u/Jaded_Optimist_404

Hey guys, I had a question about the right way to go about broaching something. My site manager is very lackadaisical with duties and making sure everything is done in proper order, up to and including refusing to continue to bring issues up to the regional manager that still need to be addressed five months later. We recently switched to TrakTik for most of our reporting minus vehicle inspections, and I’m planning on accurately reporting things that we do, and do not have, at the site. Something that this manager has repeatedly failed to do. How do I respectfully tell my regional manager that site manager has been intentionally neglecting things, including the fact that we haven’t had a fire extinguisher in our vehicles since we got them, something that’s a huge no no for where I work. Thanks in advance for any help. I’m not trying to be that person, but at some point enough is enough.

The stench permeated every living creature as they awoke in the dying grass to a bleak and sunless sky. A trace of wind tickled the crumbling leaves in the trees that still clung to drought-stricken soil and just a few more fell…as lifeless as soon they all would be. It was a grim reality that the world, or at least their corner of it, was falling to the decay. Blankets covered thin, starved frames and sunken faces in muted colors that were more myth than anything their children had seen. Pale blues and mustard yellows blended into faded purples, faded into the patches of brown dust that clung to them all. There wasn’t enough water left to bother washing. The only thing that kept them going was the hope of reaching the fabled Coryn-Mar. The city death did not touch. The place where the Boneman promised salvation.

Of the 147 that left their village nearly eight months ago, 39 still clung to life. Of the 39, only 11 children remained. There were no families left. Only strangers that refused to abandon their sense of humanity. Okelin, the eldest among them, slowly crawled out of her own thin nest and rose on scab encrusted feet to check on the remainder of their provisions. They had been following a thin stream for the last two weeks, but it was so weak that no life could be found within its waters. They had been rationing the little it did provide more and more over the last two days as its banks had gotten larger and muddier until now all that remained was a palm-sized scar in the unforgiving landscape and cracking edges from the unforgiving heat. She opened the back of the wagon and frowned.

Two sacks of half rotted acorn flour, a quarter barrel of dried and shriveled fruits whose names she couldn’t remember, and a single emaciated deer that they’d found yesterday with more larvae feasting on its rotten flesh than usable meat. It would be their first bit of protein since before they found the river. It needed cooked before it spoiled further.

Okelin hobbled over to Turri, a younger man blessed with the patience to build and sustain their fires, and shook him until he began to stir, one half blind eye opening before his lips parted to speak. “‘S gonna kill us if you make me cook it, ‘specially here.” He said groggily before she could petition him for the task. “Why’s that?” She demanded crossly. “He sighed heavily and sat up the rest of the way before he answered with great distain, “Not enuff water to clean the meat. Shoulda drowned the maggots when we had the chance. Better to just keep the skin.”

She hung her head, staring at the sharp blades of grass and the few bugs that still managed to torment them as she thought. “What about bait? Scavenger could want it. We could take it instead, might be a few wild dogs around.” He scoffed. “You hear any howling in the night? No scavengers. No meat.” He said more forcefully. Turri groaned, knowing he should keep his mouth shut. “Maybe we can find some of the birds that’a gone quiet. They’ll keep longer anyway.” He didn’t like giving false hope, but if there were any left, they’d be close to the water. She nodded, and nothing else was said between the two.

The grey sky brightened slightly and the morning filled with the sound of hushed voices preparing both themselves, and each other, for the day ahead. Blankets were rolled up and tied to shoulders with cracked leather straps, skins filled with as much water as they could afford, and sores assessed to ensure those who could still walk did. Those whose infected wounds still bled were put in the back of one of the two carts the group owned to either heal or die. None of them had shoes anymore, and none of them cared. If Okelin was right, Coryn-Mar was just another week’s journey north. The old maps had said that once the stream reached its end they would find a small lake. If they made it to the lake, they might live after all. The prophet of the city had told them that if they got that far the guards on the towers would see them, and promised they would be fetched as soon as the Boneman allowed. The Boneman…She shivered involuntarily as the images came back to her memory.

Half a century ago when he still traveled the towns and villages, before he’d built something clean, before he’d purified his disciples- he went from place to place collecting the children. Everywhere the rot clung to, the Boneman came to save. Bloated bodies slick with moss and putrid puss clogged the rivers back then, and flies swarmed in clouds above a forest of split bellies hanging in the still air. Superstition became science and if the gods of death could see a town had already been marked, the people desperately hoped they wouldn’t visit again. But the gods did not care, and so the bodies kept rotting in the angry sun, gangrenous limbs poking out of mouldering piles of quickly shoveled hay. The first town he ever visited was hers, and no matter how many years had passed she’d never stopped wondering why she wasn’t chosen.

Questioning Management