End of quarter was 6 days away. The hydraulic system didn't make it 6 days. The dock went down at 7:42 in the morning during a coordinated arrival of four trucks and with Victoria Langford standing 30 feet away and immediately the room filled with the particular chaos of managers discovering problems in front of the people they most needed to not see problems. Gould was on his radio. Two of his people were on their phones.
Three different supervisors were converging talking over each other. Darius walked to dock 3. He looked at the system. He looked at the control panel. He crouched down and looked at the hydraulic lines.
He stood up. He walked to where Victoria was standing. She was listening to three managers talk simultaneously. When he approached, she broke eye contact with them and looked at him. The hydraulic pump seal failed.
He said the system threw error codes on the 19th, the 23rd, and again this Monday. I flagged it in the maintenance log each time. Parts requisition was deferred. He paused. I have the original logs on my phone.
Silence. One of the executives, a man Darius did not recognize. Mid-40s. The kind of suit that cost more than Darius's monthly rent looked at him. The way people sometimes looked at Darius in rooms like this one, like he had spoken out of turn, like he should be handed off to someone.
And you are, the man said. Maintenance supervisor, Darius said. Right. You can give those logs to He's talking to me, Victoria said. The man stopped.
"Show me the logs," she said to Darius. He got out his phone. He showed her the entries, date-stamped, detailed. Three separate flags over 12 days. She read them.
She didn't scroll fast to seem like she was reading. She actually read them. "How long to repair?" She asked. "I've got the right seal in the parts room.
I ordered it on the 20th as a backup. 2 hours, maybe two and a half if the housing needs to be repacked. She looked at the dock, looked at the four trucks waiting outside. "What's your name again?" The executive asked.
Darius Cole, "Mr. Cole, we appreciate. Do you need anything from me?" Victoria said to Darius, cutting across the executive like he wasn't there. "People, equipment, authorization, authorization for me to requisition from the parts room without going through Baskam."