Things on My Mind

As many of you know my mom died a little over a year ago and her birthday would have been 04/27, to remember her my step father Bob is taking the family out to dinner and I'm really hoping it won't get too awkward. One of my mom's wishes was that my sister publish her journals as a way to help others fighting ALS or Lou Gehrigs Disease as it is more commonly known. Last night I was feeling kind of down thinking about Al Crincolis struggle with illness and his passing, when I decided to reread my sisters entries. I actually got myself all worked up and published a comment that had my sister balling to me on the phone tonight. We agreed that a good cry now and then was beneficial and nothing to be ashamed about, even if you scare your 8 year old son. You can check out her journal at http://support4als.blogspot.com I encourage all to do so because it's not an easy disease to diagnose and death comes slow and painful.

Glad to see most of the school budgets passed. All the complaining and whining in Pt Beach makes me chuckle, take any house in PPB and move it to the Boro and watch the taxes rise by at least 33%. People in Pt Beach don't know how good they have it.

I've probably read about 100 books over the last six months and the one I'm currently reading, The Cuckoo's Nest by Cliff Stoll, is taking me forever to get through. It's about one of the first computer hackers ever hunted down in the 1970's and what got him caught was a .75 cent billing miscalculation on a computer spread sheet. The book is about 350 pages long with really tiny print and it's written by an astronomer/programmer and he leaves no detail undocumented. A year ago I would have tossed this book aside after 30 pages, but a scientist lent it to me and now it's my lifes work to plow through the last 150 pages and have an intelligent conversation with this gentleman.

It's very frustrating working when everyone else is home. My son arrived home on Tuesday from a weeks visit to Arizona and I wont be able to see his face until 8 AM Saturday morning when we have our weekly battle over his watching MTV. Growing up the wildest thing on MTV was a Madonna video, now it sex to the nth degree, provacative outfits, and grind,grind, grind. Alot like dancing with a girl from TR!

Played hoops Sunday morning for the first time since my surgery in February. Ran about 7 full court games and my shoulder came out fine. My calves on the other hand are still barking on Wed night. It's time to drop some lbs. and go from rehab to fitness mode.

Real Estate market is finally picking up. I saw an actual contract on one of my listings and I'm showing 4 or 5 houses on Sat and doing an open house in Brick on Sunday. 236 18th Ave, 4 BR 2 Ba house with a full bsmt, attached garage, 75x100 lot on a hilltop setting. Drop by from 1-3 to say hello. Goodbye for now...

Some Sad News

Our good friend, Al Crincoli, passed away this morning after a long illness. I remember the first time I met Al in the conference room at Beltri Realtors. He and The Bloated One had worked together at Crossroads years before and when Crossroads tried to screw him on a customer issue, Al C immediately resigned and brought his license to Beltri. While the 3 of us sat in the conference room going over the contract, Al asked me how we were going to handle his BPO business. Dumbfounded, I asked him how Crossroads had handled it, he told us and TBO said Al C could keep 100% of his business. ( Can you imagine that generosity today?) The conversation continued until I finally interrupted and asked, What the heck is a BPO? Al C chuckled and explained what a Brokers Price Opinion was and how you were compensated for one. I can only imagine what he was thinking about the fact that his new manager had no idea what a BPO was. After our first meeting Al C and I became fast friends. Al C was always good for 4 or 5 deals a year and his paperwork was always impeccable. I wouldn't hear from him for a couple of weeks and then he'ld pop in and hand me a fat check and a HUD statement and I'ld thank him profusely. When Al C popped in it meant a cup of coffee and a good 45 minutes of great stories from his business past. He was also famous for his huge Holiday mailings, every Dec 10th or so Al would come in with about 700 mailers that would have to be sealed and stamped, my processor hated it but I never had the heart to tell him the agents were supposed to complete the entire mailing process themselves. Al C was old school and I respected him immensly so over a 2 or 3 day period Joni and I would seal and stamp until we completed the job, it usually cost me a lunch or 2 but it was well worth it to keep a man like Al C motivated and content. The office was always thanked at Christmas with a bottle of wine and a box of nice chocolates with liquor inside. Whether it was his business background or his garden and pond stories, Al C was the one guy I always took time out to sit and shoot the breeze with. Al C was a family man, a battler, highly ethical and classy. He will be missed by all that knew him. God Bless!

