy for these insect-loving clients and have promised not to swear at them (at least not when they are within earshot).

Igenious, these scam people

The scan runs something like this:

• We get a booking from an 'intermediary' on behalf of their client.
• The 'intermediary' pays with the client's credit card information.
• The funds clear on our account for a three week stay in one of our apartments.
• At the last minute, the 'intermediary' contacts us saying his client has cancelled.
• We are requested to refund the payment not back to the credit card but to another bank account.
• The client never shows.

Concentrating hard

I worked at home today (management speak for 'skived off') in the hope that I could concentrate on my spreadsheet and remain out of sight and out of mind of the consultants that their inane claims on my time.

My hope was still born. As I was nowhere to be seen, their inane remarks and questions couldn't possibly wait, resulting in a series of calls to my cell phone.

Brenda: "Can I edit the contracts myself?"

Marijke:"Really? What? You mean someone has to
check the contracts and invoices before the get signed and money
paid?

Jimmy:"Am I disturbing...

Yes, very.

Jimmy: "... only I was wondering about my free days carried over from last
year."

Naturally, none of this can wait until I am back in the office.

The news in brief

One of our owners has rented his apartment to two female prostitutes from Thailand and has asked for an appendix to the rental agreement in which states that no ‘personal activities’ (aka brothel) may take place in his apartment. Right – like that’s really gonna ensure this won’t happen. “Come on… come back to my place. Oh no – I’ve just re-read the rental agreement and you’re not allowed to.”

One of our rental clients has attempted suicide by jumping from a third-floor balcony. The first we heard of this was when the owner called making a poor show of concern for the health of said individual, followed by a poor show of feigning disinterest in the probability of threat to his rental income stream.

Another of our rental clients – actually a large party – has tried to sneak in an extra 10 people into a group of apartments for which there is a price agreement on a per-person, per-night basis. The ‘sneak’ factor was weak (verging on pathetic) resulting in us spotting this feeble attempt at deception within five minutes. The upshot is that we can invoice for another Euro 14.500. Not a bad return for ‘seeing something obvious’.

This is the end of the news in brief.

Big bag of money

It gives me no pleasure at all to be right. In fact, there’s a certain pressure that is created from being the source of all human correctness. Sometimes I deliberately make mistakes so that others see I’m ‘just like them.’ For example, this morning I intentionally mis-added some large numbers that were to appear on an invoice in the certain knowledge that one of our better consultants would spot the mistake and pull me up on it. Instead, he immediately approved the calculation (that’s my job by the way), instructed finance to create the invoice (that’s my job by the way), asked the other managing partner – Frank – to give the payment a ‘go’ (also my job) in doing so insisted that all was just fine because I had added up the original figures. The client, on receiving an invoice for way too much calls us – fuming – like we’re total morons and all fingers point at me.

That the official last time that I play dumb. That’s right – official.

The circus guys are checking in tonight. That was the planning, at least. There is the minor issue however of them not having paid a penny of sixty-five thousand Euro. A big ol’ bag of loot. No problem, says the head circus guy (I have an image of him dressed as a clown) – we’ll bring the entire payment in cash. Hamid – our finance guy – has the challenging double task of counting the notes and not keeping any of them.

A great week...

... tired. Too many deals...sleeply.... sl...

Investors and impressions

The investors were back in this morning. I want to make an impression and it began with “Can I get anyone some coffee?” – I sound like Charlotte but the idea is to demonstrate that I’m a human being too. “Coffee” they parrot in unison like they’ve been practicing.

An impression was made but not the one intended. On opening the kitchen door that adjoins the conference room where the investors were all seated, I stumble over Brenda’s stout legs. The rest of her is slumped, out cold atop the counter. Drowsily, she raises her head – it’s swollen, it's beaten, it's got the pattern of her sweat-shirt sleeve embossed in her right cheek. A piece of croissant clings doggedly to her hair.

Klaas is livid and sends her home. It’s not that he has a problem with anyone pissing away an evening but it should have zero (ZERO) effect on performance the following day. In the States – apparently – this is a fireable offence.

