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“Don miss mi a bun an cheese”, was the reminder from the woman who sells me a newspaper each morning.
With a nod and a wave and a Gleaner, I eased the Dogwagon back into my own lane and continued the drive to work, adding this new task to the scores of others that fill my to-do spreadsheet. This was a short week and I had enough on my plate as it is.
Easter weekend was fast approaching, and you could sense that special something in the air, that special kind of chocolate rabbit, plastic egg, stale peeps, and bun and cheese something. It moved towards me like a sheet of chocolate glaze on a frosting line in a doughnut factory. Unavoidable, saturating, sugar coated and made with real lard.
The Jamaicans love this holiday.
The Jamaicans love the religious aspect, although the predominantly Christian population never appears more than dutifully pious. There are more churches per capita here than anywhere else on the planet. If I was out in the church districts that Sunday morning, I may have seen them packed to overflowing with believers, anxious to renew their faith on their holiest of days.
I was instead worshiping the gods of fish and coral, rejoicing in the miracle of the sponge. I was witnessing the annual rebirth of the tens of thousands of thimble jellyfish which cover the reef this time of year as I contemplated another Earth Day past.
The Jamaicans love Carnival, which begins on Easter. This is an annual festival liberated from the Trinidadians. It is one big Socapalooza, with parades and bands, skimpy costumes and wriggling dancers, steel drums and lawlessness for an entire week. We do not see much of Carnival on the north side of the island, as most of the celebrations are in the urban areas around Kingston, where it provides a week of release from the dictates and traditions of Lent.
The Jamaicans love the fact that Easter is a four day weekend, with Good Friday and Easter Monday designated National Holidays. It also heralds the start of spring break for the schoolchildren, who will spend the next week doing what school kids always do when given time off from school – they forget everything they were to have retained since the term began.
And, for reasons unexplained, Jamaicans love the bun and cheese, the national Easter dish.
Bun is the Jamaican equivalent of fruitcake. It is a quick bread, barely leaven with either baking powder or baking soda, made with flour and fruits, flavored with allspice, molasses and sugar. This time of year, the Easter Bun appears in the bakery aisle, augmenting the everyday styles of bun that usually reside there. The Easter variety bun usually has more fruit, but otherwise tastes exactly the same as the pedestrian bun.
At other times of the year, bun and cheese is a poor man’s lunch. At about the same cost as a meat patty, you can get a little protein and some carbohydrates at any bakery and at many of the snack vendors. The wealthy Jamaicans never eat bun and cheese for lunch though, as it is a poor man’s food, not suitable for the working man fully able to afford the noontime purchase of curried goat, chicken foot soup, ox tail, or cow skin.
Of course, this changes at Easter, when everyone will eat the bun and the cheese. Mostly because it is free, provided by your employer by tradition. On Wednesday evening, my grateful and generous boss provided me with the largest of the Easter buns, weighing in at some kilo and a half, having the density of wet laundry. With the bun came a quarter wheel of mystery cheese. “Now, what am I to do with a kilo of cheese and a lead brick of a bun”, I said to no one in particular.
Then I heard a voice in my head. “Don miss mi a bun an cheese”, it said. Was it a memory of the newspaper woman, or was it just a convenient and well timed literary vehicle? Regardless, I gave my bun and cheese to the newspaper woman at first light the next day. Not unlike how I may treat a gifted fruitcake, should I ever be so fortunate as to receive one.
Working in my own space later in the day, I missed the day-before-the-holiday bun and cheese spectacular in the Contractor’s office. Apparently, they had for distribution ample buns and cheeses for each of their two hundred fifty staff and employees, packaged with their glad tidings, good will and redundancy payments.
For those with little time spent in the Commonwealth, you get redundancy payments when you are made redundant, and being made redundant is the British equivalent of being laid off,... all two hundred fifty of them,... effective immediately. Have a happy Easter.
