Mountains out of molehills

As is customary with any other previous company I’ve ever worked for, this current job never ceases to find new ways to irritate me and contradict my sense of ethics. After all, that’s the nature of the corporate world: it’s made of FAIL... convoluted pathways crisscrossing wildly across innumerable levels, stairwells and obnoxiously slow elevators of FAIL.

The corporate world is a world of backstabbing, finger-pointing and blame-transferring. It’s a disgusting cess-pool of hypocrisy, me-first, not-in-my-backyard, gotta-look-good that I can’t in any shape or form dissociate from its sister world of politics. Some people think these two universes are far apart, but honestly, I see no difference here. This machine feeds on bullshit. That machine feeds on bullshit. They were born and raised from the same mother: Greed.

Fail... Fail... FAIL, motherfuckers.

Idiotic clients are nothing new. We deal with those all the time. In a single week, we have to put up with a great deal or irate small-fry fools. We get union representatives trying to get their word out about how they’re pissed off against something or any other hypocritical shit-talking, we get pushy born-again-christians with silly regressive agendas to push, no money to do it and no idea of what the newswire is, we get penniless individuals-with-a-cause who complain about wire distribution prices when we inform them, and hell, we even get douchebag record producers with zero business etiquette, bad phone manners and a horrible sense of nitpicking over useless shit (I’m looking at you, Mr Mysterio, you shameful, shameful grease stain on the music industry’s apron, you) to name a few.

Those are just examples of what we can get. And hell, we’re not even the Sales Department, so imagine the kind of retards and fuck-ups that go knocking on their door.

One of my co-workers got into serious trouble recently because of a client. She’s one of the really efficient ones with an incredibly clean record. Compared to her, I’m the king of screwup-topia. Yet one slight little mistake from her snowballed and came back to bite us all in the ass, not that it should have, and not that it’s entirely her fault. I’ll explain:

To put things into perspective, my employer is a wire company that receives news releases from clients, which formats them in an ugly 10pt Courrier New font (which incidentally does not allow for bold italics and underlined text… any formatting at all, in fact) and then redistributes them to various specialized networks worldwide so the news media can read’em’n’weep and/or ignore them (which I could never fault them for doing, because this shit induces massive snore-dom). In other words, we will ruin your well-prepared, well-presented Word documents... for a price.

One of our big things is quarterly financial earnings distribution (news directly from the Kingdom of Boredom) which gets sent to a bunch of analysts who actually know what to do with the data. We have some clients that almost only use our services for financial distributions. Some can be high-profile but most can be high-maintenance.

We do boring-ass work, because we can’t even profess to remotely enjoy the contents of the documents we send. It’s very technical, though (lots of distribution details to keep track of, all of which are absolutely necessary) and we have to be very alert not to let anything past our scrutiny. But we’re also human. We like to cut corners because our favourite shortcuts make us efficient in our work and they give us a better turnaround time, which everybody loves to boast about (we have a really fast turnaround, thanks for asking). But some of these “non-regulation” techniques can manifest as an increased possibility of making mistakes. I guess that’s how it goes when you’re not 100% by-the-book. (and by-the-book usually means wasting time and effort on things that could be done faster and with less effort... fuck...)

Client X send us his boring overly-long financial document. My colleague formats it. She makes a small copy-paste mistake in a column header that mixes up the years 2009 and 2010. It’s a tiny thing so it goes completely unnoticed as we proof-read the bore-fest, unnoticed again as the client proof-reads the approval copy he receives and again as we do a final check-up before distribution. At this point Client X doesn’t know a thing. We don’t know a thing. If we did, we could fix it in a jiffy and no one would care, especially not the media who receive it. This sort of thing can happen and we have procedures in place designed to help smooth it over while distributing the correct information. We do have safety nets, you know. That’s why we’re #1 in the country.

They approve the copy. We distribute. Time passes.

Turns out some analyst somewhere cared hard enough to notice, thought it made the data confusing, decided to make a fuss and gave a call to Client X. Client goes in a panic and calls us, BUT…

Instead of behaving like a normal person and calling the actual Montréal team that worked on his press release and who can easily fix the mistake... he acts like a chimpanzee on crack cocaine and calls our CEO…

What the fuck?

Our CEO?

Our distant, uncaring shrew of a leader, whose job description consists of something along the lines of "look good, stall all development on the software tools that bring the bread and butter, smile for the cameras, rake in the prestige cash and cut more jobs as we drive this skeleton-staffed operation into bankruptcy."?