The Facebook Revolution

As with any new trend such as Myspace, Youtube or Facebook I am well behind the times. I had tried Myspace as a goof and to spy on my kids, it was fun for about 3 weeks and then I soured on it and deleted my profile, lets leave that to the teenagers was my thinking. I recently started enjoying Youtube to pass some time on my nightjob, it's easy to navigate and I even have an account. I'm noticing more real estate activity on the site and just as I was starting to look into it a little more, I read an article that the company is bleeding money and might not be around much longer. It figures, just as I was getting good at it! The latest thing I'm trying out is Facebook. It appears to me to be a grown up Myspace so I can use it without the embarassment. My sisters are helping me out with the tech side of the site but I'm still pretty inept. My greatest fear was that no one would want to be my friend, that problem was solved when someone else asked to be my friend before I had even finished my profile. With a sigh of relief I accepted my new friend and his name wasn't "Tom". It's been 3 days since I started and I'm up over 40 friends and I actually have some pics of the family up on the site. Time definately flies when you're on the site and I can assume there are some pretty po'd spouses out there when I see the multitude of posts of some of my cronies. For me, I'm going to try and limit my time on it, promote my blog and real estate business, and reignite old and forgotten friendships ( no exgirlfriends says my wife) . Luckily I was born shy and ugly so that condition shouldn't be a problem. Happy surfing!!!

The New Sheriff in Town

And he goes by the acronym BK or shorty if you will. The reason for this post is that I will be exposing this humble blog to the masses any day now. That's right folks, I'm caving in and opening a Facebook account. I've resisted so far because at my night job, Facebook is a blocked account, blogging obviously is not. At this time I have 7 devoted followers and around 20-25 people who call or e-mail me to comment on my posts. A caller today who commented that she LHAO while catchting up with my posts, pointed out that someone from the outside looking in may think that this is all just "sour grapes" and that I'm just being vindictive. I could definately see her point so I decided to write. If you've read the previous posts you know the title of this blog comes from an infamous Holiday Party speach by the Bloated One in Dec '07. After basically ignoring his company for the previous 6 months he was announcing to his agents that he was back on the job and things were going to change. The Bloated One had gone from an inspiring, forward thinking, motivating personality to a skirt chasing, money hungry two face ogre. After having been invisible for the previous 6 months, he declared he was back in action and was going to turn the real estate market upside down and bring it back to prosperity. Well his timing was just a tad bit off, while other companies were circling the wagons and cutting expenses, he was in expansion mode. A new more costly office in Howell, an adult community office that Diane Turton had given up on yet TBO payed top dollar for, and an office in Brick that another agency had abandoned yet TBO felt was the perfect location. My assumption was that he tried to time the comeback of the market and never expected the downturn to last into '09 and possibly '10. He decided to move his own office to the Point location and the agents soon found out what I had been shielding them from for the past 15 months or so. He became antagonistic bordering on abusive, refused to cooperate with agents who were trying to complete deals, and in the end he was even ignoring his own written orders on how a commission split should be paid to an agent. He lied, and his unwitting mgrs and asst mgrs swore to the lie. I once had respect for a couple of his minnions, that all went out the window after that last fiasco. What strikes me as the most ironic is that he failed to turn the Point office around. He grossly underestimated the work and time involved in running an office staffed by part time agents. In less than a year under his guidance, he closed his original office. He can make all the excuses he wants but it had to be a huge blow to his enormous ego to shutter the office that started it all. It's a huge blow to his pocketbook also because he's still paying rent on both units as we speak. One sharp business man. Anyway back to the point, if you've read the posts from day one I didn't start this blog as a blast Beltri site. What happened was he started royally screwing my former associates and it really made me angry. Most people in his company are deathly afraid of this man or feel they owe their professional lives to him. He revels in this, he rules by fear and intimidation. A bully plain and simple. From the beginning it seemed I was the only one who ever stood up to him, explained right from wrong. fought a dress code, and told him how to diplomatically handle certain situations. I have often said I was the conscience of the company. Well it's quite obvious from the way the company is being run that no one is willing to stand up to him, the agents have noticed and they're leaving in droves. I still feel a responsibility to the agents I had managed that are left behind so I post the truth. The Beltris have run their company based on gossip, intimidation, and hiding the truth, so I post what I know. First hand accounts from the agents that were slandered, mistreated, harrassed, and falsely accused. Can you imagine a gag order on a small claims court settlement of around $500. That's dinner and wine for 2 nights for the ultraextravagant Beltris, a limo ride and lunch on a Saturday for heavens sake! Yet he went to court when he knew he was wrong in order to keep the truth from coming out! Well, that's why I blog, to let others know what is really going on. I don't feel I'm wasting my time, time seems to fly by when I'm writing, and like I said, I feel I have a responsibility to do it. I honestly don't have any ethical problems with what I'm writing because it's all fact. If I'm making an assumption I'm sure I have 95% of the facts to support my conclusion. And besides, it's fun to read for the agents who have been royally screwed by the fat man and the agents who have left without their full commissions or listings. More than 5 agents who left have said they felt some wierd stuff was going on but they couldn't put 2 and 2 together, and now it all makes sense. Well, believe me, it's hard to make sense of a cluster f**k but I'm doing the best I can. No personnal vindictiveness, only for my friends, no falsehoods, gotta protect my rep, don't want to be sued by a gaggle of lawyers kept on retainer, and don't want to be shot, I'm told he has a handgun by a frightened for her life young lady, but that's a story I don't yet have permission to tell. Maybe soon...

