When a woman was dealing with estate agents, she was appalled that it was her partner – now her husband – who received all the communication.
Rebecca Cox, writing about “everyday sexism”, said that buying their first house she did most of the emailing – but every reply was met with “Dear Adam” or “Mr Crossley”.
She says: “I tried all manner of tactics to illicit a more polite response from the agency, starting my emails with ‘Hi ***, Rebecca here, ***’, signing off with ‘Thanks, REBECCA’, but never received a direct reply addressed to me.
“Worse still, I’d call and leave messages leaving my name and number, but it would be Adam that received the call-back.
The only pay-back I had was on the day of exchange.
“I went personally to pick up the keys and shook hands with every member of the office apart from the person in question. And needless to say they’ve lost a return customer.”
Rebecca’s piece appears in Glamour magazine and does not name the individual estate agent or the firm he worked for.
However, she does drop a heavy clue in that the firm was named after Italian immigrants who came to Britain and liked straight roads.
Eye wonders what else they did for us.
The article is here
Comments (16)
Maybe he met her and didn’t like her and preferred to deal with the partner, that wouldn’t be a first.
No just poor customer service, always reply to the party asking the question. Software does not account for calling back the husband over the wife. I would be surprised to find someone so intentionally sexist but helps if you email both parties, if your software is not capable of this change it ask why not. Also a bit of attention to detail, when you tie the sale up make sure you have the correct parties for the memorandum of sale and this won’t happen.
Robert has hit the nail on the head!
But, with the greatest of respect to Rebecca, and merely my humble observation, 9 times out of 10 if you do call the wife/GF with an issue/blip/question it is greeted with “Could you call my husband” or “I need to speak to my husband first” whereas husbands tend not to ask us to call the wife.
Looking forward to my dislikes 😛
Spot on! Both you and Robert in my opinion have identified what really has happened.
Another person with a chip on their shoulder.
When my wife and i got married i remember the florist was talking to her and calling her despite me being at the initial meeting. Do i think this is sexist or did i get upset despite footing the bill? nope just excepted it!
So if you had sent emails to the florist yourself or had made several calls to their shop and they had then emailed back you wife to be or only called her, you wouldn’t have been a little irritated by that!?!
I personally would not be offended in the least, as long as what i asked/wanted was dealt with I wouldn’t much care who got updated, just as long a one of us did.
This is merely an “ism” situation created by someone who has made something of nothing to slate our industry.
#WhoWearsThePantsGate
I don’t see how you can defend that on any level whether it be sexism or just plain courtesy.
If I consciously and by all accounts permanently thought I was equal to or better than my wife and deserved/expected to be updated equally or indeed first, then yes, perhaps I would get offended.
But it’s very very rare that a man plays the sexism card, quite possibly because we don’t make mountains out of mole hills
Well I’m getting a little bored of this story now if I’m honest and you are right men rarely do play the sexism card but then again men are rarely discriminated against in that regard. I don’t really know whether this case was sexism or not, but constantly ignoring the person who actually contacted you is pretty shoddy either way.
Sexism or software? I suspect Mrs Adam Cox’s problem was not one of sexism but of software that has been written to traditional protocols. The poor neg was probably completely bemused by her put down and won’t have been afforded the right to reply once Mrs. Cox published her article.
No doubt the neg whacked in the required fields and relied on the pre- coded merge field to generate correspondence completely oblivious to her growing conniption. (a fantastic ‘woody’ word for hissy fit)
Never mind love you got an article out of it even if it was a bit cliché and strained and at least you got to boast you have bought a property and captured a husband! Well done, you can get over yourself now!
I’m not sure you can blame software Robert. They use Reapit and as I am sure Mr Whale will confirm, it makes it easy to have multiple owners (even at different addresses). In addition as the article states there were numerous times to amend the records even if it was just Mr who was added at first. A quick look at the company in questions website shows two female sales managers out of 25 offices and not one woman in senior management. Its still the 1980’s in that company I suspect.
^ that and as stated on other post does not explain calling other party back. Your last paragraph is equally patronising and 80’s, shame on you if you are happy to accept slack practice as an excuse for ‘accidental sexism’.
Chuckle!!!! got one! How did I know that last paragraph would attract a slither of indignation.
You sit there and put the whole of that story and the audience it was written for into perspective and when you have done that come back and tell me she has been wronged on any meaningful level.
I am not blaming the software, I know all too well how difficult it is to cater for the modern plethora of relationship status combos and individual titles. Most software does allow contemporary relationships but given the many thousands of hours I have spent training agents and property managers I know what happens; it is the default setting that get used…. Bish, bash, bosh, job done. Where were we? “that second goal was deffo offside” (yes I do realise not all male negs watch or comment on football and yes I do know that girls watch football too and yes….. sorry to everyone I have offended, sorry too to anyone not offended but just feeling a bit left out)
In this modern age hardly a day can go by without falling foul of some newly invented almost bespoke ‘ism’ so it is best to stick with the established rules.
How on earth a negotiator is supposed to cope with the apparent traditional; heterosexual, engaged, getting married, buying a house together, presumably no kids in tow but with a strong modern undercurrent I have no idea.
I tell you what it is my fault!
(Appropriate Deity I hope Adam is a bloke!!!)
Ahh what have they ever done for us…….
I perhaps should have read to the end of the article….embarrassing.