That CEO?? Mrs "Embrace Change"?

Listen buddy... She’s hundreds of miles away from where the actual work was done, is totally in the dark as to the specifics of our job (I’ll bet my ass she’s never even looked at any of the software we use) and has zero knowledge of the daily technical challenges her casually-dressed workforce can face in the office. Opening Excel must feel like hardcore hacking to her... How can she be equipped to handle that kind of case? Short answer: she cannot.

When something goes wrong with your news release, you contact us directly. You know, the people that sent it out and know how this stuff works? If it was a big fuckup, we escalate to our team leads, if it was a big-ger fuckup, they escalate to sales and regional management for some quick damage control, but it rarely gets there. We usually fix things rapidly enough before any foreseeable damage can even occur.

But instead of doing things the right way, Client X pulls a total Wilson and does everything backasswards. He goes to complain to our head-honcho, who shits down on a few heads until it trickles down to us. By that time, the thing has gained so much momentum it’s completely bewildering…

And thus begins the witchhunt.

So now we’re in "crisis management mode", our team leads are taken away from the news centre, having to sit through meetings instead of being with us. We get warnings against screwing-up in case it happens, because you know, this shit must be contagious, oh man oh man… Everybody’s in a riot over sweet fucking nothing and the working atmosphere (required to actually, you know... not make more mistakes due to unwanted stress?) is completely shattered. It’s an open-heart surgery without anesthetic.

My colleague gets the actual "you fucked up" talk from her own team-lead. Then the same spiel from the superior right above… and then she gets an email going through the same points over again in case she forgot... Motherfucker! I can empathize because I’ve been there myself (remember I’m already Mr King Screwup here.)

And then we hear that our main competitor is really putting some pressure on Client X to negociate their new wire distribution contract with them instead. Fucking hell…

So the bottom line is: What could have easily been fixed and kept hush-hush got blown out of proportion by a panicked middle-management-type who got mad with power… classless, inconsiderate motherfucker that he is. Hey big-shot! Want to actually feel important? Start acting with some composed professionalism for a change.

Talk about mishandling information… How serious was the mistake. Not very, all things considered. A little date confusion never killed anyone. That’s right: Did anyone die? No? No one died? Ohhhh... Okay, well then I guess you’re just a total asshole then.

Mountains out of molehills, I swear…

. . .

Which brings me back to an observation I once made about humanity.

When one member of a group screws up, we have a bad habit of responding by:

* First, isolating that person and totally preventing him/her from redeeming his/herself

* Second, making everybody else in the group pay for the individual’s mistake, just so they can hate him/her better

Somehow it’s the accepted standard….
But where is the logic in that? No one is treated fairly and everybody ends up frustrated.

"Meh"

It's funny how I only blog when I'm really enthusiastic (or really angry) about a given topic.

Which makes me wonder how many steady writers actually feel like writing ALL THE TIME, or if they develop a "get-it-done" mentality to get over the creeping feeling of apathy. Don't they have those same in-betwen moments? Those dry-spells? The dreaded 'white page' syndrome?

I see steady writers blogging about everything and nothing, even a short burst of meaningless ideas or just sharing some links... but always on time. How do you develop that kind of momentum?

What about the need to have something worthwhile to write about. Y'know like... ummm... "not having anything to write about", which is still something to write about.

Or am I just lazy? Might be that too ;)

Catch you when I'm wordier.

"Case of the Mondays" Monday Bitchfest Special

My work ethos is under siege...

It's been a while since I could say I was in trouble with my boss. In fact, I can't exactly recall ever being in 'trouble'. In all previous instances, any 'trouble' was mainly various flavours of 'gentlemanly disagreements', so to speak. But recently things got a little more serious. Serious enough that they had to mention less-than-offhand the thinly-veiled threat of 'disciplinary measures'. In geekier terms: the dreaded banhammer.

I'm guessing the main reason for this is that I'm too casual about everything.

My mindset when I punch in is mainly “Do your work. Don’t show up late. Be nice to colleagues. Endeavour to not daydream too much.” But the Creed also includes some other commandments: “Don’t ever let work get between you and a friend. Don’t bring work home. Don’t let work get in the way of work. Don’t take criticism too personally”.

