with the estate agent standing on his toes
Apologies to Robert Frost, but this paraphrase seemed like a good start to a bad story dating back to 1985. Following a wrongly diagnosed case of homesickness, I had returned from my last overseas job in Greece to settle back into my home in Townsville, but you can never step into the same river twice, and so, only a few months later, I was hoping for better luck in Sydney.
And luck was with me: I eventually took up the impressive-sounding job of "Internal Consultant" with Wormald International which required me to be 'on the road' - or rather 'in the air' as Wormald's operations were spread all over the world - for as much as nine months of the year.
Wormald consisted of a large group of branches and subsidiaries all over Sydney and Australia and the rest of the world, which was very loosely monitored, if at all, from a small head office at Crows Nest. To acquaint myself better with its operations, I started out by visiting several of their branches and subsidiaries in Sydney, noting with concern their ballooning accounts receivable. Each business seemed to have different credit policies, few of which seemed to be enforced, and if they were, usually by some junior girl who had more important things on her mind than collecting the company's debts. In the circumstances, I drafted a detailed proposal of factoring all debts to an in-house debt collection agency which would be run by a team of experienced credit controllers.
On the strength of this long-term career appointment, I had already put a deposit down on an apartment at the harbourside locale of McMahons Point, where I had last stayed in 1972 in a rambling old boarding-house by the ferry stop, then already long gone. Several agents had shown me several properties. What attracted me to this particular Art Deco block of eight units was the fact that it had recently been converted to strata title and still smelt of fresh paint and new carpets, and I could move into it immediately, paying a weekly rent pending the full settlement.
Two of the eight units were still for sale: unit 4 on the ground floor at the rear of the building with a view of the skyline across Lavender Bay, and a same-sized unit, number 6, which was laid out across the front of the building to face Blues Point Road. The agent warned me to move quickly as a young couple had already expressed an interest in the rear-facing unit, but I assured him that I was interested in the less wanted one facing the street. He seemed surprised and I found out why after I had signed on the dotted line and had moved in only a few days later.
The relentless cacophony of a big city on a busy working day assaulted me from the moment I entered the unit, and there was only a short lull in the late afternoon before the arrival of party-goers seeking out "the delights of this harbourside locale with trendy cafés and restaurants" -- I borrowed this from the estate agents' hyperbole -- none rowdier and closer than the 'Grape Escape' on the very next corner. And what arrived had to leave again, which was around midnight by which time I had finally succumbed to an uneasy sleep, only to be rudely awakened again by car alarms going off right below my window as inebriated drivers fiddled with their car keys. Within a few days I was a nervous wreck.
without the estate agent standing on his toes
The unit facing the rear was still open and empty when I checked it out one late evening after its front door had fallen shut behind me with a deep satisfying thunk, hermetically sealing off the noise from the front, but by that time it had already been sold and I had settled on mine.
Having become a nervous wreck did nothing to assist me in my work which I had expected and wanted to be demanding, but after the first rush of adrenalin had passed - which coincided with the rejection of my debt collection proposal - I remembered that I had just given up a far better and more highly-paid overseas job with more perks in order to live a 'normal' domesticated life, and resigned and left for Canberra.
Life is unforgiving. Like in double-entry bookkeeping, for every credit, there’s a debit. After every rise comes a fall. You can’t get one without the other. I wonder what might have been had I bought the other unit. I bought the one less wanted, and that has made all the difference.
It just so happens that Unit 4 has come up for rental again - click here - at the same time as the agent has told me that my tenants in Unit 6, a Chinese couple who were probably enured to noise, will leave at the end of this month - click here. Both rentals are similarly priced - $625 vs $600 - except that my unit would be more suitable for a deaf person.