One Big Happy Family

A recurring theme here has been my harrowing guilt over selling Beltri Realtors as one big happy family. I can attest from 2003 til 2007 we were one partying company. If there was a holiday or a birthday we were at a bar hootin and hollerin. The MCAR beach parties should have been known as the Beltri Bash because no one had a better time than we did. Looking back it was the day after these occasions that should have made me more suspicious of our rotund leader. It was always 99 questions, who drank what and how much, who was dancing with who, anyone get sick, who exactly was out, etc etc. The more gossip the better. And he interrogated everyone, especially the agents he fronted money to, those were the ones who owed him and would give up the most idle gossip. For myself and the agents it was just letting off steam, venting about the boss and at worst, innocent flirtations. Far be it for any male to engage in conversation with one of Al's personnal favorites for more than two minutes. First you could feel the glare from across the room, than you could see the pouty face, and then the next day you could expect the 10 minute interrogation about what you were discussing. Everything was a company secret, no one knew from one office to the next what was going on in the company unless it was an ill conceived contest with the reward being lunch with the Bloateds'. Big Deal!!!
Many times I would call another office and ask to speak with an agent or a secretary and find out that they had left or been fired. I was the senior manager and was constantly kept in the dark over personnel decisions. Part of Mrs B's bio is that she personnally sits with each agent and goes over the contract with them. What took Al or I 20 minutes max to go over, takes her 90 minutes and the agent walks out of the room with a dazed look in their eyes. It wasn't till the masses started leaving the company and phoning me that I found out that the Beltris had changed up the contract from your commission being cut to 50% if you were at a higher split and you were leaving the company to 50% of the rate you were currently at. That means an agent at a 50/50 split leaving the company a week before a closing, would get paid 25% and probably wait 3 weeks to get it. Everything started going downhill the day the supportive wife became the do nothing, long winded VP of operations. The more she talked, the less the agents and mgmt respected her. When she yelled or cried, her credibility went down to nothing. Her hiring, and the purchase of the Brielle Showplace, is when the company went from looking out for their agents to looking out for themselves. "Everybodies got their hands in my pocket" is a phrase that just echoes in my mind from hearing it so much.
Besides the 70,000 hits a month on his website, the other thing the Round Mound liked to brag about was his 100 agents. I ran some numbers and names through my head and consulted with some other exes and came up with the following. When we were growing, having fun with wifey as a supportive bystander, Beltri grew to 100 agents in about 4 years. Through that time approx 11 agents left the company, 1 was a porn addict, 1 a drunk, 1 was crazy as a loon, 1 a daughter-in-law, and the other 7 or 8 were for a variety of reasons but nothing to give the company a black eye. Than I ran the numbers since "There's a new Sheriff in Town " speach. Over 30 agents have left since then, almost a third of the company and the majority of the full time agents. I can say with a clear conscience??? that I had nothing to do with any of it. If an agent called and asked for advise, I gave it to them. And 95% of the time my advise was to stay with the devil you know and see if things turn around. Invariably TBO would do something inane or unethical and drive the person away anyway. Of the 30 that had left, 20% were former Million $ Club members, what company could afford to lose that amount of quality producers ane expect to survive??? As always I ponder, what a way to run a company...
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Be All That You Can Be!

