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My Last Restoration Project
My work turned into a horror show, and now I'm concerned about what else my boss, and by extension, my dream job, is capable of. It started yesterday...
"Welcome back. You missed an “exciting” two weeks.”
He made air quotes when he said “exciting”. “The new director has gotten settled and is showing her colors. She’s a dictator. Says we need to be more inclusive in our RPs, whatever the fuck that means.”
“Oh yeah.” I mumble. To anyone paying attention, my tone would indicate my utter disinterest. I had been out for two weeks in Cancun, blissfully away from the job that I love and the coworker I put up with. He ignored all social queues when it came to his ranting - ranting about movies, books, even gardening. Sometimes the guy just needed to vent I guess, but he usually didn’t rant about work. We’re a two-person team of project operators for a Department of the Interior wildlife restoration program. We both have the job because we believe in conservation and restoration. How else do you end up working on RPs - Restoration Projects. But it's a high stress job and we all blow off steam differently. Dan does it by ranting.
Conservation is about all we have in common. Our politics, interests, and families were pretty different. He started keeping politics and social things out of his rants since someone had anonymously reported him for harassment two months ago. He’s not a bad guy, just used to the good ‘o’l boys club that ran the agency until three months ago when the director stepped down. They had a "ends justify the means" mentality.
“She finished that internal review and has been on the warpath ever since.”
“Huh.” I responded. I had a shit ton to catch up on. Five restoration projects due to execute in the next three weeks and didn’t have locations, candidates, or rangers for any of them yet. Not that I wanted to hear Dan’s rant even if I wasn’t swamped with work. We were sort of friends, the way two wildly different people in a high-stress job can build some bond. But his rants were exhausting, and I didn’t like where this one was going.
“Yeah. She’s on a quest to turn white guys into a fucking restoration project. Says our RPs have to be more diverse and she’s going to put rules in place to make sure they are.”
“Uh that escalated quickly - don’t say shit like that…” We were getting into uncharted territory. Like I said, we’re pretty different, that’s clear, but he hadn’t brought in that kind of mindset towards work. We came, kept our heads down, and kept politics amd culture war stuff out of it.
“She put out a memo last Thursday that no three RPs within a quarter can have the same “demographics”.” Again with the air quotes. “She’s splitting up project management into two offices that can’t communicate. Says she’s moving the selection of RPs - the projects themselves, not the locations - to a new office. So you and me - we don’t select projects anymore. We basically got demoted. Fucking demeaning.”
“Woah.” I started, genuinely caught off guard by the news, and his tone. “Did she say wh-”
“So by the time we get a project, it's already been selected and pre-screened. Then we execute the project. Says it’ll “remove bias”. AND says she’s adding a watchdog office overseeing RPs. A fucking watchdog??? What are we? We don’t report to the public, we don’t publish our work online, you can’t FOIA government offices that don’t technically exist. I’ve been doing this job for 15 years just fine. This is some bureaucratic DEI shit.”
There hadn’t been a reorg in decades. Searching for the memo in my backlog of emails and more than a little surprised by the news, I missed part of Dan’s meaning.
"Following an internal audit, it has been determined that the Agency’s work is heavily reliant on specific types of Restoration Projects. This trend has led to Projects with decreasing biodiversity and resilience. Effective conservation isn’t about the amount of projects we do or where. It’s about recreating a healthy ecosystem which is composed of countless different species. Diverse projects create healthier ecosystems. We all know this, and yet we seem to have gotten into a habit of selecting projects based on our own personal preferences. We need to put more safeguards in place to ensure our Projects are more representative.
"Effective Q2, 2025, Restoration Projects will be handled by two separate offices within the agency - Project Selection (PS), Project Delivery (PD). Each office will handle one portion of Project work, without interbody communication, to ensure unbiased selection, execution, and review. PS teams will have quotas to meet through their selection process. Quotas are based on recent agency research on the ideal diversity needed to maximize biodiversity.
"As recommended by the internal auditor, we are creating two Project Quality Control (PQC) positions that will oversee all project selection and executions to ensure representation."
“Shit, that is some exciting news.” I wasn’t sure what to say. This was definitely a change, but not necessarily a bad one. I had only been with the agency for three years, but in that time I had definitely seen a pattern in what projects looked like and how effective they were. Like I said, the ‘ol boys club was pretty strong here. They had a specific vision for RPs, what they thought was important and what wasn’t. It had led to a few internal scandals before I joined. I’d heard whispers that two previous directors had “voluntarily” stepped down, one in the 70s and one in the 90s. Supposedly this was due to poor project outcomes, but I’d guess it was from too many demographically-driven projects. The time periods correlated too well to high-profile trends on public lands.