"Didn’t you notice? You must have!" His palms are raised heavenwards.
"Er… Klaas… investors. Duh!" I stomp off for a detailed review of my junk mail.

Brenda manages a brief and unconvincing apology before taking herself off for the day. Sadly, she still tops the turnover league for April thus far.

Meetings

Meetings are getting longer and there are more of them. This morning we had our weekly 10.00 management team meeting that started promptly at 11.05. Frank is the reason that this meeting (and all others come to think of it) never starts on time. A start of two-hours after the scheduled kick-off is not uncommon. Why? A last phone call followed by a final email and capped with a very last email and one more email. The great thing about Frank is that he never, ever apologies for being late. He simply enters the gathering with supreme confidence causing those irritated by what, until that very moment, they believed to be the cause of the late start – namely Frank – to wonder weather they’ve really understood what is going on. Was it really a 10.00 start?

Anyway, at 11.05 we sat for the MT. At 11.06, we’re all in the kitchen fixing coffee. The coffee machine is partially broken and so no longer dispenses two cups at once. Just one cup at once which compounds irritation if you are the type prone to it. At 11.15 we’re seated once more and the door is closed. Charlotte pops her head around the door, “Coffee?”. Of course. 11.30 beckons.

Feeling smug that we’ve cobbled together a punchy little agenda by 11.40, we start with the first item – the august body known as the Rent Commission (Huurcommissie in Dutch) and another case that could have dire consequences for us and, if not dire, then at least very expensive. Frank runs through the highlights that seem to amount to an unfathomable series of lapses on our side and, frankly Frank, we deserve all we get. Me, Frank, Klaas and Marcus fall silent. So depressed are we by the prospect of sorting out this case (it resembles a pile of spaghetti dropped from a tall building onto a flock of flamingos coming into land) that we cannot think of anything – encouraging or not – to say about, well, anything. We sip brews in monastic contemplation. 12.05 – Charlotte brings more coffee. Finally, Marcus retrieves the offending deal’s dossier from the archive and takes a peek. Still a depressing tale of woe but less awful that feared and we cheer up a bit. No time for other agenda items. Meeting abandoned in favour of an early lunch.

Raw mode

Ashen, puffy faced, unkempt – the Ideal Housing crew struggle in late after last night’s bash at Restaurant Harkema in the Nes (theatre district). Although only twelve bottles of wine were consumed between the twenty of us, the fact that a small but determined alcoholic minority consumed most of the grog explains the wilder behaviour towards the end of the evening. In the normal run of the day, we all know Jimmy as well-meant, chubby, ineffective and basically harmless. Pour a little truth-drug into him however, then better take a step back. Loud – OK, who wasn’t. Very loud – border line OK, he wasn’t the only one. Screaming at top of voice for entire restaurant to “Shut-up. Everyone – shut-up” – not OK. Then, when a thousand eyes were boring into Jimmy’s swaying frame atop the dining table, he points to Eddie and says, “Eddie, the floor is yours.”

Marcus captured a terabyte of material on his top-of-the-range expensive camera. “I had the thing in ‘raw’ mode – got it all” – which, on reviewing some of the excruciating digital detail this morning added new meaning to “all.” As far as I could tell, there were range ranging wine-fuelled confessions whispered in confidence between courses but the action stopped short of impromptu snogging and, fortunately, there was no photocopier available for anyone to consider sitting on.

A former colleague – Vlad – had also managed to crash the gig claiming that Klaas had invited him. Vlad left a couple of months back to work in advertising. I wish he’d just come straight out with it and pitched me a “Can I do your new house style – by God, you need one.” Instead, he followed me around like a puppy, hoping for a quiet moment to sell his wares. I thought I’d dodged him but a wave of synchronous restroom breaks left me sitting alone under a halogen spot offering Vlad his moment.

The problem with having the best month ever...