But wear too many hats and sooner or later, it's all gonna fall apart. Working my security job I have a lot of time to read, and write, but you already know that. My brother sends alot of books my way and a good number of them are military related. The book I'm just finishing up is Making The Corps by Thomas E Ricks. It is about the life of a Marine Corps Recruit and his time spent at Parris Island. It also tells a good deal about the history of The Corps. One line really brought back alot of memories for me of my time at Beltri. "Concentrate on doing a single task as simply as you can, execute it flawlessly, TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE, and go home." This is a one line assessment of how The Marine Corps does it's business. This one line made me reflect back to the many conversations I had with Bruce, Ray, and Donna about how muddled the real estate transaction had become at Beltri. First it was the mortgage company we were forced to promote, then the title company, then the once a month Open House extravaganza we were shoving down our agents throats, onto the guaranteed advertising plans that were really no guarantee at all, the 3 week circus of meetings and phone calls to round up all of YHD's listings and agents that amounted to nothing, and then the luxury home division fiasco that has done nothing but create controversy and bad will all around.
When I joined the company The Bloated One stated "I will never forget those who believed in me and helped me grow, we're all gonna get rich with this. " Well, of the 3 people in the room that day, only one of us lives in a $900,000 house on the busiest street in Brielle. In my 4.5 yrs as a manager with the company I never received a pay raise on my base salary of $600 a month, the rest of my monthly check was earned on the hard work of the agents in my office. Lets see, he demanded I be in the office 40-50 hrs a week, accused my assistants (including his stepdaughter) and myself of covering up for each other, yet I was only guaranteed a $600 paycheck a month. Would someone please e-mail me the number for the Labor Dept!!! What's the statute of limitations?
It really is a shame, I once accused one of our mortgage reps of monopolizing all of The Bloated Ones time, I complained he hadn't spoken to me in 3 weeks. She smiled and said he hadn't returned one of her calls in over a month! Talk about spreading yourself thin, if it wasn't the mortgage company, and it wasn't the real estate company taking up his time, what could it have been that kept him so disconnected from the companies he so loved? If his wife was correct and he was out chasing skirts all day, I think he would've been alot thinner!
He speaks often of his dream of operating his own real estate company. When his dream came true and things started clicking, his inbred greed kicked in. He should've studied the Marine's credo and stuck with the one thing he did well, he should've taken care of his people, and he should've been home taking care of his disfunctional family when they needed him most. Woulda' Coulda' Shoulda'...Oh well.

Internet Maverick

I admit I have way too much time on my hands, but at least I'm getting paid for it! Went to the Beltri website for research for my previous post and clicked on the banner over skinny Al's head. It directed me to his real estate blog where he claims to have 70,000 hits a month on his website. I would challenge him to back that up, but I digress. In an e-mail I sent to the bloated one some 2 months ago I made the point I had to make, as evidenced by his hastily called managers meeting the next night, and then I gave him some unsolicited advise, have someone proof your site, it's embarassing! About 3 weeks later most of the agents bios were proofed and corrected. Today I happened upon his "re-alignment plan" on the front page of his website that receives 70,000 hits a month and here is an example

"I have been working on what I call a “re-alignment” plan for our company since May of this year. Basically, this plan is comprised of looking at our overhead, our markets and office production. An example of this was our Normandy Beach Office. We realized that most of our business was being done in the Lavallette are so we relocated a satellite office to Lavallette and consequently have increased our business ever since explaines Albert S. Veltri, President & CEO".
"I have identified our Point Pleasant office as the next office to re-align. Our rationale for this re-alignment is the fact that over the past four years 85% of Point Pleasants’ production was out of the Point Pleasant and Point Beach areas. In fact, over 50% of our production was done in Brick. It is our second most expensive office in the system and we also have seen a decline in the offices’ production since we opened our Howell office three years ago and opened our Brick office this year. It does not make good business sense to keep this operation open and compete with ourselves. We still have a lease that we will have to pay for the next year and a half unless we can sublet some space. We will probably use some of the space for a training facility. All of the sales associates will be going to the Brick Office". Veltri States.

This has been untouched by me, and not proofed by anyone in his office. It just makes me chuckle, 70,000 hits and nonsense like this out to the general "70,000" public! How many Veltri States are there? I hear they're under communist rule with a woman leader. Is explaines spanish for explains? And the Point office, without a leader and two of it's top producers, still outperformed the Howell office, albeit leaderless also.