The weekend was exceptionally quiet. Driving to work on Tuesday was unbelievably quiet, with none of the Contractor’s vehicles on the road, and none of the usual throngs of children standing on the verge, waiting for rides or for school to start. I had the feeling that, when the Contractor had abandoned the project, they sucked all life out of the project limits. I could already see the cobwebs collect on their materials and machinery. Failure appeared across the wide expanses of uncompleted highway.
“Anywhere but Muscatine”, I wailed to no one in particular.
There is never much snow here, as Jamaica is an island in the Tropics, yet there were flurries on Tuesday. Flurries of phone calls, a flurry or two of activity, and flurries of mood swings amongst the local staff. The Ministry needed answers, as did the press. We listened to the Ministry. We ignored the press, barring their entrance to the camp. We tried to be supportively non-committal to our local staff, who each saw their jobs going the way of the Contractor. We found some finalization tasks to keep them working for a week or two, but then our staff may be unavoidably unemployed.
Redundant.
There is a possibility that the Contractor will be able to successfully renegotiate the balance of the work on the project, in an effort to not lose any more money and to stay on the job, but this possibility is slim. A more likely possibility is that what remains of the contract will be retendered, in which case our expatriate staff will need to process the new and revised Contract Documents and ultimately manage the new Contract. This could stretch into months or years of work. Another possibility is that the entire project will be abandoned in place, and we will all be sent packing. The next few weeks will be a challenge.
In the early 1980's, there did exist a somewhat entertaining Midwestern punk band. With Joey Destroi on guitar, Bif Blammo on bass, Retch Gurgle on throat, and some character named Joel as the percussionist. I believe that their name was No Future For Me. I was just thinking about them, humming a few of the old tunes, wondering why they never recorded anything called “Effigy Jello Head”. Anyway,...
Pops once told me that international work was never assured until you actually stepped off of the plane and onto the tarmac at your destination.
Hmm. Almost. Only change is assured.
BA often tells me that challenge equals opportunity.
Yeah, mon.
Read More......
2000-04-27
2000-04-09
Face
The arguable fact that our Contractor is the worst contractor in the world is a mixed blessing. Had they been any good, this project would have been completed at the end of the original contract period, and I would not have had the opportunity to bear witness to their dismal performances. Nor would you, gentle reader, have had the opportunity to be amused, bemused, confused, or simply annoyed by these occasional reports.
I know little of The Contractor as a Korean corporation, except that they had intentions of charging their way into the Caribbean construction market in 1996/1997, only to be decimated by the Asian financial crises in 1997/1998. Unfortunately, by the time the fiscal crisis hit, the Contract was signed. There would be much looking back, but no going back.
The engineer’s estimate for this project, as it went to tender late in 1996, was for a total construction cost of a bit over forty million dollars. Improvements of like ilk in the States could cost 50-100% more, in large part due to the almost incredibly low labor cost in the Third World.
A unionized laborer on this project is currently rewarded with the princely sum of JA $450.51 per eight hour day. Add to this JA $30.00 per day as a laundry allowance and the basic laborer earns about US $1.43 an hour. Once Income Tax (25%), National Insurance (5%), National Housing Trust Contribution (2%), and Education Tax (2%) are deducted, our laborer takes home less than a dollar an hour (of which he is expected to pay an additional 15% General Consumption Tax on whatever he buys in an honest retail store). By comparison, the most highly compensated worker, the Crane Operator, brings home about US $1.85 an hour. Of course, there are additional monies for overtime, height, depth, in water, over water, away from home or at night, yada, yada, yada, but these emoluments are paid in similarly low quantities.
In disbelief, you may now be asking, “Who in their right mind would labor for less than one Yankee dollar each hour?” With a little bit more than a trace of sarcasm, I would reply, “No one on this project. At least, not the 250 local workers currently employed here.”
I believe that the reason for this is directly related to the fact that there is a great supply of marginally skilled labor on the island, but there is little in the way of demand for marginally skilled labor. As a result, jobs are scarce and wages are low. To secure their jobs, the labor tends towards the slack side of the production scale. As hourly wage slaves with few to zero future employment prospects, it is in labors best interest to stretch this project out for as long as possible. This is the real skill, probably imported and imparted by vacationing Department of Transportation employees.
