{"id":625,"date":"2008-11-10T12:26:15","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T10:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/en\/?p=625"},"modified":"2014-03-12T16:41:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T14:41:13","slug":"when-i-fought-with-diego-armando-maradona-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/2008\/11\/10\/when-i-fought-with-diego-armando-maradona-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"When I fought with\u2026 \u201cDiego Armando Maradona\u201d (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tfor part 1, click here<\/a>
\n<\/h3>\n

\n\tMajor problems MUST be solved before we invest on a property
\n<\/h3>\n

\n\tI never met an old, low class bureaucratic officer of Ceausescu times. I was not around that time (my first trip abroad without my family was at the age of 14, back in 1989, when I travelled as part of a folklore dancing group to Italy and France). But as I was looking to this gentleman, I was sure that if I would be able to travel back in time, lets say to 1978, I would have found him in front of me, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in the back of an old desk, holding the title of “very important – vital deputy officer, taking care of spreading the ideals of a better society to the cleaning ladies of a factory in Birlad” or something like this..\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe grumpy, the greedy and the one who was… “waiting her uncle to die”<\/strong>
\n\tAs it happens quite often, I had consecutive meetings and both meeting rooms were occupied non stop. By coincidence, this one took place in the small meeting room that we have in our premises. It was autumn of 2006 and I think it was just the second time I was attending a meeting in that room, this is why not even myself was not comfortable with the environment. Right opposite me, I had the above mentioned gentleman, wearing a suit that reminded me a photo that I saw once in the album of my father’s photos before getting married (he got in 1974). All his jacket’s buttons were closed, even if he was sitting (I honestly didn’t bother pointing to him the stylistic mistake, I was sure he knew better than me) and his belly was trying hard to stay inside the shirt. (These shirt’s buttons could really apply for “supplementary fees due to unhealthy work”, like mine). This was the “representative of the owner” and he was very serious and grumpy. Next to him, the owner of an agency we were collaborating with. For him it was the biggest deal of his life, he couldn’t hide it. His eyes were sparkling behind the small glasses, he was crossing his fingers under the table so as all would be ok. I was sure he had already counted his share and arranged in his mind what he would do with the money…
\n\tNext to me, one of my many mistakes in Romania, an agent who worked (for a short period) in my company (until we realized that she didn’t care AT ALL how to protect our clients, breaking our main policy). She was wearing clothes that I am sure she would wear in a wedding, having a perfume that was ideal for someone to smell it and faint immediately (in Greece we say that a perfume like this doesn’t let you free not even when you die…). She was treating the “representative of the owner” like you would treat an old uncle who is about to die in 2-3 days and he has announced that all his fortune goes only to you. She wanted the deal to be done, didn’t care at all about anything else.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“You are not serious at all, you don’t have money, your client is stupid and you are not able to talk about work, you are a Greek villager, go back to your village”<\/strong>
\n\tAfter a quick look to the hungry and the grumpy parts of the table, I started talking to the “representative”. “We have agreed with my clients that it is not fair the owner to raise the price by 20 million euro just at the moment we were ready to proceed for a pre contract. But as we are really interested in the property, we will raise our bid, offering a higher price, under non negotiable term. After we will agree in the price, we will sign a pre contract and the owner will have to provide us a document which will legally prove that the land is not anymore a sports base and we can really build on it. The moment we will have this paper, we go on for the final contract and we pay immediately”.
\n\tThe “representative” raised his eyebrows while he was listening to the translation. His face instantly became red, his blood pressure must have reached the maximum and suddenly he was extremely angry. For a moment I was afraid he would have a heart attack, (but then I realized that this was part of the show). “I thought I came here to discuss with someone serious, who really wants to buy the property. You are not serious at all, you don’t have money, your client is stupid and you are not able to talk about work, you are a Greek villager, go back to your village” was his answer, said in a way to let me know that he tried hard so as not to insult me furthermore. “Ok, I know all these and I totally agree with you. But what exactly is the problem?” I replied to the man, while the two agents in the room had a white face, looking at me with eyes full of anger and hate.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“You are a… malaka! That’s how you call in Greece the stupids, no?”<\/strong>
\n\tHe exploded, with a red face, spitting the words to my face (ok, spitting more than words, liquids too…): “You want to buy a property or not? If you want, your lawyers will sort out all the problems, this is not the business of the owner and you should know this. We sell the land as it is and you should be thankful we still discuss with you. Here, young man, we do business, we do not have time to lose”. I was ready to start clapping, so as to show my appreciation to his performance, but I tried hard so as not to laugh. “Would you please be so kind and share with me one transaction that you participated in with a value of tens of millions of euro? Also would you please tell me one transaction that you had, selling to a client of yours a land with a price of over one million? In any case, do you know anyone who will invest tens of millions of euro for a property without to be sure that the legal and technical status of it is absolutely clean?”.
\n\tHe stood up and made a sign to the guy next to him: “Lets go, this idiot is not serious at all. I thought you knew about business, but you are a… malaka! That’s how you call in Greece the stupids, no?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second part on Wednesday…<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for part 1, click here Major problems MUST be solved before we invest on a property I never met an old, low class bureaucratic officer of Ceausescu times. I was not around that time (my first trip abroad without my family was at the age of 14, back in 1989, when I travelled as part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}