Posts Tagged Coincidence

It was sometime in 1995, I had just discovered Sheffield and was travelling over twice a week to go out clubbing and to see my new girlfriend Jodie. I had met Jodie in the club one night. She was being bothered by this guy who was trying to chat her up, so I stepped in, gave her a wink and started dancing between them until he went away. We got chatting and over the next few weeks we became friends then ended up getting together.

Jodie’s family were so lovely to me, they instantly made me a part of the clan. They let me stay over at weekends and included me into the family activities, the best of which was Sunday dinner. Her Mum was an absolutely fantastic cook and used to produce us a gorgeous banquet that I used to look forward to every week.

At this time I was still living in Boston and working at an engineering company near Peterborough as a production manager. My duties involved;  managing the warehouse, purchasing steel and components, taking orders and producing sales invoices. It was a big commitment travelling to Sheffield twice a week but my heart was there in the shape of Jodie, my friends and the clubbing scene that I loved so much.

It was one Sunday afternoon and we were sat in the living room watching TV and chatting. We could hear a bit of a lively discussion going on in the kitchen but this was quite normal so though nothing of it. I then heard “That bloody Tim” in the middle of it all and I suddenly went cold. We looked at each other in confusion, not sure what was going on.

Jodie’s Mum shouted us in for lunch; we went into the kitchen, sat down and waited. There was a strange atmosphere and I could tell that whatever they were discussing hadn’t yet been resolved. The food was dished out in silence and we started to eat. Jodie then said “I heard you talking about Tim, what’s the problem?” They both broke into a smile and said “Not your Tim love, we were talking about your uncle!” I breathed a sigh of relief. Her Dad then explained that his brother had an engineering company that had gone bust.

It was then that my brain started whirring away. An engineering company….. her surname was Smith…. Gone bust!!!

I then asked her Dad where his brother was based. “Peterborough” he said. I was then certain so I asked “Is his business called “Tim Smith Engineering by any chance?” Her Dad stopped and looked at me. “Yes it is, why do you ask?” I told him that when I am taking orders I put them in the job folder. On the front of the job folder is a stop list of companies that we no longer deal with. At the top in bold letters is “Don’t deal with Tim Smith Engineering – Gone bust.”

I sat there in shock - it proper freaked me out.

Think about it for a minute - what was the chance of this happening?

• I came over to Sheffield from Peterborough for a random night out with friends. I loved it so much that I kept coming over.
• I met Jodie while trying to help her out in the club
• Her uncle is number one on out stop list

Spooky spooky

Have fun

Tim xx

It was in the summer of 96, I had just moved from my home in Boston to Sheffield and just started working at CSSD – a computer shop below the flat I was staying at. I had just popped in and asked if there were any jobs going for computer programmers and they surprisingly said – actually we are looking for someone at the moment. That could be a story in itself but something much stranger was afoot.

Faris, who was one of the owners, came back off his honeymoon and we started working together on various jobs. We soon became a fantastic team and the jobs started rolling in. To keep the flow of work Faris had started going to lots of networking events and it was while at a meeting in Grantham that things started to get interesting.

Faris met a guy called Alan at the meeting who was offering a complimentary service to us. We wrote software and built customer PC’s, while Alan’s company provided networking solutions. They had hit it off and decided that it would be cool if we worked on a project together which was fantastic for both parties. Over the next few weeks Faris worked on site with Alan as they installed a large network into a company in Lincolnshire. We were supplying the machines and they were installing all of the cabling and configuring the network. Obviously they spoke in length about how we could best work together and Faris told Alan all about me and what we could offer them in the way of software development.

The job took them around 3 weeks after which Faris returned to work in the shop. About 2 weeks after that we got a call from Alan who was excited about a new contract he had landed which involved a large chunk of software – fantastic. I sent Alan some examples of my work and he sent me the basic specifications that he had done whilst at the sales meeting. It was while I was reading the spec that I started to get a strange feeling. It was a feeling of déjà view, like I already knew exactly what they wanted – maybe a glitch in the matrix eh!

The final piece came though later that week. I had sent Alan a demo of what I thought he wanted but it wasn’t quite what he expected. I then asked Alan if they had an existing system and if possible could I get a copy of it. He said that it shouldn’t be a problem and he would get onto it. He told me that they had an old DOS based program (this was the operating system that computers used before MS Windows came along) that they really loved. The only problem with it was that it couldn’t connect to their main customer’s system which was now a mandatory requirement.

I waited a couple of days then an email from Alan appeared in my inbox with the program attached to it. I opened the email, extracted the program, set it all up and double clicked on it. It was then that it hit me – at the bottom of the screen it said “(c) 1992 – Tim Neale”. It was my program that I had written for a farming company 4 years earlier when I was back in Boston. Wow – this completely blew me away. What was the chance of that happening?

• I moved to Sheffield after one night out to follow my dream of becoming a DJ
• I was staying at my friends flat that just happened to be above the shop
• Faris went to a random networking meeting in Grantham an met Alan
• Alan had somehow got the contract from the farm that I worked for in the past

I immediately called Alan and said “Do you know what my full name is?” He said no so I told him the story which completely freaked him out also.

I ended up getting back in touch with the people who ran the farm who were more than a little surprised to hear from me and overjoyed that I would be writing their new system. They were holding off for ages because they loved the system that I had written them.

When I spoke to the lady who owned the farm she said that she  had been trying to get in touch with me for ages.

How amazing is the way she managed to find me - or maybe just coincidence?

Makes you think eh!!!

Have fun

Tim xx

Now, I don’t know about you but I’ve had a really big shift in my beliefs over the last few years and the biggest one is around the idea of coincidence.

I have had some crazy things happen to me that are just too wild to be completely random.

One of the first books I ever read was the amazing Celestine Prophecy and although it is a novel, it opened my mind up to further possibilities.

The beginning of the story goes that people will start to become conscious of coincidence and that they will start to take them seriously and start to wonder in mass about the mysterious process that underlies human life on this planet. I remember reading this back then and thinking – WHATEVER :o)

I must say though – I hear more and more people speaking of how such events cannot be completely random. I’ve heard people from people in the bank, people in the gym, friends, family – right through to my hairdresser – suddenly with no prompting, talking about how there is no such thing as coincidence.

So – you know I said I have had some crazy things happened. Well, you guessed it. I’m going to post them at random (or is it) times and I would appreciate if you have any such stories then post them to me and I will include them also.

I look forward to hearing from you

Have fun

Tim xx