“Maybe it's not such a bad idea.”
“Bullshit. This is overreach. The fucking bit-” Dan was cut off as our office door swung open. We hadn’t even heard the security code and deadbolt.
“Greg, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.” Cheryl Bishop, the new agency director, smiled at me before turning an impassive face towards Dan. Explains why we didn’t hear the door or deadbolt. “Dan, I saw your three upcoming RPs. You’ve reviewed our new goals, the ones outlined in Thursday’s memo. Diversity in RPs equals better biodiversity.”
“I thought that didn’t take effect until April 1.” I cringed internally at Dan’s brazen comment. Dude, don’t be an asshole to the new director… Director Bishop had been a Ranger, meaning she was used to traversing the wilderness, she was adept in any kind of physical situation, and she kept a neutral expression in the face of anything.
Director Bishop’s face was unphased. “Correct, they don’t formally take effect until the 1st, but I would hope that as a proactive member of the team you would incorporate them sooner. You won’t even be doing any selection after the 1st. Also, I spoke to you last Friday about Solo F Projects. We are finally seeing more Fs in parks, which is good. We can’t risk scaring them off with a spate of disappearances. Three of your next four RPs are three Solo Fs. I expect to see a new assortment of RPs by tomorrow morning.”
“So no F RPs? That sounds pretty discriminatory to me.” Face red, the vein above his left brow twitching.
“I said no Solo Fs. You can do Fams, Frens, but no Solos.
“Oh and Dan, remember that there are mics in all of our offices.”
We sat in silence the rest of the afternoon. I’d like to say I was more productive because of the silence, but I wasn’t. Dan was seething. He was radiating a vitriol, almost violence, that made it hard to focus. By 4:45 I felt even more behind, but at least I had secured a location and Ranger for am RP in Zion National Park, Utah. As I was closing out my Project files Director Bishop came back into the room.
“Dan, I need to speak with you.” They left the room for her office and I left for the day before Dan returned.
The next morning was a first. Dan always beat me to the office, he was an early bird, but his desk was empty. I had locked my phone in the breakroom - a standard practice for an office like ours - so I couldn’t see if Dan had texted. I sat down at my computer and opened my Zion, Utah RP files. The execution date had changed from April 21st to March 25th. I reread the file execution date on our project management platform three times. Everything we did was based off of our execution dates, which were set months in advance. They didn’t change unless there was an emergency. I hadn’t done that. My stomach flipped. Shit, I hadn’t done that. I lurched when I saw the camera icon flashing in the file homepage, indicating that the RP livestream had started. We used livestreams during execution, any good project manager needs to see that their hard work is being carried out correctly. I clicked open the livestream.
On the livestream was the spot I had selected the day before for the Project. It was a trail in the eastern region of Zion, relatively low foot traffic, decent tree cover, lots of sharp drops. But the Project wasn’t supposed to start hiking today, he was supposed to start on April 20, part of a three day backpacking trip with his two college roommates. They did this trip annually, a different trail each year. Just this year I happened to need to do some reclamation in Zion, and he was a good candidate.
I had been very careful when selecting the Project and the location. He would go missing one night after the trio had gone to sleep. The drone would ping near enough for just him to hear. The drone ping would draw him approximately 45 meters away from the camp before issuing a tranquilizing dart. A ranger, approximately 30 meters away, would collect the Project and transport him to the site, the site I was looking at. His friends would think he’d stumbled too close to the cliffs. His wife would be devastated but say he’d died doing what he loved - being in nature. And he would have contributed himself to reclaiming the park.
But the Project I had selected was a Caucasian male, pitch black buzz cut, no facial hair, late 20s in excellent physical condition. What I saw instead on the livestream was a Caucasian male in his late 40s, slight paunch, sandy blond hair, mustache. Dan, a thick rope around his torso and arms, another around his neck, bound to a large, grizzled old juniper tree, bark peeling from its limbs like flared skin. Standing next to him was Director Bishop, dressed as a Ranger. I quickly plugged in my headphones and turned the volume up on the livestream. I usually keep the sound off since Projects can be unpleasant to listen to. I threw up after my first one. Watching them was enough, no sound needed.
