Leila looked pleased rather than disappointed. "That's exactly what we need to know," she said. "A technician who can identify the edge of his knowledge is safer than one who pretends the edge isn't there." Marcus made a note beside the unfamiliar software name. He did not mind being told there was more to learn. He minded the idea of being dismissed before he was allowed to try.
The final exercise was a repair report, not a machine. Olivia gave Marcus a sample incident file with inconsistent timestamps, three parts invoices, and a technician's conclusion that the entire assembly needed replacement. He read it slowly, then asked why no one had recorded a voltage measurement at the moment of failure. When Peter explained that the exercise intentionally omitted the measurement, Marcus pointed out that the proposed replacement might be justified but the evidence did not yet support it.
"You can't buy certainty by ordering the most expensive part," he said. "Sometimes you're just purchasing a different problem." Peter laughed, then caught himself, remembering how many times he had made recommendations based on the weight of previous experience rather than a complete record. Olivia wrote something down without comment. When the assessment was over, she told Marcus they would contact him after the safety and employment checks were complete.
In the elevator afterward, Leila asked whether he really had been repairing control boards before she went to college. Marcus smiled. "Probably," he said. "That doesn't mean I know your new equipment."
Some of those systems are moving faster than I can follow. She told him she had spent half of her first year at Meridian afraid to admit when she did not understand the old building's wiring. "Funny," Marcus replied. "I guess we have opposite problems. You know the new language and I know some of the old sentences."
A few days later, Meridian offered him the trial assignment. It included a wage increase from the first day, written training objectives, a named supervisor, and a predictable shift running from eight-thirty in the morning to three in the afternoon. It also included a transition week so Northline could recruit and train a replacement without overloading the people who remained on the night cleaning team. Natalie insisted on that condition after Claire explained how often promotions quietly made someone else's job harder.
Gloria Park received the news before Marcus did. She had supervised the cleaning crew for five years and knew precisely how difficult it was to replace a dependable person on the executive floors. When Marcus came to her office, she held his application in her hand and looked at him over the reading glasses she wore on a chain. "You're not going to apologize to me for getting a chance, are you?" she asked.
Marcus looked embarrassed. "I know you have the schedule to cover." Gloria waved the concern aside. "I always have the schedule to cover. That's my job. Your job is to take the opportunity and do it well."