Just to be clear: this is not my career. There are two reasons that keep me in this job: money and my teammates. I like my salary and schedule well enough (fits the lifestyle) and most of my co-workers are friends I already knew before getting here. This is where my loyalties begin and end in regard to this line of work.

Which means I have no true commitment to the company. Additionally, I always had trouble pushing a product or service I wouldn't use myself, so we're off on a strange footing. The fact that I'm not at all passionate about this work also translates in being detached from it, which means inevitably my mind will wander during my shift. I just can't get 'involved' in the work the same way I would in a more creative job (which is actually a euphemism for ‘interesting but unstable, uncertain, underpaying and resolutely untenable job’).

Errors are common occurrence in an office environment. Most of them are recorded and fixed as soon as they are found out. Where I work, this process is appropriately dubbed 'quality control' and is an essential part of the company's business model. Precision is the main selling point, the care of which falls to we, the operators', hands. Beyond that, there can be the occasional slip up that we don't have time to fix before the clients notice and come calling. That's when the company's reputation suffers.

I'm more than okay with all this. In fact, I support it. When we discover a problem, we fix it instead of denying it. It's great. I'm proud of working for a company that doesn't play ostrich with its own flaws.

I'm a really fast worker. I'm talking Speedy Gonzalez fast here. I clear out more work orders in a week than anyone else in the office. But that also means they can get... well... botched in the process… Sometimes…. Okay. more than 'sometimes', but less than 'often'. The exact figure stands between 8% and 9% errors out of hundreds of work orders per month. Most of these mistakes are corrected before the documents even go live.

I already have my team-lead to go over those with me when they happen. But when work-related issues are deemed important enough to be escalated to a higher level of management, it blows everything out of proportion.

And I don’t mind being told I made a mistake. That’s how you learn. What I have trouble absorbing is the “Hah! Gotcha!” overtones that come out of people’s mouths sometimes. It’s insulting, and it carries the subtle message that they’ll never tire of reminding you about that ‘one time’.

An honest mistake is an honest mistake.

Even a downright stupid one (in my case essentially a copy-paste mistake. I was so hell-bent on obtaining a certain information for the dossier I was working on that I completely forgot to include this other important information, which led to the client noticing said missing information. Emphasis on the client noticing part, because otherwise no one would have made a big deal of it. I would have simply been asked to correct it myself, something I am entirely for - your fuck-up, you fix it).

But corporations are soulless entities. They do not forgive. They do not forget. They do not know empathy. They do not have a sense of humour. They do not know how to deal with employees like me that happen to be human beings first and professionnals second.

But work is serious business.

When you fuck up one task hard enough, all the other trivial things which you thought were perfectly... well... trivial... tend to surface up and bite you in the ass. Meaningless things like forgetting a few minor details here and there, or a harmless and obscure in-joke written by hand in the margins of an old work order. These things, no matter how idiotic and insignificant at the time, have a way of sneaking up on you later on when they suddenly become important. It’s what we get for working in the digital age: not much escapes scrutiny. Stuff that even you forget you did may appear again on someone else’s radar. It’s like the system itself accumulates frustrations and things it can hold against you when you finally push the Wrong Button. Past that particular threshold, be prepared for a shit-storm of little ‘misses’ regardless of your more numerous ‘hits’.

I have no problem ‘fessing up for my mistakes and working to eradicate them. Aiming for the brass ring of “not going to do it again” should be enough of a burden to bear, because this is a performance-heavy job and I need my mental real estate. But being slammed just this once more for the very same issue that was already addressed a week ago sounds like overkill, and only contributes to make me more jaded and depressed about my work. Can’t I just concentrate on not screwing up again instead? I’d love to be able to concentrate, but someone’s trying to guilt-trip me and sadly, it’s kind of working…

Now the hard part.

This is really rough to bring up because I know it will make me sound like a chauvinistic motherfucker (which, you guessed right, I am obviously NOT and do not wish to be associated with). I can just imagine the snipers taking aim, but I have to say my piece.

From my experience (read: from my experience), women in a position of authority have a hard time staying emotionally neutral about it. If you make a work-related mistake, instead of getting an "Uh, okay, so what happened and how can we fix it?", the message they send often is "what the fuck is wrong with you?". If you’re male, the fact that they respond with their emotions (no matter how they try to mask it professionally - which actually shows their level of dedication) will still make it sound to you like a direct attack on your person. I try to not let it show too much, but I'm a deeply-emotional person (they say still waters run deep) and that makes me vulnerable to this kind of assault. That and a propensity for doing everything by-the-book which, sadly, really gets on my nerves (I’ve always postulated that if you always refer to procedure, it only means you can’t think on your feet, but that’s for another debate, and this trait might only contribute to widen the gap between my brand of thinking and the corporate world’s brand of thinking).

