Fiction's intrigues, reality's calm

My recently acquired DVD player has taught me that for some reason, Hollywood has generally not given real estate professionals an easy ride. In the film Glengarry Glen Ross for instance, the agents depicted are duplicitous to a fault. Redeeming features are hard to find among either the successful, as personified by Al Pacino's character or the failures, here represented by Jack Lemmon. They also work from a chaotic office which drips with sleaze, a telling sign for real estate brokers' abilities or their lack of them.
Then there's American Beauty with Annette Benning as the retentive hysteric who also tries to sell property for a living. She slaps herself hard on the face to punish herself for not closing a deal. She is obviously not a happy bunny and wouldn't move many to want to pursue that particular career. Think of other professions that cinema has pointed the camera at: numerous 'cop' films or Backdraft about the heroics of firemen, for example. It's not that difficult to imagine a child, for instance, being seduced by all that excitement and even wanting to get a real slice of the action themselves. They're not going to be inspired by those few films featuring property people. Celluloid has even been kinder to us journalists. It's the integrity and persistence of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in All the President's Men, which typifies our profession's role on film.
Does sleaze and hysteria besmirch real estate offices in Warsaw? Is self-flagellation the general response, when the competition have got the better of you? In truth I wouldn't really know but would love to find out. My contact as a journalist with property professionals of course does not grant me access to the personal dramas that must surely take place, when either success or failure occur. I would naturally be the last person they'd want peering into that arena of potential vulnerability. Which makes me even more intrigued.
I haven't witnessed anything even vaguely dramatic when I've been at one of those impeccable offices where real property professionals work, to interview someone in a spotless, air-conditioned office. Courtesy is laid on very thickly, the interviewee is generally there on time and my questions are patiently dealt with. There is a clear quid pro quo situation here, I know: I want the low down on a unexplored issue in the market and my interlocutors want to promote themselves and their firms. That's the unspoken deal. From my surface perspective, real estate reality in Poland is cleaner than clean. How great it would be for us scavenging hacks to find out that behind the gloss and designer suits, a Glengarry Glen Ross of sorts was being acted out on a daily basis. And if it is, please contact Eurobuild at the earliest opportunity