“This was your third violation, Dan. Warning 1, a complaint of using gender and racial slurs in the workplace. Warning 2, issued to you via email and verbally 10 days ago for biased RP selection based on gender. Warning 3, you were explicitly told not to select Solo Fs and yet executed yesterday’s project on a Solo F. A high profile Solo F. You violated my explicit order. Insults, harassment, those are relics of old leadership that I can phase out slowly. But insubordination and executing an unsanctioned Project I can’t allow.”
“As you know, Projects are normally kept sedated during execution. It’s more humane. But you made this personal. So enjoy every feeling while you contribute to the restoration of Zion.”
I watched in horror as Director Bishop stepped back and the environment around Dan began to shift. I was in too much shock to pull my headphones back out before it started. Once stoic and still, the Utah Juniper tree slowly slung down a gnarled, knotty branch from Dan’s left, snaking it around his neck. Sand at Dan’s feet vibrated, blurring as began to scale his feet and burrowing into his legs, leaving millions of red dots on his skin which slowly started seeping blood. He screamed when the next juniper branch slid under the skin of his shoulder, loudly displacing the joint from its socket. I heard the stomach churning crunch as the tree's limbs began to crush his bones as blood trickled from his eyes and mouth. The tree's roots slithered from the ground and wrapped around Dan's lower body, python like movement that snapped and crunched from his toe to hip bones. The sand was digging into his skin one grain at a time, like watching microscopic piranhas dissolving a meal. Before I knew it, Dan was a crumbled pile of flesh that the sand was covering, consuming. A moment later, Dan was gone and all that remained was a crimson dot quickly receding into the sand. Completely gone.
I heard a ping as I received a notification from another field agent. 10 new saplings just appeared in the southeast quadrant of Zion. “We’re seeing some vigorous growth from today’s restoration project, well done!” They sent a picture of a red rock overhang. Fanning away from a creek below the overhang were a cluster of small, one- to two-foot tall young Fremont Cottonwood looked glorious in the sun. A few meters away, what had to be a Ponderosa Pine sapling, big enough to have been around for a decade. And last but not least, a string of baby Junipers stretched silver blue branches towards the sky next. The one closest to the camera looked to have red sap dripping from a nodule. Sap that looked awfully close to blood.
Director Bishop looked directly into the hidden camera icon had been watching from. She knows I saw this. I don't know what's going to happen to me. Someone has to know.
#entertainment
source
My work turned into a horror show, and now I'm concerned about what else my boss, and by extension, my dream job, is capable of. It started yesterday...
"Welcome back. You missed an “exciting” two weeks.”
He made air quotes when he said “exciting”. “The new director has gotten settled and is showing her colors. She’s a dictator. Says we need to be more inclusive in our RPs, whatever the fuck that means.”
“Oh yeah.” I mumble. To anyone paying attention, my tone would indicate my utter disinterest. I had been out for two weeks in Cancun, blissfully away from the job that I love and the coworker I put up with. He ignored all social queues when it came to his ranting - ranting about movies, books, even gardening. Sometimes the guy just needed to vent I guess, but he usually didn’t rant about work. We’re a two-person team of project operators for a Department of the Interior wildlife restoration program. We both have the job because we believe in conservation and restoration. How else do you end up working on RPs - Restoration Projects. But it's a high stress job and we all blow off steam differently. Dan does it by ranting.
Conservation is about all we have in common. Our politics, interests, and families were pretty different. He started keeping politics and social things out of his rants since someone had anonymously reported him for harassment two months ago. He’s not a bad guy, just used to the good ‘o’l boys club that ran the agency until three months ago when the director stepped down. They had a "ends justify the means" mentality.
“She finished that internal review and has been on the warpath ever since.”
“Huh.” I responded. I had a shit ton to catch up on. Five restoration projects due to execute in the next three weeks and didn’t have locations, candidates, or rangers for any of them yet. Not that I wanted to hear Dan’s rant even if I wasn’t swamped with work. We were sort of friends, the way two wildly different people in a high-stress job can build some bond. But his rants were exhausting, and I didn’t like where this one was going.
“Yeah. She’s on a quest to turn white guys into a fucking restoration project. Says our RPs have to be more diverse and she’s going to put rules in place to make sure they are.”
“Uh that escalated quickly - don’t say shit like that…” We were getting into uncharted territory. Like I said, we’re pretty different, that’s clear, but he hadn’t brought in that kind of mindset towards work. We came, kept our heads down, and kept politics amd culture war stuff out of it.