My direct superior, (let’s call her A.) is actually very good at suppressing this phenomenon. She's very fair with any and all of her colleagues, and always looking to improve the workflow without sacrificing anyone's sanity. I am insanely glad for that fact. A’s own superior, C., however, is more of a panic-prone, gotta-look-good, middle-management type. Preserving the sacro-sanct Reputation means everything in her job, and I can understand her position well: when nearly the only feedback you get from the office is bad news, it must be kind of nerve-wracking. Also, having to report said bad news upstairs must feel like shoveling shit. So okay, I get it. My little mistake snowballed and made you work twice over. No need to rub my nose in it out of spite. All I should be concerned with is the details of my mistake and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. And when I’ve gone over that with my direct superior, I sure as fuck don’t need a second lecture from someone else who just got the memo.

I just don’t get how big deals can be made out of little nothings. The moral of the story is probably: never fuck up, no matter how slightly. Also, become a robot. Robots can’t be blamed for their behavior, only their programmers. They also have this cool dance that they do.

"Okay with Earth Day"

Eh oui.. j'ai mon ascendant hippy. Je suis un environnementaliste de salon.

C'est-à-dire que je préfère voir la race humaine en harmonie avec son monde: Ni à son service, ni l'exploitant salement. En harmonie veut dire pour moi que nous trouvons les moyens d'occuper la terre et bien y vivre, sans la détruire ni la surprotéger. Jamais vous ne me verrez à une manif', mais jamais vous ne me verrez polluer alors que j'ai des alternatives.

En fait, cette bonne vielle terre se fiche bien de nous. Elle va survivre bien longtemps à l'espèce humaine. Laissons de côté notre nombrilisme d'homo sapiens capitalensis et pensons-y une fois de temps à autre: La terre ne tourne pas autour de l'Humanité.

Je n'aime pas voir les gens prier aveuglément à l'autel de l'environnementalisme. Ça crée des fous-de-Gaia dangereux comme ces horreurs que Greenpeace (passe de cash) et PETA (autre passe de cash), véritables cultes de l'hypocrisie, du "holier-than-thou", dict(ta)teurs de conduite et abuseurs de confiance.

À mon humble avis, ce qui est important pour l'espèce humain présentement est d'améliorer, protéger et partager notre qualité de vie. Ça veut dire trouver des moyens de mieux distribuer les ressources naturelles déjà disponibles, et de s'assurer une continuité en les renouvellant. Au diable vos guerres et vos prises de bec, tant qu'il y a à manger et un toit au dessus de nos têtes.

Autrefois, l'environnementalisme était une cause. Aujourd'hui, c'est une étiquette aussi inutile que les sacro-saintes marques de vêtement (brand names) que vous arborez si fièrement dans la rue en devenant le babillard d'un autre.

Earth... Hour?? HOUR??????

Quand on me propose de participer l'Heure de la Terre, je deviens enragé. Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas, on demande de couper à zéro l'utilisation de courant pendant une heure par année. Euhhh... wtfQUOI? Selon moi, cette idée est comparable à mettre un vulgaire plaster sur une lacération de 3 pied de long. Pire encore, comme on s'attaque à la consommation d'électricité (le dernier de nos soucis, vraiment), ledit plaster est carrément posé à côté de la plaie...

C'est le genre de mesure temporaire qui fait un pied-de-nez à la véritable cause. Une 'patch' inefficace qui constitue à oublier qu'on a un réel travail à faire si on veut changer quelque chose. C'est comme "becquer-bobo" sur une personne qui souffre du cancer...

Et pour ses pratiquants, eh bien ils achètent une indulgence à l'Église Verte qui est prète à leur pardonner leurs péchés pour une bagatelle. C'est une action qui n'aura servi strictement à RIEN. Allez en paix, comme ils disent...

Je travaille pour une boite qui diffuse des communiqués de presse. On reçoit des compagnies, des ministères, syndicats et particuliers tout plein de nouvelles aussi insipides les unes que les autres et il est de notre devoir de les transférer aux journalistes blasés qui les liront. Si vous saviez seulement le nombre de communiqués vaniteux envoyés par des compagnies et organismes qui se disent 'vert' et qui ne font que parler de leur produits habituels mais cette dans un langage 'vert', ou de leurs 'actions concrètes' qui n'ont aucun impact réel à-part bien sur la récolte de capital politique faux-écolo... vous seriez comme moi découragés de lire toute cette hypocrisie crasse.

