I sat in the great room area of a large luxurious model home in a suburb north of Dallas. It was the third weekend in June in 2005. It was Friday evening about 9 PM. I was enjoying a beer and some finger food watching a baseball game on the large screen television - something of a treat in 2005. My wife sells real estate during the summer when she's not busy as a school librarian and cheerleading coach. Yes, for those of you wondering, she can look like the stereotypical schoolteacher with glasses, conservative dress, and her hair up, and put her in a pair of short shorts and tank top with her hair down and no one would have trouble imagining her as a high school cheerleader 15 years earlier.
In any case, the subdivision developer had a sales strategy that included having Friday night happy hour/open houses in the model home a couple times a month. This attracted other realtors representing various buyers and occasional potential customers. My wife, Sandy, and four other realtors work for the firm contracted by the developer to handle sales. The subdivision had 350 homes and 200 townhouse condominiums about one third of which were sold. There was a big sales push plan for that summer and a strong real estate market, hence, Sandy was able to get picked up as a summer sales associate.
I work in IT in the banking industry and had been sent to Dallas for a 12 week assignment at the regional headquarters to learn some new software packages and rotate through the management training program my employer used for leadership development. Sandy and I live in Cincinnati so this summer assignment in Dallas was something of an adventure for both of us. We were delighted she was able to find the summer opportunity so we could both spend the summer together and she could pick up some extra money. Sandy typically earns as much doing part-time real estate as she does teaching and coaching nine months a year but she just loves the students.
We had been in Dallas a couple weeks and it had been the first time I had been by the subdivision to see the model homes and met Sandy's colleagues. Sandy worked with Richard and his wife Tina, a husband-and-wife realtor team, Joyce, and Becky. They all looked to be in their late 20s. After a few days at work Sandy had explained to me that they must call Dallas the big "D" because all of the women in real estate seemed to be blonds with D cup bosoms. And Tina, Joyce, and Becky certainly fit that mold. Richard had evidently washed out as a minor-league ballplayer and was parlaying his good looks and outgoing manner to team up with his busty blonde wife Tina.
As I watched the game my wife was visiting with a guest realtor and, ever the professional salesperson, was peppering him with facts about soft close cabinets, cove moldings, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances. Most of the other dozen folks in the room seemed to be more interested in finishing off the remaining wine and beer and bragging about their recent sales accomplishments or new car leases.
As Sandy finished her sales pitch and handed the other realtor her card, I suggested it was time to head out as most folks had already left. As Sandy gather a few items I noticed that Tina was across the room surrounded by her husband and three other men while she dispensed with her wine glass and began drinking wine straight out of the bottle. It was pretty obvious that she was well on her way to drunk and relishing the attention of her husband and the other admirers. As I mentioned to Sandy that Tina appeared to be something of a party girl, Tina took another large swig from the bottle with wine leaking out of her mouth and running down her neck into her cleavage. She giggled, set the bottle down, and grabbed her husband's head pulling it to her cleavage as she instructed him to lick up the spill. The other men seemed to enjoy the display as Richard buried his face in Tina's cleavage.
As we made our way to the car Sandy mentioned it's hard to compete for buyers attention when Tina seems to be willing to do just about anything to get the attention of buyers' realtors. The other gals weren't as bad but short skirts and plunging necklines seemed to be standard uniforms for female Dallas realtors. Sandy had always prided herself on excellent knowledge of the product and professional care. As a newcomer, she'd done quite well already with several sales but was amazed at the pace of sales her colleagues were accumulating. The commission structure assured her of a nice summer paycheck but there was a bonus structure that included an additional $1000 commission per sale for the realtor that closed the most sales during the summer selling push. Sandy had always been quite competitive and a top performer. I think she'd been hoping that her additional years of experience and professionalism would make her competitive but she was realizing that the Dallas market was different.
A couple weeks later when I stopped by on Saturday afternoon to pick Sandy up to go to dinner, she asked me if I would be a dear and stick my head in the attic to figure out what type of insulation was being used so she could answer the question of a potential customer since the information wasn't on her fact sheet. I went to the attic access steps in the garage and climbed to the attic to inspect the insulation. While in the attic I noticed a spider web of video cable wires running throughout the attic. Back in Sandy's office I mentioned to her that there seemed to be an unusual amount of video cable in the attic. She mentioned that the model homes had some type of security system that had been used before the gated community security was installed. She commented that the old control room was in the back of the garage and she rummaged in the desk then tossed me the key to go check it out.
