No, this is not a sad tale about an immigrant separated from their loved one. It’s about common or garden poles. Ones that began life as trees, were cut down, stripped bare, coated in creosote, returned to an upright position and left to support an electricity cable for the rest of their natural deaths.
They are everywhere. If you live in the sticks like me you probably have one of your own - commonly in the garden, hence the reference above.
They are the life blood of Irish politics when once every five years they clothed in posters. No lost animal would ever be found unless its picture appeared on one. The local crash repairs service would be out of business. And there is the small matter of them delivering power to our homes. We just don’t appreciate them.
Well, not until they aren’t there. Or are there, but you want them over there instead. Such is my case.
The one in my garden is right smack on the corner of the new extension. This fact was discovered in June using theodolites, lasers, sticks and pieces of twine - all very high tech. It had to be moved. Forms were filled and posted. A follow up call was made to the local ESB office a week later. Now the ESB, being one of the few remaining semi-state bodies to be privatised, are duty bound to act as civil servants. And they performed admirably by losing the forms. They lost the second set too, but thankfully a portal opened in the space time continuum that is officialdom and the original ones reappeared. All very Dirk Gently.
But they couldn’t process them. Since the ESB took it upon themselves to redraw their operational districts, the pole in question was 50metres outside the boundary of the local office area. So instead of dealing with an office 8km away we would have to contact one 60km further afield. The builder realised the impending difficulties associated with being the furthest customer from their base and summed up the situation succinctly: We are f*cked!
By now it was too late to pull the old builder’s trick: accidentally knocking the pole while digging foundations, paying the €300 fine and having the ESB crew who would come to restore supply position the replacement pole appropriately. Not that we would have done that of course. Why that would be dishonest. Right?
The third set of forms were submitted and to our surprise and engineer arrived on site almost immediately. Well one month later, which in civil service terms is instant. Kitted out in a shiny white hard hat and spotless hi-viz he surveyed the scene, wrote things in an important looking book and promised immediate action.
More forms, a hefty four figure cheque and four months later a crew came and erected a new pole.
While all this form filling, losing things, finding things and writing in important looking books was going on the actual building work came to a halt. The ground workers couldn’t finish. So the bricklayers couldn’t finish, neither could the roofers. Because they couldn’t finish, the electricians, the plasters, the painters and the candlestick makers were all stood down. So much for it being ready by Christmas.
The really annoying thing is the foreman on the crew that actually did the work said his team hadn’t been overly busy of late and had the work order arrived on his desk any time in the last few months he could have had the job done within days. Isn’t it an awful pity the lad digging the foundations didn’t clip the pole by accident. It would have cost you a few quid but look at the time you’d have saved, he grinned.
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Well that’d certainly put anyone off doing the right thing. I’m a sucker for doing the right thing and it gets me absolutely nowhere. You wouldn’t believe the frustration I just felt reading your post. Mind you at least you got to meet a candle stick maker, butchers and bakers are ten a penny but one of those you don’t see everyday ….
it cost you more because you didn’t knock it over “accidentally”? i’m glad you learn these things the hard way so that the rest of us don’t have to.
Poles, trees, all on the move are you building a Sadam Palace?
Hope the work goes smoothly from now on for you, but it might mean less stories for us! Ahhh!
Conorín - I may not get to meet the candlestick maker again until after Christmas now. Apparently they are quite busy up until then.
Rosie - ROCK > ME < HARD PLACE It’s always been the way.
Grannymar - Not quite quite a palace but it’s biggish. The problem is, if you get rid of a tree then another looks out of place and has to be dealt with. Or you cut down part of a hedge and the rest has to be cut to match. Ditto with planting: Stick down a hedge row here and over there looks bare so it gets one as well.
Isn’t Vogonity wonderful?
Primal, an easier life as an Opus Dei obsessive with the ankle and thigh things giving you that constant pain, the never going fully away kind. Today its the ESB, yesterday the HSE. In the car this afternoon, the Clash sang again that they fought the law, and the law won. Last time out with the HSE, I advised ingratiation( you’re Irish I presume, we’re born with the sucking up gene ), and with the ESB it’s no different, you gotta know someone who knows someone. So, no cheap shots about pole dancing which reminds me to ask you again about the pharmacist? I liked that girl’s warm hands on
myyour back. ( my strike through disappeared , it was over “my” and it was hilarious )A four figure cheque????
Jeezo Sneezy, it had better be a mahogany pole shipped specially from Brazil complete with a 4 piece bossa nova band.
Aonghus - Indeed it is. It would be easier get a hyperspace bypass built!
Sniffles - Ah you see that was the problem - sucking up wasn’t possible. The builder and I have contacts in the local office but don’t know a soul in the one we had to deal with.
The pharmacist? I had to take a rain check due to a funeral. Just my luck.
Strike through fixed!
Sam - Yep. Just over €3k in fact. Maybe there’ll be a dancer too. Ya rackon?
It oughta be the girl from Ipanema for that lolly.
€3K? You could have fashioned one out of the hawthorn for free if Pat and Elaine hadn’t carted it away…