Gary calls Jamaica a “worker’s paradise”.
Opposite the labor is a score of field supervisors. Typically, this man is a Korean national, between thirty and thirty-five, college educated, detail oriented, a day and a half from home, without family, frustrated at the lack of measurable progress, and unable to communicate effectively in the English language.
These factors, combined with a tragic lack of people skills, leads to a clash of cultures not unlike the slow motion part of the film right before the train wreck - you know it is going to be loud and destructive, but there is nothing you can do about it except watch in horror,... or anticipation.
Over the last couple of years, some of the field supervisors have developed a workable rapport with the locals, (more often than not) communicating through grunts, whistles, and hand signals. If it were not so sad, it would be more amusing.
To augment the Korean staff, the Contractor has imported a dozen Indian nationals. Generally, these are the surveyors, skilled operators, maintenance dudes, and lab guys. Their English skills are superior to that of the Koreans, and they seem dedicated, as they should be. Why, many of them earn almost US $1,200 a month (plus room and board) so, after a two year (or longer) stint here, they can return to their homeland as wealthy men.
Unfortunately, there is little support for an expatriate Indian at the camp. They live in the same trailers as the Koreans, and eat the same Korean food prepared by the Jamaican cooks. Not at all surprising is that there are no Indian women, or Indian radio stations and theaters, or Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim temples nearby (I suppose the Christian, agnostic, and atheist elements are served well enough). There is a large Indian population maintaining their historic presence on the island, as shopkeepers and business people mostly, but I think societal factors keep them from fraternizing with the Contractors personnel.
The final member of the Contractor’s dysfunctional family is their planning and office staff. This is another group of a dozen or so lonely engineers, who profess to specialize in project management, scheduling, procurement, claims, payments, accounting, and the various and sundry administrative tasks associated with the project. They are supported by a small team of Jamaican women as accountants, clerks and secretaries.
Some of the Koreans are probably not so lonely, as a select few of them have been privileged to bring their families along. This privilege is currently granted to only the project manager, planning manager, and procurement manager. These families live at the camp with the rest of the personnel, only they get to live in super-deluxe metal roofed, concrete block “homes”, located no more than ten meters from my office window. Their children commute into Montego Bay to attend one of the private schools. I have no idea what the wives do all day. Perhaps they pine for their homeland as they watch the sea in the distance through the dust kicked up by the equipment running through the camp. I rarely see them.
Of course, and just like in the States, no field office would be complete without a mess of goats, a couple of cows, a bunch of chickens, and a cat or two to liven things up. I think the chickens and maybe the cats are intentional, but the balance of the livestock wanders through the always open east gate and proceeds to browse amongst the buildings, offices, and sheds which make up the camp, crapping everywhere.
The camp site is located on a steepening hill, rising up from the highway, and provides a good view of the sea (except from my office, which faces the other way). At the top are the water storage tanks, residences and dormitories, the latter of which are constructed of large shipping containers with a few windows and doors added. Next down the hill are the kitchen, the mess hall, and the recreation rooms (table tennis, television, and a weight room). Below that, the block office of The Contractor adjacent to the triple-sized mobile home which is our office. Further below, the asphalt and Portland cement concrete plants, the precast yard, septic tanks, stockpiles, equipment yard, storeroom, steel bending yards, vehicle shop, parts warehouse, generator shack, materials lab, and guardhouse. This dense collection of structures and such is located on a fenced parcel of some twenty to thirty hectares.
The site gets fairly busy at times, but fair just do not cut it.
As above, the project was estimated to cost over forty million dollars. The Contractor’s bid was twenty five. He loses money on every thing he does. This would have been fine, and was actually the plan, back when he had the funds and the desire to construct a project at a deficit in order to establish a foothold in this region of the world. There is no more money, though. The corporate gods in Seoul appear to have left this project to fend for itself, a task to which it is ill suited.