The problem with having the best month ever - March - is that unless you have another better month (hopefully the following one) - it's all down hill. And as that lofty peak disappears into the distance, it is increasingly mentioned only in passing rather than in the 'I was there and did my bit sense' and only then with a tone that implies that you're not sure the turnover was really that high anyway.

April has a not untypical slow start. Rental deals could go either way. Stomping and splashing around in the rain a month back delivering fliers to the most sought after areas has resulted in a rush of quality properties to add to our portfolio. Googling - those guys are criminals and we pay them Euro 4000 per month - has delivered a solid flow of clients with budgets taking our average ever upwards. Good signs, thus.

But (or should I say 'butt'), Ginny is leaving in May and is already winding down. Our youngest consultant has returned from a week slumming it with friends in New York and, as is always the case when one is stupid enough to take vacation, his portfolio of rental clients in cooler than an arctic fox's tail, he's still jet-spaced, and just can't shake that holiday happiness making it hard from him to focus and hard for the rest of us to bear. Brenda has crashed. After a flying start as neweling two months ago when a couple of lucky deals created the impression that it was all so trivial and easy, reality has set in. Pissing up is fine, Brenda, but be sharp and make your numbers. Klaas took Brenda for lunch and had a deep and meaningful yet subtle and insightful conversation with her along the following lines, "Brenda - don't get boozed up so often. Make more deals. Ying. Yang. But make more deals."

Owning up

Every day an unexpected, critical issues rises from the deep requiring hours of concentrated management team debate followed, without hesitation, by one or more key decisions. Yesterday, this issue was the pitiful state of the kitchen - a wasteland of abandoned cups, left-overs, an empty-but-still-beeping microwave smelling of dog, and ten tea bags alone and sagging on the counter top like old ladies camped on a park bench gossiping about absent friends. That was yesterday.

Today the strategic management issue claiming the time I always reserve for such occasions was fines. More precisely, fines associated with speeding or parking offenses. So that we both know what we're talking about: speeding means driving faster than the law allows (clues: things go blurry, the roof-rack blows off, air rushes by so swiftly that you can't hear the radio) and parking offenses means leaving your vehicle stationary in a manner not accepted by people whose lives are brightened by wearing police uniforms and police hats (clues: a wounded dog is stuck to your front right wheel, you are upside down in a garden, looking around you seem to be in a department store and your seat-belt is still fastened).

Yes - rental consultant person - you are driving on work time. But - rental consultant - you still need to obey the law. Drive too fast, then own up to it. Kill a kitten while attempting to reverse into tiny space, then accept the consequences. Fines come in centrally to the office with time and place and date of the offense stipulated. The name of the consultant is not stated, naturally, as the crime is frequently recorded by camera and the camera cannot not quite capture the name and address printed in tiny letters on your driving license.

One of Charlotte's many thankless tasks as office manager is to quiz everyone on receiving a another traffic fine by post (in official envelop) from the local authority. Blank looks. Denial. Finger pointing. Checking the car-reservation agenda has little value as consultants deliberately scribble unreadable junk in there - enough to claim the car if in dispute, but just too little to be able to deny having used it if there is a fine to be paid.

If there's a doubt, then fair enough. It's natural not to want to pay a fine if you only 'probably' are guilty. But if confronted with incontrovertible evidence - even where the colleague who was sitting next to you shops you - then raised eye-brows and mock shock make my blood bubble.

My blood is bubbling.

Communication

Much of weekend spent on monster memo intended for investors with whom we meet again tomorrow. Despite the length and depth of this latest missive – one of many by the way – we seem to be talking an unknown dialect of a nearly extinct language. Blank looks punctuated by raised eyebrows and pen-tapping expletives. Somehow, we arrived at the notion of meeting minutes during our last session of last week. We trade small-font, single-spaced written exchanges in which each party summarizes what they believe was discussed. It’s sort of working. At least the wildly different points of view are on the table instead of being wrapped in optimistic assumption that we’re all hopefully on the same page.

