Read Chapter 7: — THE PEOPLE PROBLEM

The next crisis did not involve sand.

A graduate engineer named Liam Hart suffered mild heat exhaustion and became convinced he was seriously ill after another young engineer described a traveller who had once required intensive care for dehydration.

By the time Daniel found him in the medical unit, Liam had packed half his bag and was talking about flying home.

“You’ve been assessed?” Daniel asked.

“Yes.”

“And the doctor says?”

“Mild heat exhaustion. Rest and fluids.”

“So why are you leaving?”

Liam looked embarrassed. “Marcus said people can deteriorate fast out here.”

“People can deteriorate fast anywhere. That’s why we have medics.”

Daniel did not shame him. Fear responded badly to humiliation.

“Give it forty-eight hours,” he said. “If the doctor says you’re unfit, you go home. If you feel worse, you go home. But don’t make a permanent decision at the most frightened moment of your week.”

Liam stayed.

Two days later he was back on light duties.

But the incident exposed a larger problem. Several graduates were struggling. Some with the climate. Some with the pressure. Some with the distance from home.

Graham’s instinct was to harden standards.

Daniel’s was to make the system clearer.

He introduced short team check-ins. Not therapy sessions. Not forced emotional disclosures. Simple questions: sleeping? eating? coping? anything affecting safety?

Toby became unexpectedly useful.

He joked, organised card games and convinced exhausted junior staff to leave their laptops alone after midnight. His talent for making friends became as valuable as his modelling skills.

“Congratulations,” Daniel told him. “You’re now responsible for morale.”

“I thought I was a civil engineer.”

“Multi-disciplinary development.”

Maya nearly choked on her coffee.

One junior, Evan Brooks, showed more serious anxiety. He became so frightened of a senior engineer’s criticism that his hands shook during equipment operation.

Daniel asked the senior engineer to record a ridiculous video dancing in his accommodation.

The man refused for six minutes, then did it out of guilt.

Evan laughed for the first time in days.

The point was not to make authority unserious.

It was to remind a frightened twenty-three-year-old that authority was human.

Graham heard about the video and called it “the stupidest management technique I have ever seen.”

Owen asked, “Did it work?”

Graham glared at him.

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps put it in the manual.”

Graham walked away muttering.