Every month, there are a few less Jamaicans on the payroll, and a little less gets accomplished. It appears as if the Contractor feels he can cut his losses by doing less money-losing work. What he fails to include in his calculations is his US $10,000 daily overhead costs required to maintain his people and site plus the US $5,000 daily liquidated damages, accumulating since the original completion date last September.
It is obvious that the Contractor is in serious trouble, and rumor and speculation runs rampant. The latest is that the Contractor has drafted a letter whereby he quits the project, loses face, and returns to his own peninsula, never to work internationally again. Should that occur, there would still be months of study and documentation on our part to determine final payments, plus someone would need to stick around to either re-tender the project, or to coordinate the completion of the portions of the work that are close to completion.
My money is on the need for the Contractor to save face. If he sticks it out, and maintains his current rate of progress, he will be working at this project and accumulating losses for another three years. He just needs to squeeze the operating funds out of the corporate turnip.
The saving face scenario is best for me too, as a project of long duration means more time to live in Jamaica, and enjoy its sun, sand, and Red Stripes. Read More......
I know little of The Contractor as a Korean corporation, except that they had intentions of charging their way into the Caribbean construction market in 1996/1997, only to be decimated by the Asian financial crises in 1997/1998. Unfortunately, by the time the fiscal crisis hit, the Contract was signed. There would be much looking back, but no going back.
The engineer’s estimate for this project, as it went to tender late in 1996, was for a total construction cost of a bit over forty million dollars. Improvements of like ilk in the States could cost 50-100% more, in large part due to the almost incredibly low labor cost in the Third World.
A unionized laborer on this project is currently rewarded with the princely sum of JA $450.51 per eight hour day. Add to this JA $30.00 per day as a laundry allowance and the basic laborer earns about US $1.43 an hour. Once Income Tax (25%), National Insurance (5%), National Housing Trust Contribution (2%), and Education Tax (2%) are deducted, our laborer takes home less than a dollar an hour (of which he is expected to pay an additional 15% General Consumption Tax on whatever he buys in an honest retail store). By comparison, the most highly compensated worker, the Crane Operator, brings home about US $1.85 an hour. Of course, there are additional monies for overtime, height, depth, in water, over water, away from home or at night, yada, yada, yada, but these emoluments are paid in similarly low quantities.
In disbelief, you may now be asking, “Who in their right mind would labor for less than one Yankee dollar each hour?” With a little bit more than a trace of sarcasm, I would reply, “No one on this project. At least, not the 250 local workers currently employed here.”
I believe that the reason for this is directly related to the fact that there is a great supply of marginally skilled labor on the island, but there is little in the way of demand for marginally skilled labor. As a result, jobs are scarce and wages are low. To secure their jobs, the labor tends towards the slack side of the production scale. As hourly wage slaves with few to zero future employment prospects, it is in labors best interest to stretch this project out for as long as possible. This is the real skill, probably imported and imparted by vacationing Department of Transportation employees.
Gary calls Jamaica a “worker’s paradise”.
Opposite the labor is a score of field supervisors. Typically, this man is a Korean national, between thirty and thirty-five, college educated, detail oriented, a day and a half from home, without family, frustrated at the lack of measurable progress, and unable to communicate effectively in the English language.
These factors, combined with a tragic lack of people skills, leads to a clash of cultures not unlike the slow motion part of the film right before the train wreck - you know it is going to be loud and destructive, but there is nothing you can do about it except watch in horror,... or anticipation.
Over the last couple of years, some of the field supervisors have developed a workable rapport with the locals, (more often than not) communicating through grunts, whistles, and hand signals. If it were not so sad, it would be more amusing.
To augment the Korean staff, the Contractor has imported a dozen Indian nationals. Generally, these are the surveyors, skilled operators, maintenance dudes, and lab guys. Their English skills are superior to that of the Koreans, and they seem dedicated, as they should be. Why, many of them earn almost US $1,200 a month (plus room and board) so, after a two year (or longer) stint here, they can return to their homeland as wealthy men.
