Tenders are a little like a lottery; if you’re not in, you can’t win. And in on time, of course. As with any deadline in any line of work, no one gives a damn about preparing the two-hundred-page tender document until it is too late. No one would dream of delivering that self-same tender until it is way past too late, until it is certain that no hope exists on earth of getting it delivered before the deadline. Then, and only then, after a last cup of coffee to gird the loins, can the tender delivery begin, from the office to the tender drop, conveniently located just past the end of the earth. Once upon a time, it went exactly, more or less, as follows:
“Jesus, no, Joe, we don’t have time to put that in. Come on, Mary, come on lads, what have ye been doing all morning? Have ye them bound yet? Jesus, lads, will ye come on.”
All this from the boss, a renegade, grizzled old warrior, resting his cup of coffee on his belly, that in turn leaning on the top of my computer screen. Finally, the thumbs-up from Mary.
“Right,” says the boss, “let’s go get rid of this damn thing.”
Two hours before tender closing, with a two and a half hour drive in light traffic. It’s rush hour.
“Are you right?” he says to me. “Get the copies.”
“Right.”
“Got them?”
“Yep.”
“Seven of them?”
“Yep. Two, four, six… No. Feck, only six, the other must be on the printer.”
“Ah feck it. Okay, go get it while I grab the car. Meet you downstairs. Hurry, now!”
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Next week, we’ll continue this dastardly story and see if the tender is any closer to being received on time!
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‘The Tender’ is being serialised from a book of short stories called ‘Yarns’ by author Ben Moran.