Et qui parle d'hypocrisie dit:

Les voitures hybrides...

Quand je vois un de ces véhicules, j'ai le gout d'y mettre le feu. Les voitures dites 'hybrides' sont la pire insulte de l'industrie automobile qui prétend développer une nouvelle voiture du futur, 'meilleure et améliorée' alors que la vraie technologie propre est releguée aux oubliettes en attendant de "voir si le marché est vraiment vraiment prêt pour la voiture électrique".

Mais il l'a TOUJOURS été...

Dans l'ombre, on crée des moteurs électriques de plus en plus viables depuis plus de 100 ans et la voiture électrique n'est pas un rêve distant mais une réalité bien possible... et pourtant, on se contente depuis plus d'un siècle de son petit cousin attardé, la voiture à essence...

Entretemps, on développe des demi-mesures ridicules qui n'ont pour but que de soutirer quelques dinars de plus de la bourse de tous et chacun, question d'étirer la sauce pour l'industrie en place. L'argent parle toujours plus fort que la raison.

Want to 'go green' for real? So stop pussyfooting about it and get to work, you lazy fucks!

*ahem* pardonnez mon gaélique...
Quand je suis plein de café, je réagis plus fort....


Y'a toutes ces choses, mais malgré tout... je suis 'Okay' avec Earth Day

Pourquoi? Parce que le Jour de la Terre est une célébration plutôt respectable qui se perpétue depuis 40 ans et qui amène beaucoup de nouvelles idées, de discussions, de projets et de mouvements pour la conscientisation - bref, de la science pratique. Tout le monde y met du sien et au moins ce n'est heureusement pas uniquement un geste ridiculement futile comme Earth Hour.


C'est 2010, hein? Et bien en 2010 On veut du progrès. Le Jour de la Terre me semble une bonne occasion de proposer des solutions valables. Mes yeux et oreilles veulent être impressionnés. Showtime, les écolos.

Emergalv cheapass poetry Wednesday

Her eyes a-piercin’
and circled with blue
Crouch’d in the weeds a-waitin’
o’er the man she’d run through.

Her backbone of stern stuff,
her spear marred with gore,
Her skin look’d as rough
as the leathers she wore.

- Rennald d’Ricvall
From The Southerlands

Lecture!

La lecture! Il faut bien en parler, puisqu’elle fait partie intégrante de ma vie depuis que je suis tout jeune (eh oui cette époque a bel et bien existé).

Comme avec tout le reste, mes goûts sont très variés. À différentes époques, j’ai alterné J.D. Salinger (paix ait son âme), Tom Clancy, Weiss & Hickmans, J.K. Rowlings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Bernard Weber, William Gibson et G.R.R. Martens et une foule d’autres autheur(e)s, cette liste étant de toute évidence non-exhaustive.

Beaucoup d’excellents livres disparaissent de la circulation, écrasés sous le poids des ‘New-York Times best-sellers’ el-cheapo du mois (fuuuuuuuuuck). C’est dans les brocantes de livres et les friperies, quelques années après leur publication, qu’on trouve les perles rares, les récits oubliés, les vielles éditions (au couvertures souvent plus attrayantes que leurs ré-éditions plus récentes). Je refuse encore de m’acheter les nouveaux formats de Dune, quitte à patienter et me fier au pur hasard pour trouver de vielles éditions. Dans les années 70-80, on faisait avec les moyens du bord, mais on savait faire de la jolie reliure ;)

Certains romans me tombent entre les mains d’une manière totalement inatendue. Je me souviens à l’époque du CÉGEP d’avoir pioché Kindred Spirits (le premier et seul bon volume du Dragonlance Meetings Sextet) pour 69¢ dans un magasin de l’Armée du Salut à Brossard, le tout sur un coup de tête et parce que je n’avais rien à lire au moment de l’achat. Ce coup de tête s’est avéré un bon choix, qui m’a poussé à lire la série au complet par pure curiosité.