March has officially closed. Record month. Not just a record March but a record in the true meaning of the word – the best month ever. With respect to the month profile, we defied that final week rush of rental deals and frenetic shouting to cram it all in before midnight on the last working day. Instead, the deals were scattered beautifully allowing administration to remain on low boil and allowing tempers to remain jacketed.

The role of psychology

The problem with Ginny is that she's too good. Annoying, yes. But still good. On balance, her sales figures are enough to dampen my chronic irritation with her considerable noise levels, her unannounced and unnecessary claims on my time, and her utter disregard for her colleagues deals-in-process which she takes a perverse pleasure in disrupting by stealing the properties for her own clients at the last minute or hiding information about new apartments until Ginny's own clients match.

In an average month, if her performance is above the median (which is usually is), then Ginny might account for 30% of the monthly turnover. In short, we feel exposed to her over-performance and doubly so as she's been gabbing for the last year about moving to Suriname for a new life (and by the way, her aunt lives there). With a view to binding her into the team here and building a career for the next few years in Amsterdam, Klaas and I have been offering her (OK, begging her) different roles.

"Come on", says Klaas in his most encouraging voice, "make a decision - stay! What's Suriname got to offer if you're not a pensioner or tax exile?"

Pause.

"OK - I quit."

The lesson here is that while psychology has a role to play in persuading someone to stay, go or do something, education also has a role to play in ensuring that the would-be psychologist knows what the heck he is doing. Challenging Ginny was just not the right tactic. Money is her motivator. We should have attempted to buy her. Something like,

"Here's ten thousand Euro - please stay until Christmas."

Does this sound too much like groveling?

Weekly IT update

On asking Marcus – who works one day a week offsite on very tricky IT stuff – for his weekly update, I received the following. After reading it, I wonder which plant he’s from and if he visits very often:

"Well - had some very strange emails in my inbox this morning, which were sent a couple of weeks ago, but I only received today. How's this for a weird chain of events?

The new database functionality sends this to the role/email address “property.manager@...". I tested it yesterday before rolling it out. Turns out I forgot to create that address! No problem, that's why I'm testing, right?

Since there was no such address, it was sent to the Catchall account I set up a week or so ago. I had intended the catchall to be forwarded to it@..., but that wasn't set up. So the catchall account filled up. Since it was full, I received this morning an error that my test mail couldn't be delivered, so I looked into it, and discovered all this. I set up the forward to the it@... address, and now the queue is dumping all the stuff it was holding. Ugh.

End result: more junk mail for me to process... Don't know how to handle better without a new system. We only have 50 email accounts, so I can't leave ex-colleagues active with a "reject" rule....

Hold on, I just figured it out! Create one "Reject" address, and add all ex-employee addresses to that account as aliases. (After a certain time, of course, so that client emails still get to Klaas.) That way bad stuff gets rejected, but "Gelmer" still gets through for processing. Should work.

I've got to do something soon: I've received 50+ such emails already this morning...

-Marcus"

Payroll administration

Great relief yesterday to have administered the payroll. For those on zero variable – like the office manager – there is nothing to do other than check that they are still breathing. It can irk to pay an employee who, had a closer inspection been undertaken, would have been declared officially deceased and a salary check saved. In the case of Charlotte, I need not check her pulse as, surely, she must be alive in order to chat online with MSN Messenger for five of her eight hours per day. The three other hours interspersed with cigarette breaks, coffee breaks, and a long lunch break.

The end of the month payroll for the rental consultants is their recurring opportunity to attempt to persuade me that incomplete, poorly administered deals should be added to their variable remuneration. Sad as this may be, there is nothing to make the heart soar like a neat and complete dossier comprising signed contracts (by both lessee and lessor), passport copies, copy of employment contract, a signed inventory and inspection report...

