Owt for a couple of bob

Want to swap jobs for a week? Bet you my job’s worse than yours! Even if you’re unemployed and make do with gravel for breakfast, you wouldn’t swap with me. Even the chap that works at the sewage plant picking cotton buds out of last night’s vindaloo, looks down on me. You don’t have to swap with me for a whole week, just the last twelve hours. In fact, yes, last night would be a good one. Go on, what shall we say, a fiver? You’re on!

10.30pm and so to bed. Telly watched, hot milk drank and chocolate hobnobs consumed. Just drifting off into the land of Nod and… the damned phone rings. I should know better. I’ve been doing this job now for over seventeen years. It’s going to be the alarm monitoring company telling me that there’s been an activation at work. I could just ignore it. Pretend I was deep in the arms of Morpheus, dreaming of pies and beer. But damn, that ring tone is just so alluring! “Hello?”… “Hello, it’s the alarm company….” D’oh!

I’ve been doing the job so long, I know when I’ve got a way out of this without lying. “Is the alarm a confirmed or an unconfirmed signal?” I gingerly inquire. You see, if it’s unconfirmed it means that just one sensor has activated and neither I nor the police have to attend. It could just be a spider passing the lens on his way to a dinner of plump, tasty wasp. Huzzah! The activation is unconfirmed. I can close my eyes and go back to pies and beer. I’ll just have go to make room for my second gallon by visiting the bathroom. And with eyes still closed, halfway into dreamland, disaster! The barmaid rings the last orders bell. For the first time in my life, I actually wish it was the last orders bell. It’s actually the phone and, naturally enough, the alarm company once again. Another activation at work and this time the signal is confirmed. An intruder is in the premises, the police have been called and my presence is requested.

You know it, I know it and my bank manager knows it, I’m paid a pittance. But now it’s after midnight, I’ll get a guaranteed two hours of pittance at double time. Wuhooo, let’s splice the main brace and do a jig. On second thoughts, better make it bogof Irn Bru from Asda because once the chancellor has got his share, I’ll be left with about fifteen quid. Is it really worth getting out of bed and braving the night air for fifteen measly quid? What in the name of sweet baby jeebus can fifteen quid buy in Britain these days? Even the working girl, with no teeth and a gammy hand on Molseworth street is asking for more than that… so I’m told. But dash, damn, buggery and blast it all I’m saving for NE India. Fifteen quid will buy me a fair bit over there. With a bit of luck it’ll buy me enough rice beer to be off my head for a week. So I dress and drive out into the cold, autumn night air.

Arriving on a rough housing estate at midnight is always a chastening experience. The feral kids are still out and about. I’m not talking teenagers now, I’m talking eleven and twelve year olds. Still, most of them know me and once they’ve concluded their drug deals and waved to me, they’re off. The building’s alarm is deafening when I enter and why can’t I open the security door first time? Instead I fumble around pressing the wrong codes into the panel. Only to remember I’m using my house code instead of the work code. It’s going to be a long night, I can feel it already. Still, nothing looks damaged. No sign of any intruders. Perhaps it was two spiders off to dinner and it’s a false alarm after all? After a quick examination of the alarm panel I find out it’s one of our sublets whose sensor has been activated. I trek deep into the bowels of the building and my worst fears are confirmed. The internal doors have been kicked off and there is debris strewn all over the floor. They’ve been in, grabbed what computer equipment they could and legged it. To make it worse, only a few people could have know what was stored behind those doors. The culprits must be known to us. It feels like a kick in the danglers.

Ok, onwards and upwards. A quick call to the police to let them know I’m on site and within thirty minutes, a police officer calls to take a statement. Now only the alarm to sort out. Once an alarm has been activated, it needs to be reset. This can only be done via a machine that’s held by the alarm company. I can’t have one of them. I’m just not important enough. I bet Bill Gates has got one. Richard Branson probably has two. Rupert Murdoch would love one but they won’t let him have one. That’s why he looks like he’s sucking a lemon all the time. If he had just a small one he’d rule the world. You phone them up (the alarm company, not Billy or Dicky), tell them what numbers the alarm panel is displaying, they tap them into the machine. It beeps, whirrs and clicks and out comes a reset code. Only this time it didn’t. They’ve changed the system and not told anyone. Because the alarms have worked and actually detected burglars, the panel can only be reset by an engineer visiting the site. Gosh, I can picture the engineer now, in a gold lamé jumpsuit, huuuge sunglasses and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Probably.

An hour and forty minutes later and I’m still sat there awaiting the arrival of *deep voice* The Engineer! My eyes are half closed and I’m beginning to slip back into that dream about beer and pies. Perhaps The Engineer has been stopped by an over officious policeman concerned that his gold flares may catch in his gears? Or maybe, just maybe, the lazy sod hasn’t got out of his bed yet? The clock ticks remorselessly on. It’s an eleven hour working day today and I have to be back here at seven as it is. It’s now two am and still no sign. Just as I begin to fear I may be here all night. I hear the unmistakable roar as his Harley pulls onto the car park, encased in a mystical light, surrounded by cherubs and seraphim sounding golden horns, his gold flares flapping in the breeze. Actually, I’m lying. He was in a van and wearing a blue polo shirt.

No matter, he’s here. Somewhat disappointingly he uses a mobile phone to obtain a reset code. And within fifteen minutes, he’s done. The alarms are set and I’m good to go. Only problem is, I’m now wide awake. Back home, settled into my bed and sleep is a distant memory. A voice in my head screams, “Go to sleep! Dream of pies, beer, mucky women!” Nope. My eyes are beginning to resemble Wile E. Coyote when he’s been up all night waiting in vain for the roadrunner. Just when it can’t get any worse, it does. I’m woken by the nauseating whine of Sarah Kennedy’s dulcet tones. I must have drifted off to sleep twenty minutes back and “Sick note” (it’s her BBC nickname apparently) is now harping on about “chesticles” and her “liberty bodice”. Time to go back to work. Aaaaaargh!