The yard didn’t look worse than usual.

  That was the problem.

  The bins were lined up the way they always were. The cones were in the same places they’d been for weeks. The laminated sign reminding everyone not to stand inside the painted safety box was still taped to the same post, curling slightly at the corners.

  Nothing had collapsed. Nothing was on fire. Nothing was obviously broken.

  But nothing was moving either.

  Marisol stood near the edge of the lot with a clipboard tucked against her arm, watching two Parks and Rec workers wrestle a bin into position by hand. They were competent about it. Careful. Slow.

  Too slow.

  She didn’t interrupt them. She waited until they were done, until one of them wiped their forehead with the back of a glove and looked around like they were already late for something else.

  When they moved on, she turned and walked toward the small cluster of people gathered near the office door.

  Howard was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes unfocused in the way that meant he was listening to everything. Jake was standing two steps too close to the center of the group, talking with his hands. Trent was half-turned away, already distracted by a phone notification he hadn’t actually checked yet.

  Marisol stopped where they could all see her.

  She didn’t sigh. She didn’t raise her voice.

  She just flipped the clipboard open.

  “We’re at eleven days,” she said.

  Jake blinked. “Eleven days of what?”

  “Backlog,” Marisol said. “Average.”

  Jake tilted his head. “That doesn’t sound—”

  “—per zone,” she added.

  Jake closed his mouth.

  Marisol continued, calm and precise. “Manual handling added about thirty percent labor time. Overtime covered the first week. The second week it started eating into maintenance windows. We’re now stacking work.”

  Jake nodded slowly, the way people do when they’re trying to look like they’ve already done the math.

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  “Okay,” he said. “But it’s temporary.”

  Marisol looked at him.

  Not sharply. Not unkindly.

  Just long enough.

  “Temporary ended last Thursday,” she said.

  There was a brief silence. Somewhere behind them, a truck beeped in reverse and stopped.

  Jake tried again. “I mean, once things settle—”

  “They won’t,” Marisol said. “Not on their own.”

  She flipped a page on the clipboard and held it up so they could all see the neat rows of numbers. Howard glanced at it once, then back at the yard.

  “We’re compensating,” Marisol went on. “People are covering for each other. Skipping breaks. Taking shortcuts they shouldn’t. Nothing unsafe yet. But it’s trending.”

  Jake frowned. “Trending where?”

  “Toward tired people making dumb decisions,” she said.

  That got Howard’s attention.

  He straightened slightly. “Which breaks first?”

  Marisol didn’t hesitate. “People.”

  Howard nodded once.

  Jake opened his mouth, closed it, then tried a different angle. “Okay, but we’re still being careful. Nobody’s asking to turn everything back on.”

  Marisol looked relieved that he’d said it first. “I’m not asking for everything.”

  She shifted the clipboard under her arm. “I’m asking for one.”

  Jake glanced at Howard. Then at the yard. Then back to Marisol.

  “One what?” he asked, even though he already knew.

  “One unit,” she said. “One task. One location. Supervised.”

  Jake exhaled. “See? That’s reasonable.”

  Howard didn’t respond.

  Marisol kept going, sensing momentum but not pushing it. “Just enough to keep the backlog from turning into a morale problem. People are already adjusting their schedules around work that shouldn’t be there.”

  Jake nodded again. “Right, right. Nobody wants that.”

  Howard shifted his weight.

  “How reversible?” he asked.

  Marisol answered immediately. “Fully. We don’t move anything we can’t undo cleanly.”

  Howard considered that.

  Jake waited, hands clasped together like he was trying not to bounce.

  Trent finally looked up from his phone. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “the numbers check out.”

  No one acknowledged him, but he didn’t seem offended.

  Howard took a breath. Let it out.

  “One unit,” he said. “One task. One location.”

  Jake smiled too early.

  “Supervised,” Howard added.

  Jake’s smile stalled.

  “Logged,” Howard continued.

  Jake nodded quickly. “Of course.”

  “Reversible,” Howard finished.

  Marisol nodded. “Yes.”

  Howard looked at her. “This is permission, not restoration.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  Jake shifted. “So we’re—”

  “No,” Howard said, gently.

  Jake stopped.

  Howard continued, voice even. “We are addressing a backlog. Nothing more.”

  There was a pause. The yard hummed softly with the sound of things not quite working as efficiently as they should.

  Marisol closed the clipboard. “That helps,” she said. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t smile. She didn’t celebrate.

  She just turned and walked back toward the crews, already recalculating.

  Jake watched her go. “See?” he said, a little too brightly. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  Howard didn’t answer.

  Jake tried again. “I mean, it’s good. People will feel it.”

  Howard glanced at the bins. At the cones. At the laminated sign.

  “They’ll feel it if we stop,” he said.

  Jake frowned. “What?”

  Howard looked back at him. “That’s how we’ll know it mattered.”

  Jake opened his mouth to respond, then realized he wasn’t sure what the response was supposed to be.

  Trent’s phone buzzed again. He silenced it without looking this time.

  Somewhere in the yard, someone laughed at something that had nothing to do with any of this.

  Jake exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay,” he said. “One unit.”

  Howard nodded.

  “One task,” Jake repeated.

  Howard nodded again.

  “And then we stop,” Jake said, testing it.

  Howard met his eyes. “Yes.”

  Jake swallowed.

  “Okay,” he said.

  It sounded different this time.