Chocolate Fantastic – Daniel 24

[For back story go here: Story so far – and more recent episodes especially this one.]

[Relevant back story links also within text.]

“What do you mean puppets are no good?”

“I’m not saying no good, just that you need to be careful when and why you’re using them.”

Daniel was trying to get his head round the idea that there were people in the world who didn’t ‘get’ Mr Sparklehat. It was true he didn’t always get him, Sparklehat had a few character traits which meant Daniel wouldn’t really want to be in his company all the time, but nevertheless he’d grown to appreciate the ping-pong ball headed wizard to be a can-do kind of guy who rarely let negatively, practicality or an improbably decorated pig get in the way of his masterplan.

“What exactly do you think is the message of Crown Apps?” asked Sandra. “Is it ‘you can do stuff and here’s how’ or is it, ‘trust to magic and if that doesn’t work ask the unicorns’?”

Daniel paused. The unicorn option was actually quite attractive and he was wondering… “What if we.. what if we created something called The Unicorn on the app where you can ask any question and a piece of AI, maybe some kind of bot, comes up with a great answer?”

“Daniel…”

“Maybe not the right answer straight away but a good inspirational idea…”

“Daniel, did you get any sleep last night?”

It was a well intentioned question even if it might be overstepping the mark. And Daniel couldn’t avoid the truth. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. Then he paused. “Actually do you wanna give me fifteen minutes and I’ll call you back?”

He hung up and looked around his front room. Daisy had made the place her own. They had created a den on both sofas, had tea under blankets suspended from audio cables tied to the shelves and slaughtered four boxes of Rice Krispies in the name of chocolate krispie cakes. Some of these cakes had been eaten, some had not and had instead been trodden into the carpet. Not all of them were in the carpet, of course, some were on the curtains from when Mr Sparkehat and company had gone on an adventure in Daisy’s chocolatey hands. And Daniel didn’t care. It was all fantastic.

But in the cold light of what was supposed to be a working day it was all a little bit more tricky. He realised he couldn’t answer the phone using the same voice he used when he was speaking with Daisy, and that was difficult because Daisy was the only person he was talking to most of the time and the calls sometimes came thick and fast, especially around tea time. He also couldn’t reply to emails using the children’s story written style he was being bombarded with. He’d lost count of the number of times he had to delete “And they all lived happily ever after” from the line before his signature, even though he felt it was appropriate, and a little bit fun. 

Also there was no getting away from it, Wendy his boss wanted something concrete from him, something clear, new and that all important word, innovative. Innovation was not about taking someone else’s idea and using it without thought – he’d already told Wendy off for that. Nor could it be just taking something (puppets) and plastering it over exiting structures and pretending or assuming that would have a great impact. He’d sorted his personal life, got his daughter back and was now responsible for her wellbeing, now he needed to actually demonstrate he could do the work side of his work life balance as well.

And this was when the fear began to build. Right now Daisy was happily at school, but as the cases around them grew he wondered how long that would last. He’d read and been told several times that primary school kids weren’t at very much risk on the whole, but even it that were true how long would it be before they closed the school anyway. Teachers weren’t Covid proof.

If that were to happen then Daniel could see his life become nothing but Daisy, Sparklehat and chocolate. Good for fun, not good for business. He was last in and could be first out without any promise of furlough or compensation.

There was nothing else for it. If the Chief Innovation Officer couldn’t come up with any bright new spangly ideas for the business he’d drag it back to the drawing board and find a bunch of innovations to implement within the existing processes. Go back to basics, look at what the company does and then get it to do it better. Voila. Innovation. And so he set to work deconstructing Crown Apps from the top down.

This would work, he was sure, as he dialled back Sandra to get her opinion. And failing that he’d just send an email circular to everyone asking them for some bright ideas and then jump on the best one that came up.