I’m going to open this section with a compelling little drama involving one of my dopplegangers in Jamaica. Between the 12th of November ’13 and the 15th of March ’14 I received a series of twelve emails from ‘Kadian G’. Kadian is the clearly on the frontline, trying to manage the chaos of the day-to-day, while Andrew is a distant but respected authority figure.
Here’s what we know about the ‘Jamaican’ Andrew:
There is a bakery or small commercial food outlet somewhere in Jamaica called ‘Anditos’. Andrew isn’t on the scene, in fact he’s far enough away during this time frame that ‘Kadian’ – the author of the emails – must report everything that is going on in his absence.
Andrew must be the owner or the most respected authority at this business. The chain of emails starts with daily ‘shortages’ reports – typical Jamaican stuff like patties, flour, soda. Emails are addressed to Andrew but there’s no evidence of him replying (not surprising since these emails are coming to me) so this may be Kadian’s only way of communicating with him.
While the emails speak of shortages, there is also some epistemic doubt about the accuracy of the numbers. Kadian flags “shortage that is not real but errors”. Each email reads as a chaotic dispatch from a barely contained crisis. We have days where numbers appear to swing from shortage to overage to back again. The system is clearly not working.
Kadian emerges as a protagonist, trying to hold all this together, but the system is hardly a system and we soon see more of the underlying instability. It turns out that, on top of dicey inventory and financial controls, Andito’s has also been paying its staff salary advances that aren’t being repaid. Now, they can’t buy flour and can’t commit to a regular payroll. The whole bakery is under systemic strain. People are resigning, taking holidays, mixing roles (we see bakers on the tills etc.), and there are overtime bans.
The long suffering Kadian is about to be dealt another difficult card, Andrew’s father. The email chain starts with data and solutions, then moves to ‘what should I do’, now we see Andrew’s father as a local player with a disruptive influence. Kadian writes that the father is driving everyone crazy with contradictory instructions, undermining authority, and demoralising staff. It’s never clear what the father’s day to day role is, clearly he is closer to Anditos than Andrew, is he the owner?
The interventions of the father must go un-addressed because he disappears from the emails but the tone of increasing desperation continues. Where the chain of emails ends (for me), we see the same patterns of losses, poor management, and decision bottlenecks that we saw at the beginning.
I wonder what happened to Kadian, to Anditos, to father. I don’t get the feeling that this situation was going to turn around and have a successful outcome the way it was heading.
Note on AI collaboration
I used AI in the writing of this Andrew’s tale to read the collected emails and summarise any patterns it found (especially in the ‘data’). I then used the AI suggested narrative outline to inform my reporting. All text is entirely my own creative writing, including grammar (or lack thereof).