Guardian Angel III

Guardian Angels don't always act in your best interests though, sometimes they make life very hard for you, for a laugh, just because they can.

Such as the 1975 works christmas "do" at The Parkway hotel.

A posh hotel just a mile away from where I live, in fact on a clear night you could easily see the lights of The Parkway across the fields from our house, The Parkway was one of only a few hotels around here that was big enough to hire out a room for a christmas function for a couple of hundred electricians, plasterers, decorators and sundry other building trades employees and office staff - such was the setup at my workplace.

Being across the fields was a tad inconvenient as I'd be dressed up a-swell in a suit and sheepskin coat (very fashionable in the 1970's, stop laughing), and didn't fancy tramping all over Freds Farm to get there, so a completely indirect route was required which took me two miles out of my way on a bus to the ring road and then another bus ride back up Otley Road to reach the hotel, a bit of a pain in the arse but it saved my shoes from death by cow shit.

And then at the last minute one of the site supervisors offered me a lift from the ring road to the hotel, all I had to do was wait for him where my first bus had left me ad he'd pick me up from there, so I accepted his kind offer.

And thats where the Guardian Angel stepped in for a bit of festive guardian angel fun.

I stood at the intended pickup spot for half an hour before deciding that my lift wasn't going to appear and so cursing at the bas'tad I set off walking in the rain (sheepskin coat in the rain, not a good combination) on the two mile hike to The Parkway in my dancing shoes.

After what seemed like all night I eventually reached the halfway spot, a different pub who's lights and music and beer beckoned me, I checked my watch and realised that in The Parkway they'd all be sitting down now for their slap-up festive meal, I'd missed that start of the "do" so one little beer wouldn't go amis and the rain was turning to sleet now so what the hell...

The Guardian Angel made me stay in the pub for three pints, after all, I'd missed the soup course so why bother with the turkey and trimmings, and if you've missed the turkey and trimmings why would you want to walk in, soaking wet, while they are all tucking into their christmas pud, no, I was better off staying in the pub for a bit longer and I'd walk the rest of the way to The Parkway ready for the disco dancing afterwards.

Eventually, after trudging through the now steadily falling snow, I reached The Parkway where the sounds of merriment could be heard from the function room at the front of the large hotel, I entered and checked in my now rather sodden and heavy sheepskin coat at the reception desk where three porters carried it with the aid of a winch and trolley to an industrial weight hanger - I pity sheep who have to stand outside in the cold and rain all of their lives as their coats must weigh a ton by the time they fall off their sheep perches.

Entering the function room I looked around the dozens of occupied tables for a face that I recognised, from the back fo the room there was no-one that looked friendly and so the Guardian Angel voice in my head told me to take a seat at the bar at the back of the room whilst these nice people finished their christmas pudding course.

I ordered a beer and sat and watched them making merry over the pudding course, and then another beer while they all had coffee and mints, and then another beer with a whisky chaser while someone I did not recognise as being a boss from our office stood up and gave a speech thanking everyone for coming, finishing with the hope that they would all return to work refreshed after the christmas break to sell lots more insurance and make 1976 a big year for the Leeds Fekkwit Insurers Corporation - or similar.

I missed the reference completely and sat at the bar enjoying my whisky chaser still scanning the room for a face that I could recognise, until the Guardian Angel reached over and tapped me on the shoulder to ask if I'd heard the bit about the Leeds Fekkwit Insurers Corporation - or similar - and I realised, I was in the wrong function suite, the Guardian Angel thought it was hilarious fun.

I sidled out of the room and checked out my still dripping sheepskin coat from reception, asking if they had another, similar function suite that might be occupied tonight by burly building contractors rather than insurance salesmen, indeed they did, around the back of the hotel.

Once again I made my entrance into a function suite where a roomfull of people were just starting to tuck into their christmas pudding course, I checked in my bedraggled sheepskin coat again and took up a seat at the bar, a beer and whisky chaser once more comforting me as I watched two hundred merry, drunken builders enjoy a night of free festive cheer while I missed out on anything to eat.

But not for long - Maureen the secretary with the unfeasibly large gazongas saw me from across the room and stood up in a party dress that barely covered any flesh at all - all of the male eyes turning to her immediately to see if the unfeasibly large gazongas could finally free themselves from the flimsy satin fabric, and they were making a damn good job of trying - "choo-ooo" she called across the crowded room to me "choo-ooo, we''re here" and then she sat down rather quickly with a drunken hiccup, pulled down to her seat actually by her rather large and muscular husband, a man with a permanent grin on his face like the cat who's discovered the cream larder, as indeed he had with Maureens baps.

I joined them at their table in time for coffee and mints and recounted my story of the bas'tad who hadn't picked me up as arranged, my long walk all night long to find the meal already enjoined (I missed out the bit about stopping in a pub on the way for an hour or two to elicit sympathy from Maureen and her heaving busoom), and when I told them that I'd sat in the function room at the front of the hotel for the last half hour when actually there had been plenty of time to join them for their main course I nearly had Maureen in tears, it certainly had the Guardian Angel in tears, of laughter.