Je pourrais dire la même chose pour All Quiet on the Eastern Front (Erich Maria Remarque) et Jarhead (Anthony Swofford), dont j’avais vu les adaptations cinématographiques mais que je ne trouvais pas en étagère. J’ai trouvé les deux à 4.99$ dans un Village des Valeurs, tous deux en excellent état. Il va sans dire que j’ai dévoré les deux dans les semaines suivant mon achat.

C’est dans une brocante de livres nouvellement ouverte à Longueuil que je suis tombé à la fois sur Candideet Cyrano de Bergerac. Idem côté voracité littéraire: je me suis farci ces classiques en moins de temps qu'il suffirait à Cyrano de faire sa tirade du nez.

Quelques mois plus tard, comble de bonheur, je trouve par hasard l’ironiquement excellent Molvania : a land untouched by modern dentistry par Jetlag Travel Guides et ma première copie du The Zombie Survival Guide de Max Brooks. J’ignore quel genre de personne dérangée peut être amenée à se départir d’aussi bons livres, mais je saute sur l’aubaine anyways.

Etc, etc, etc...

À y penser, je dirais facilement que mes meilleures lectures ont été des découvertes impromptues, comme si les livres avaient choisi leur moment pour aparaître sur mon radar. Le fait même qu’elles soient des trouvailles totalement inattendues doit allumer une ampoule à l’intérieur de ma tête qui mèle l’opportunité à la curiosité.

À l’inverse, si j’achète un livre que je prévoyais déjà acheter depuis un bout de temps, ou si je le reçois en cadeau, il risque de se faire oublier dans un coin poussiéreux de ma bibliothèque pendant quelques temps alors que mes lectures dites ‘soudaines’ lui volent constamment la priorité. Étrange, non?

Alors comme avec les rencontres, c’est l’impromptu et le spontanné qui l’emporte.

Allez savoir…

Mercy

Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of The Quiet Alpha. It's been nearly two weeks since our last installment, and what a crazy two weeks they've been! But I'm going to share something today that is a bit out of the ordinary. This is the first in a series of semi-related short stories that will be posted to this blag as the weeks go by and I'm too lazy or distracted to come up with more up-to-date rants.

I present to you:

Mercy

Vohanna looked at the young man. He was sitting down with his back propped against the tree stump, only half-conscious. Bruised but otherwise unharmed, the youth had been taken down early in the fight. Milewe had made sure to drag any weapons away from him, with the exception of a single round shield, the use of which she would make clear to him soon enough.
The Saesar came up behind Milewe and kneeled beside her before the survivor. "Ask him if he knows why we spared him", she offered.
Milewe was about to begin translating when Mucha walked over, shock all but painted on her face. "You speak the language of these swine?", she spat out fiercely.
Vohanna shook her head sadly, rising to meet Mucha at eye level. "We weren't always at war, sora..."
If she still objected, this nevertheless seemed to placate her, or at least let her know there would be no further question of Vohanna’s authority. As she relented, Milewe turned gently to the young Nagled warrior and adressed him in his tongue.
“Mulak-mi anmmah a y?” she attempted, her accented rendering of the foreign tongue making her feel clumsy. Know you the reason why you were shown mercy?
The juvenile only stared at her, his face a mixture of revulsion, fear, and… total incomprehension. She repeated, more slowly, and this time, understanding registered on his features, though the look of hostility remained the same. It was to be expected
“Loa”, he said through clenched teeth. No
“Doesn’t understand, does he?” asked Vohanna, strenly, her hands busy with the cleaning of her spearhead. Judging by her ugly grin, Mucha seemed to relish the idea.
“No he doesn’t.”, confirmed Milewe, pausing to think of her next sentence. “Vi abu”, she motionned to the dead laying all around them. “Palla… a y goa malaat a en. Mulak?” Look around. You must return them to the earth, understand?
She waited. Again, no answer. “Mulak a la?” Do you understand me?
She poked him in the chest, hoping for a reaction, and pointed to the shield laying on the floor, making scooping moves with both hands. “A y goa malaat a en. Dig, damn you”
A single tear welled up in his eye and rolled down his aquiline nose. He lifted his arm to brush it away but the gesture died and his hand fell back to his thigh.
“Naam” he croaked, his skin taut against his cheekbones, defeat marking his every slight movement. Yes
“He gets it.”, said Milewe, finally. She nodded to him pitifully and got up. Vohanna handed her interpretor’s long bow back and gave the order to move out.
The trio left him to get a grip on himself, and dissapeared in the tall grasses where their sisters awaited them.