Unfortunately, there is little support for an expatriate Indian at the camp. They live in the same trailers as the Koreans, and eat the same Korean food prepared by the Jamaican cooks. Not at all surprising is that there are no Indian women, or Indian radio stations and theaters, or Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim temples nearby (I suppose the Christian, agnostic, and atheist elements are served well enough). There is a large Indian population maintaining their historic presence on the island, as shopkeepers and business people mostly, but I think societal factors keep them from fraternizing with the Contractors personnel.
The final member of the Contractor’s dysfunctional family is their planning and office staff. This is another group of a dozen or so lonely engineers, who profess to specialize in project management, scheduling, procurement, claims, payments, accounting, and the various and sundry administrative tasks associated with the project. They are supported by a small team of Jamaican women as accountants, clerks and secretaries.
Some of the Koreans are probably not so lonely, as a select few of them have been privileged to bring their families along. This privilege is currently granted to only the project manager, planning manager, and procurement manager. These families live at the camp with the rest of the personnel, only they get to live in super-deluxe metal roofed, concrete block “homes”, located no more than ten meters from my office window. Their children commute into Montego Bay to attend one of the private schools. I have no idea what the wives do all day. Perhaps they pine for their homeland as they watch the sea in the distance through the dust kicked up by the equipment running through the camp. I rarely see them.
Of course, and just like in the States, no field office would be complete without a mess of goats, a couple of cows, a bunch of chickens, and a cat or two to liven things up. I think the chickens and maybe the cats are intentional, but the balance of the livestock wanders through the always open east gate and proceeds to browse amongst the buildings, offices, and sheds which make up the camp, crapping everywhere.
The camp site is located on a steepening hill, rising up from the highway, and provides a good view of the sea (except from my office, which faces the other way). At the top are the water storage tanks, residences and dormitories, the latter of which are constructed of large shipping containers with a few windows and doors added. Next down the hill are the kitchen, the mess hall, and the recreation rooms (table tennis, television, and a weight room). Below that, the block office of The Contractor adjacent to the triple-sized mobile home which is our office. Further below, the asphalt and Portland cement concrete plants, the precast yard, septic tanks, stockpiles, equipment yard, storeroom, steel bending yards, vehicle shop, parts warehouse, generator shack, materials lab, and guardhouse. This dense collection of structures and such is located on a fenced parcel of some twenty to thirty hectares.
The site gets fairly busy at times, but fair just do not cut it.
As above, the project was estimated to cost over forty million dollars. The Contractor’s bid was twenty five. He loses money on every thing he does. This would have been fine, and was actually the plan, back when he had the funds and the desire to construct a project at a deficit in order to establish a foothold in this region of the world. There is no more money, though. The corporate gods in Seoul appear to have left this project to fend for itself, a task to which it is ill suited.
Every month, there are a few less Jamaicans on the payroll, and a little less gets accomplished. It appears as if the Contractor feels he can cut his losses by doing less money-losing work. What he fails to include in his calculations is his US $10,000 daily overhead costs required to maintain his people and site plus the US $5,000 daily liquidated damages, accumulating since the original completion date last September.
It is obvious that the Contractor is in serious trouble, and rumor and speculation runs rampant. The latest is that the Contractor has drafted a letter whereby he quits the project, loses face, and returns to his own peninsula, never to work internationally again. Should that occur, there would still be months of study and documentation on our part to determine final payments, plus someone would need to stick around to either re-tender the project, or to coordinate the completion of the portions of the work that are close to completion.
My money is on the need for the Contractor to save face. If he sticks it out, and maintains his current rate of progress, he will be working at this project and accumulating losses for another three years. He just needs to squeeze the operating funds out of the corporate turnip.
The saving face scenario is best for me too, as a project of long duration means more time to live in Jamaica, and enjoy its sun, sand, and Red Stripes. Read More......
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