But he hadn't finished with me yet.

Such was the sympathy that my story elicited that Maureens muscular and grinning husband ordered a waiter to go to the kitchen and bring me a plate of food, basically I was going to eat everyone's leftovers but it was a nice thought anyway and as the tables were removed from the room, the lights turned down and the disco dancing commenced, I noticed across the room the same waiter emerge from the kitchen with a large silver salver of cold meat and assorted other foodstuffs, for my consumption - and I was bloody starving by now.

The food never made it all the way across the room to me.

Two hundred drunken builders made sure that it never had a chance of making it across the room, by the time the waiter arrived across the room the food had all been snaffled from the tray, he shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel and disappeared for the rest of the night.

The Guardian Angel stood behind me actually wet himself laughing at that point.

Guardian Angels

I've got one.
A guardian angel that is.
Stop laughing.

The first time I became aware of it/him/her, whatever, was when it/him/her, we'll call it "him" ok, the first time I became aware of him was when he saved my new job for me.

'twas 1976, I'd been in the job two years, was 19 years of age, fresh faced, innocent of all charges, knew nothing of life, spent every night down the pub with mates, had my own very old car, earned money that I could spent entirely on myself, no-one told me what to do, no-one took money out of my wallet, no mortgage, no bills to pay, what a life, where did it all go wrong ?

I was a trainee electrical estimator in a company that employed 70 or so electricians - thats quite big, it was the estimating departments job to bring in new work, measure stuff off architects plans and come up with a price for jobs in a competitive tender situation against other contractors - and hopefully win enough bids to keep the 70 or so electricians in work - there was me and a proper estimator in the estimating department.

And then he left and the boss appeared at the door one day to inform me that I was promoted, the cheapskate wouldn't be employing another estimator, the estimating department was me now, and by the way, here is some more money by way of a pay rise, and by the way again, we need some more work in pretty fast.

Two years I'd been in the job and I was at the top of the tree in our small forest, no qualifications after having been thrown out of technical college for not trying very hard, to be blunt, for being in the pub most times instead of in college, but still, top of the tree, the estimating department and the future of the whole company lay on my skinny, innocent shoulders.

Laying on my desk was a huge stack of architects drawings and a specification for the electrical installation at a brand new large school in Bradford, I got stuck in, measured cable routes for days, scribbled all over the drawings, counted up light fittings, switches, sockets, three phase stuff, all the good stuff that goes in buildings and I came up with a big price for the job that had lots of zeroes after the first number.

And we won the bidding.
By quite a margin.

My boss was pleased, the women in the office outside were pleased, the electricians were all pleased, it was a 12 month contract for all of us, I was a hero.

Bradford City Council issued the order and my boss asked for a bill of materials to start placing orders with suppliers - that was my job, make up a list of all the stuff that was in my estimate, so I did.

And thats when I spotted a teeny, weeny little error in my calculations.

There in the proposed school kitchen was a large walk-in freezer store, that wasn't the problem though, a sub-contractor was installing the large walk-in freezer store, we just had to provide a three phase electrical connection point for him, and I had.

The problem came in the next paragraph, the paragraph that I had apparently not read, the paragraph that informed me that our company had to include the sub-contractors costs in our estimate for the works.

I rang the large walk-in freezer store sub-contractors who were pleased to hear from me as they'd heard we'd won the contract and were wondering why we'd never asked them for a price before the tenders went in, their price for the job was several thousand pounds more than our whole profit for the job.

I was knackered.
My first lone estimate and I made a complete balls-up.

Its at times like this when you start looking for a new job, but in all innocence I had a feeling that I might just be able to talk my way out of this one, how, I hadn't a clue, but in the best Mr McAwber stylee (a stylee that has served me well all my life), "something will always turn up".

I hid my mistake valiantly for a couple of months, all the rest of the materials were ordered and labour prepared for our start on site and the large walk-in freezer store people kept ringing me to ask when we'd be ordering the large walk-in freezer store and I kept making excuses and putting the phone down on them.

And then my Guardian Angel intervened.

One day in the post arrived a letter from Bradford City Council informing us that they were terribly sorry and all that, but the government had put a freeze on local authority spending for twelve months and that they now didn't have enough money to pay for their big new school so that all orders were cancelled and we'll try again next year eh ?

Everyone in the office was distraught, a big contract cancelled, it was a disaster and Maureen the secretary with the big gazonga's was most upset for little old me and my first big order and I stood there in the main office and pretended to be really upset and disappointed and later they must have been puzzled to hear my hysterical laughter coming from behind the closed door of my estimating department.

Twelve months later the tender documents came in again for the exact same school and the very first item that went on the list of things to include in the price was the large walk-in freezer store and a few other bits and pieces that I seemed to have missed out the first time around - we lost the tender by tens of thousands of pounds and the Bradford City Architect rang up later to ask why we didn't want the job the second time around, as did my boss who never discovered the real reason.