Being an IT guy I was a little suspicious that the amount of cabling was inconsistent with the security system. As Sandy worked on her e-mails and finished up some paperwork I explored the 5' x 10' security room set up. As I powered up the system, it was immediately obvious that this was far more than a routine building security system. As three large monitors blinked to life, each showed eight individual video camera shots of various exterior and interior images of the largest model home and one of the condominiums.
Thirty minutes later Sandy found me busy playing with the controls for the camera system. I had enabled the audio system and figured out how to scroll through the full range of 40 different cameras connected to the system. By looking at the stored files it was clear that the system had originally been used to anonymously record customer reactions to various design and decorating features of the models. It seems the system had been turned off months ago once the full pallet of colors, materials, lighting fixtures, etc. had been finalized. It was very high end with high resolution color cameras and sensitive audio microphones.
As I sat there playing with the system I noticed Tina and Richard talking in the great room of the model home. I turned up the volume as Sandy looked over my shoulder. I enlarged the specific camera's image to fill one monitor's full-screen. Richard was reporting on a couple of prospective sales and mentioned that there would be a closing on Monday with one of the customers that a realtor named Sean had represented and that Sean would be coming by Tuesday evening at 8:00pm to collect his incentive commission. Tina kind of giggled and said Tuesday should be fine.
Sandy was listening intently and clearly puzzled by the comments. She openly questioned what Richard was talking about. As we headed to dinner Sandy seemed preoccupied with the overheard discussion. Finally, she asked if it would be possible for me to remotely monitor the cameras next Tuesday night so she could figure out what was going on. The model home with cameras was next door to the one that housed the sales office and security camera room. I told her that quite possibly I could but I would need to extract some files from the host machine and gather some specific information about the software as well as making sure it was connected to the Internet serving their offices. I told her that it would probably take me an hour when no one was around to make the arrangements if possible. Sandy suggested we swing by the office Sunday evening after the sales office closed so I could make the arrangements.
By nine o'clock Sunday evening Sandy and I were sitting in our living room with my laptop on the coffee table remotely accessing the video system. The plan was to login Tuesday evening before eight to see what was going on.
Monday evening Sandy reported at dinner time that the results of the first four weeks of the summer sales push were released that day and that Tina was leading the office with 10 sales, Joyce had 8, and she had a seven. I was delighted with her success given she was the new kid on the block but Sandy was frustrated partly because evidently Richard was channeling most his sales to Tina to help her win the contest. Sandy's always been very competitive and was putting in more hours than the other associates in hopes of winning the bonus.
Tuesday night we logged into the computer camera system via remote desktop. It was an impressive camera system. We could see Tina arriving with the exterior cameras and noticed a man arriving about 10 minutes later. A man we presume was Sean. I switched the monitor to pick up the camera in the great room presuming they would be meeting there only to see them walk through the room heading toward the master bedroom. I switched on that camera and turned on the audio pickup. The system had two separate cameras in the master bedroom one providing a wide-angle view of the whole room and the second pointing toward the master bath.
Once in the room Tina handed Sean a drink that had been poured and waiting on the dressing table. Travis was wearing casual slacks and a linen shirt. Tina had on a white skirt and white button up blouse. After their initial greetings Tina spoke first telling Sean that she and Richard appreciated his continued support with finding buyers for them. Sean responded saying that he was working harder to steer buyers their way now that they had their incentive program in place.
As they spoke Sandy commented "Incentive program? What incentive program are they talking about?"
Tina and Sean had a toast to more sales then Sean placed his glass back on the table and took the glass from Tina, also placing it on the table. He moved toward Tina and leaned forward to kiss her while placing his hands on her waist. Sandy was aghast and leaned forward on the couch to see the laptop sitting on our coffee table in greater detail. Tina and Sean stood kissing for several more minutes, each holding the other. Tina's back was toward the camera so we could clearly see Sean' hands move toward the zipper on Tina's skirt.
As Travis slid down the zipper Sandy sputtered," Tina and Sean must be having an affair."