“She put out a memo last Thursday that no three RPs within a quarter can have the same “demographics”.” Again with the air quotes. “She’s splitting up project management into two offices that can’t communicate. Says she’s moving the selection of RPs - the projects themselves, not the locations - to a new office. So you and me - we don’t select projects anymore. We basically got demoted. Fucking demeaning.”
“Woah.” I started, genuinely caught off guard by the news, and his tone. “Did she say wh-”
“So by the time we get a project, it's already been selected and pre-screened. Then we execute the project. Says it’ll “remove bias”. AND says she’s adding a watchdog office overseeing RPs. A fucking watchdog??? What are we? We don’t report to the public, we don’t publish our work online, you can’t FOIA government offices that don’t technically exist. I’ve been doing this job for 15 years just fine. This is some bureaucratic DEI shit.”
There hadn’t been a reorg in decades. Searching for the memo in my backlog of emails and more than a little surprised by the news, I missed part of Dan’s meaning.
"Following an internal audit, it has been determined that the Agency’s work is heavily reliant on specific types of Restoration Projects. This trend has led to Projects with decreasing biodiversity and resilience. Effective conservation isn’t about the amount of projects we do or where. It’s about recreating a healthy ecosystem which is composed of countless different species. Diverse projects create healthier ecosystems. We all know this, and yet we seem to have gotten into a habit of selecting projects based on our own personal preferences. We need to put more safeguards in place to ensure our Projects are more representative.
"Effective Q2, 2025, Restoration Projects will be handled by two separate offices within the agency - Project Selection (PS), Project Delivery (PD). Each office will handle one portion of Project work, without interbody communication, to ensure unbiased selection, execution, and review. PS teams will have quotas to meet through their selection process. Quotas are based on recent agency research on the ideal diversity needed to maximize biodiversity.
"As recommended by the internal auditor, we are creating two Project Quality Control (PQC) positions that will oversee all project selection and executions to ensure representation."
“Shit, that is some exciting news.” I wasn’t sure what to say. This was definitely a change, but not necessarily a bad one. I had only been with the agency for three years, but in that time I had definitely seen a pattern in what projects looked like and how effective they were. Like I said, the ‘ol boys club was pretty strong here. They had a specific vision for RPs, what they thought was important and what wasn’t. It had led to a few internal scandals before I joined. I’d heard whispers that two previous directors had “voluntarily” stepped down, one in the 70s and one in the 90s. Supposedly this was due to poor project outcomes, but I’d guess it was from too many demographically-driven projects. The time periods correlated too well to high-profile trends on public lands.
“Maybe it's not such a bad idea.”
“Bullshit. This is overreach. The fucking bit-” Dan was cut off as our office door swung open. We hadn’t even heard the security code and deadbolt.
“Greg, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.” Cheryl Bishop, the new agency director, smiled at me before turning an impassive face towards Dan. Explains why we didn’t hear the door or deadbolt. “Dan, I saw your three upcoming RPs. You’ve reviewed our new goals, the ones outlined in Thursday’s memo. Diversity in RPs equals better biodiversity.”
“I thought that didn’t take effect until April 1.” I cringed internally at Dan’s brazen comment. Dude, don’t be an asshole to the new director… Director Bishop had been a Ranger, meaning she was used to traversing the wilderness, she was adept in any kind of physical situation, and she kept a neutral expression in the face of anything.
Director Bishop’s face was unphased. “Correct, they don’t formally take effect until the 1st, but I would hope that as a proactive member of the team you would incorporate them sooner. You won’t even be doing any selection after the 1st. Also, I spoke to you last Friday about Solo F Projects. We are finally seeing more Fs in parks, which is good. We can’t risk scaring them off with a spate of disappearances. Three of your next four RPs are three Solo Fs. I expect to see a new assortment of RPs by tomorrow morning.”
“So no F RPs? That sounds pretty discriminatory to me.” Face red, the vein above his left brow twitching.
“I said no Solo Fs. You can do Fams, Frens, but no Solos.
“Oh and Dan, remember that there are mics in all of our offices.”
We sat in silence the rest of the afternoon. I’d like to say I was more productive because of the silence, but I wasn’t. Dan was seething. He was radiating a vitriol, almost violence, that made it hard to focus. By 4:45 I felt even more behind, but at least I had secured a location and Ranger for am RP in Zion National Park, Utah. As I was closing out my Project files Director Bishop came back into the room.
“Dan, I need to speak with you.” They left the room for her office and I left for the day before Dan returned.
