For years, my consulting practice was just me. I hardly got a look-in at the big projects, relying instead on crumbs from the master’s table. One lesson soon learnt was that, if you got a phone call in which a big consulting practice asked you if you could help since it had a ‘little problem’, the problem was ‘little’ in the sense that it was a small volcano, compared with an atom bomb. Could kill you.

On one project, I foolishly agreed to take over supervision of the electrical portion of the project halfway through. I had expected to be on site, say, three days a week. Instead, I was there day and night, attending meeting after meeting after meeting.

I escaped after two weeks and went to the site offices of the electrical contractor foreperson. A terrifying sight met me. He was in the site office, surrounded by a mountain of drawings. The phone rang every ten seconds. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was haggard, like a dog unfed for days. He put the phone down and stared at me. I said, “I’m the new consulting electrical engineer. Mr Jonny sent me”. He stared at me further and then told me that I could shove it where it fitted, and so could Mr Jonny. The phone rang again. I unplugged it.

He asked me what the heck I was doing. He calmed down a bit. In conversation, I found that the project was in a terrible state. It was six months behind. Drawings were wrong, or non-existent. Everybody wanted electrical power for construction. Everybody wanted conduits in slabs before casting. Or site lights or night lights.

I realised we had to stop the train before it derailed. So I took the site instruction book and wrote: “The electrical contractor foreperson is to leave site for seven days on a special project and is not to be contacted.”

“Ye’re mad!” the electrical contractor foreperson snarled. “I’m not going to another project!” I told him he was; the project was entitled ‘Get your life back together and get some sleep’. He went off like a shot.

Now I had to deal with the endless meetings that I was attending. They went on for hours, discussing drainage, plumbing, joinery, wet work, excavations, roofing, plastering, brickwork, air conditioning, fire services, alarms, security . . . on and on for ever. Then there were coordination meetings, design meetings, fit-out meetings, tenant meetings – I just had to escape.

So I generated my own list of queries. It was 15 pages long, single spaces, in ten-point Arial. At the first meeting I went to next, they got to ‘electrical’ on the minutes at about 16:00 (the meeting had started at 13:00). By the time I got to the end of my query list, it was past 19:00. The meeting ended at 21:00 that same night.

At the next meeting, I did the same. Word spread. The architect took me to one side. Was it possible for me to resolve the queries before the main meeting? “Oh, yes,” I said, “with the electrical contractor fore- person, but then I won’t be able to attend the main meetings.”

“Oh, no problem,” said the architect, “just come once a month with a (he emphasised) brief report.”

Freed from our meetings, the electrical contractor foreperson got on with the design and had to stave off the hundreds of unnecessary requests for site lighting, site power, electrical connections and disconnections. We made up a ‘request form’ and made everybody who wanted something done fill one out. If the work was important, the contractor did it. If it was trivial, it was placed in a box labelled ‘Awaiting client approval’. The client never got to see the box. This cut the unnecessary stuff by about 90%.

The contract finally came to an end. The building was built and it stands to this day. I got paid and left the job.

And if a big consultant phones and says he or she has a “little problem”, I’m a bit cautious – like carrying nitroglycerin while skateboarding, I tell you. Very, very, very cautious.