put it beneath the others. It was not his habit to skip ahead simply because an office was on a higher floor, but security issues took priority when they affected fire exits or controlled access.
His supervisor, Owen Price, appeared in the doorway holding a clipboard and a half-eaten pastry. "They're bringing consultants through tomorrow," Owen said. "Big people, big contracts. The executive team doesn't want a single broken thing visible."
Daniel glanced at the stack of work orders. "If they want it all fixed today, they should have approved the replacement parts last month." Owen gave him a look that acknowledged both the truth of the statement and the limited usefulness of repeating it upstairs.
Owen had joined the company six years earlier, after facilities management was reorganized under an outside service provider. He was fair when he could be and evasive when the demands of the executive floor reached his desk. Unlike Daniel, he had never met the founder, and he regarded the older employee's long history as useful mainly because Daniel knew where every pipe and electrical circuit disappeared behind the walls. Owen sometimes told new hires that if the building had a secret basement, Daniel would already know the combination to its door. Daniel usually replied that he hoped the basement had proper drainage.
The company had changed repeatedly since Elliot Grant opened its doors. The original business designed specialized communications equipment for hospitals and emergency services, then expanded into software that coordinated building operations during power failures. Its success arrived slowly, after years of contracts that almost worked, prototypes that failed, and clients who wanted impossible improvements before paying their invoices. Investors later preferred to describe the company's history as an inevitable rise driven by innovation. Daniel remembered the overdue utility notices, the unheated workshop, and the smell of burnt wiring on the evening an early prototype ruined an entire test bench.