The next morning was a first. Dan always beat me to the office, he was an early bird, but his desk was empty. I had locked my phone in the breakroom - a standard practice for an office like ours - so I couldn’t see if Dan had texted. I sat down at my computer and opened my Zion, Utah RP files. The execution date had changed from April 21st to March 25th. I reread the file execution date on our project management platform three times. Everything we did was based off of our execution dates, which were set months in advance. They didn’t change unless there was an emergency. I hadn’t done that. My stomach flipped. Shit, I hadn’t done that. I lurched when I saw the camera icon flashing in the file homepage, indicating that the RP livestream had started. We used livestreams during execution, any good project manager needs to see that their hard work is being carried out correctly. I clicked open the livestream.
On the livestream was the spot I had selected the day before for the Project. It was a trail in the eastern region of Zion, relatively low foot traffic, decent tree cover, lots of sharp drops. But the Project wasn’t supposed to start hiking today, he was supposed to start on April 20, part of a three day backpacking trip with his two college roommates. They did this trip annually, a different trail each year. Just this year I happened to need to do some reclamation in Zion, and he was a good candidate.
I had been very careful when selecting the Project and the location. He would go missing one night after the trio had gone to sleep. The drone would ping near enough for just him to hear. The drone ping would draw him approximately 45 meters away from the camp before issuing a tranquilizing dart. A ranger, approximately 30 meters away, would collect the Project and transport him to the site, the site I was looking at. His friends would think he’d stumbled too close to the cliffs. His wife would be devastated but say he’d died doing what he loved - being in nature. And he would have contributed himself to reclaiming the park.
But the Project I had selected was a Caucasian male, pitch black buzz cut, no facial hair, late 20s in excellent physical condition. What I saw instead on the livestream was a Caucasian male in his late 40s, slight paunch, sandy blond hair, mustache. Dan, a thick rope around his torso and arms, another around his neck, bound to a large, grizzled old juniper tree, bark peeling from its limbs like flared skin. Standing next to him was Director Bishop, dressed as a Ranger. I quickly plugged in my headphones and turned the volume up on the livestream. I usually keep the sound off since Projects can be unpleasant to listen to. I threw up after my first one. Watching them was enough, no sound needed.
“This was your third violation, Dan. Warning 1, a complaint of using gender and racial slurs in the workplace. Warning 2, issued to you via email and verbally 10 days ago for biased RP selection based on gender. Warning 3, you were explicitly told not to select Solo Fs and yet executed yesterday’s project on a Solo F. A high profile Solo F. You violated my explicit order. Insults, harassment, those are relics of old leadership that I can phase out slowly. But insubordination and executing an unsanctioned Project I can’t allow.”
“As you know, Projects are normally kept sedated during execution. It’s more humane. But you made this personal. So enjoy every feeling while you contribute to the restoration of Zion.”
I watched in horror as Director Bishop stepped back and the environment around Dan began to shift. I was in too much shock to pull my headphones back out before it started. Once stoic and still, the Utah Juniper tree slowly slung down a gnarled, knotty branch from Dan’s left, snaking it around his neck. Sand at Dan’s feet vibrated, blurring as began to scale his feet and burrowing into his legs, leaving millions of red dots on his skin which slowly started seeping blood. He screamed when the next juniper branch slid under the skin of his shoulder, loudly displacing the joint from its socket. I heard the stomach churning crunch as the tree's limbs began to crush his bones as blood trickled from his eyes and mouth. The tree's roots slithered from the ground and wrapped around Dan's lower body, python like movement that snapped and crunched from his toe to hip bones. The sand was digging into his skin one grain at a time, like watching microscopic piranhas dissolving a meal. Before I knew it, Dan was a crumbled pile of flesh that the sand was covering, consuming. A moment later, Dan was gone and all that remained was a crimson dot quickly receding into the sand. Completely gone.
I heard a ping as I received a notification from another field agent. 10 new saplings just appeared in the southeast quadrant of Zion. “We’re seeing some vigorous growth from today’s restoration project, well done!” They sent a picture of a red rock overhang. Fanning away from a creek below the overhang were a cluster of small, one- to two-foot tall young Fremont Cottonwood looked glorious in the sun. A few meters away, what had to be a Ponderosa Pine sapling, big enough to have been around for a decade. And last but not least, a string of baby Junipers stretched silver blue branches towards the sky next. The one closest to the camera looked to have red sap dripping from a nodule. Sap that looked awfully close to blood.
Director Bishop looked directly into the hidden camera icon had been watching from. She knows I saw this. I don't know what's going to happen to me. Someone has to know.
#entertainment
source
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| 9,000 mlx | |
| 14 | |
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