This is Predictable, And That's the Problem

This is what ‘we’ll deal with it later’ looks like.

That sign didn’t go up by accident. Someone knew. Someone saw the risk, saw the gap, saw the possibility of everything going sideways and decided at least this needed to be marked. A rally point isn’t about emergencies you hope for. It’s about the ones you know are possible. And when it’s standing alone, tied to a fence with no one around, it tells you something uncomfortable, the danger was anticipated, but the problem that creates it is still waiting to be dealt with.

I’ve watched good people break, and I can tell you exactly when it starts.

Not with a crisis. Not with a headline. Not even with a mistake.

It starts quietly. With hesitation. With one decision not made. With one position left unfilled because “we’ll figure it out.” I’ve seen it enough times now that I could almost chart it.

Not on a map. Not by country, climate, or culture. By pattern.

The same failure shows up whether I’m stepping off a plane in Belize or pulling into a site back home. Different accents. Different uniforms. Same breakdowns. Leadership gaps. Operator and driver fatigue. Systems stretched so thin they don’t bend, they tear.

It doesn’t stop at the border. It doesn’t ask permission.

It moves the way a virus does, quiet at first, then everywhere all at once.

You can watch it spread if you know what to look for. One delayed decision becomes two. One empty position becomes a single operator on an entire shift with no lunch break and a driver out getting the remaining trash from missed pickups 3 days ago. One ignored site becomes a public health problem. It travels faster than policy and lingers longer than accountability. And it always lands hardest on the people who never had the option to walk away.

I don’t get the luxury of staying an observer for long. Watching it unfold makes me physically sick, not in a dramatic way, but in that quiet, gut-level churn that comes from knowing exactly how this plays out. Because I’ve seen what one person who gives a damn can do.

I’ve watched a single operator hold together what should take five people. Ten people. A whole crew that’s supposed to show up, supposed to care, supposed to share the load. And somehow, impossibly, one person does it anyway. Until they can’t.

And don’t even get me started on the mechanics.

Knee-deep in waste. God knows what they're standing in. Exposed to the elements and the unknowns no one ever bothers to write into the SOPs. He gets the call that the D6 threw a track, because heaven forbid, we actually clean our tracks at the end of our shift. Now he's under pressure. In real time. With equipment that never goes down clean and never breaks on schedule. But let’s not forget, we’re over budget this month.

So now the problem isn’t just what’s wrong. It’s how do we get it running without spending any money. No parts. No downtime. No delays. Just make it work.

Oh, and definitely don’t cut corners. Definitely don’t jeopardize safety.

Because everyone knows what happens then.

And everyone knows who gets held accountable.

It’s not the manager who approved the delay. It’s not the spreadsheet that said, “not this month.” It’s the mechanic. The person on the ground. The one with their hands in it, their body in it, their name on it when something goes wrong.

That’s the part that turns my stomach.

Not the trash. Not the conditions. The math of it.

How effort and apathy don’t balance evenly, it means the people who try hardest end up carrying the most risk, while those who disengage avoid consequences entirely. How commitment carries more weight than incompetence ever should, meaning the people who care most are quietly compensating for failures that should never have been theirs to absorb. One person who cares can outwork a room full of people who don’t, but they pay for it with their body, their sanity, their health. And everyone else just… lets it happen.

Some people are blind to it. Truly. They don’t see it because they’ve never stood there. They’ve never been the last line between “good enough” and disaster. Others see it and choose not to look too closely, because looking would mean responsibility.

And responsibility is inconvenient. It requires decisions. Money. Discomfort. Ownership.

It’s easier to call it inefficiency. Or labor shortages. Or temporary setbacks.

Anything but what it really is.

A system quietly feeding on the same people over and over again because it knows they’ll show up.

I know better than to fight incompetence head-on. You can’t outwork it. You can’t educate it fast enough. You can’t care harder and expect that to fix what negligence keeps breaking. Trying to compete with it is exhausting in a way sleep doesn’t touch.

It’s debilitating, to see clearly, to know exactly what’s wrong, and to understand how preventable it all is.

That’s the burden of perspective.

Once you see the pattern, you carry it. And carrying it alone is how the cycle continues. Because the system gets comfortable when the strongest person keeps compensating. It starts mistaking survival for success. It starts rewarding the people who do just enough to disappear while quietly draining the ones who hold it all together.

A Note for Leadership (Yes, This Part Is for You)

If your operation “runs” because one or two people refuse to let it fail, it isn’t resilient, it’s fragile.

If your best operators are exhausted, injured, or quietly burning out, that’s not dedication. That’s debt. And it always comes due.

If you’re praising people for “going above and beyond” instead of asking why they have to, you’re managing symptoms, not systems.

And if accountability only shows up after something goes wrong, you’re already too late.

What breaks the pattern isn’t more effort from the same exhausted people.

It isn’t asking the one who gives a damn to give a little more. To stay a little later. To carry a little extra. To “just help us get through this.”

That’s not leadership. That’s exploitation with better branding.

The pattern breaks when leadership finally catches up to reality. When standards are enforced instead of endlessly discussed. When accountability is uncomfortable, but consistent. When showing up isn’t heroic, it’s expected.

It breaks when the system stops confusing motion with progress. When it stops calling people essential while treating them as expendable. Because essential isn’t a word.

It’s a commitment. And I know this much for certain:

This trend doesn’t slow on its own. It doesn’t self-correct. It doesn’t suddenly grow a conscience. Someone has to step into it. Name it. Interrupt it.

And refuse to let the people holding it down drown quietly anymore.

Because this was never unpredictable.

And pretending otherwise, that’s the real problem.