Why we cannot agree that, if it’s not complete, the variable commission with slide to next month (assuming the deal is then complete)? At least this would be an honest system and I’d respect the consultants the more for being up front. What really bugs me is when, say, Jimmy, presents a handful of deal sheets with canyon-wide holes in them, AWOL documents, incomplete payments, missing signatures and accompanies his pitiful submission with a poorly structured, dreadfully articulated fairy tale in an embarrassing attempt to convince me that:

• Actually, the deals are all complete but that he’s a bit behind on getting the process steps signed off by the relevant party (contracts, finance…); and/or
• OK – fair enough – they are not complete but they will be by two o’clock (mmm… the deadline is 12.00 – same as last month); and/or
• The dossier was complete but someone has removed documents and just wait until he finds out which son-of-a …

Depressed that the consultants think I’m either very stupid or naively nice, I finally manage to get the salary numbers to our book keeper. Cycling home I feel pretty good about the fact that, once again, we are supporting the livelihoods and families of twenty people who, were they not working for me and Frank, would be sleeping under bridges.

Alone

Somehow I survived Friday evidenced by a Saturday-fatigue that dogs me like a shadow. End of the day yesterday was good and bad and only three additional mugs of coffee could prop me up until the pub welcomed me into it’s smoky embrace at 19.00. Several large deals had been scored, several more cooking, all of which needed contracts and invoices but the problem was that I was the only soul in the back office able to do this as everyone else had the day free. No contracts people, no property managers, no receptionist (weep). We’ve talked for years about how to avoid all ‘key’ people being out at once yet fail predictably to prevent this. At least this was only one day but, with depressing certainly, two-week long vacation plans will overlap in the late summer, lengthening days and shortening tempers.

Your moped is (nearly) on fire

The jury is still out and so is Jimmy. It's midday. He’s viewing something somewhere with someone. Breathless, he crashes through the door around 12.30. It went well. Very well. Couldn't have been weller. Excellent - a deal then? No. They may be moving as late as March 2008 and are not sure of their budget... or preferred location. One hopes we're talking the Netherlands here.

This morning, the moped scooted me workwards. It is the habit of the police and me to cordially ignore each other - the mutual respect of one skilled-road user to another speaking volumes.

At a red light, I stop. It's the law. Next to me, a police van pulls up in the other lane. The driver looks at my newly tuned and serviced machine and begins to lower his window. I wonder if he'll have time to deliver his compliment before the lights turn green. He does. He says, "there is petrol gushing from a fuel-line onto your engine. You are in danger of blowing yourself up." Looking down, my shoes, the engine, and the road are soaked. I see he is right. Looking up, I see he is gone. Long gone. Not wanting to have fragments of exploded engine parts sticking out of your body is a powerful motivator.

Abandoning the moped at the side of the road for later collection by the repair shop, I jog to the office for my 9.00 meeting. At 9.20 I learn it's cancelled and the clue to this cancellation is that nobody showed up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

That feels much better.

After an uplifting start to the week on Monday we are plunged by the roller coaster on which we unexpectedly find ourselves to a new low and, now that I think about it for a moment, one of the carriage wheels appears to be loose and a 6G bend approaches.

For those of you wondering what the difference is between ‘normal’ force and G-force, Wikipedia provides for the following: Unlike simple acceleration, 'g-force’ is a measure of the magnitude of the acceleration relative to the local gravitational acceleration vector, rather than being compared to an inertial reference frame.

A while back we stepped into a big project as a minority investor. The owner of the project is a complex man who habitually pretends to be a simple man in order to thwart any attempts at debate whenever a discussion point comes to the fore. Instead of ‘talking stuff over’ he feigns lack of comprehension and, later and only following serious study, communicates with us via his ‘messenger’ – a sixty-five year old grump with whom empathy is difficult. The arrangement – as least from our perspective – is that he would build the thing and we’d exploit the thing (‘exploit’ in our world means ‘rent the sucker’).

An incongruence of perspective doesn’t quite do justice to the contrasting positions that have materialised following the investor’s letter (via the grump). On the one hand, the investor feels strongly that he has bought, renovated, and furnished the property and we should exploit the apartments and be happy with remuneration in the share-holding alone. On the other hand, running the exploitation is costly and, not having even close the same financial resources as the investor, we feel that asking us absorb all operational costs is not only unrealistic but, plainly said, would cause bankruptcy.

We ponder a response.