The condensation ring from Helen's coffee had nearly dried by the time she said it.
"Maybe you should manage Darren instead."
Priya set her pen down. She'd been explaining the welding inspection reports for fourteen minutes — the pattern in the reject rates, the shift-to-shift variance that didn't correlate with any documented process change. She had the spreadsheet. She had the X-bar chart. She'd stayed late three Tuesdays pulling sample data from the archive.
Helen took a sip. "He's good with his hands. Just inconsistent."
"It's not about Darren's hands."
"I know." Helen said it the way she said most things — with a tone that suggested she'd arrived at this conclusion months ago and was waiting for Priya to catch up. "But what are you going to do, rewrite the spec?"
The spec was the problem. NDE-4407, Section 8.3.2, which required visual inspection of root passes within four hours of completion but didn't specify whether that meant start or finish of the pass. On a seven-hour pour, that was the difference between catching undercut and documenting it after the fact. Every welder on the floor knew this. Darren happened to be the one whose numbers showed it, because Darren worked the longest runs.
"The spec needs a revision request."
"Priya." Helen leaned back. "I put through a revision request on 4407 in 2019. Got it back eighteen months later with a comment that said no safety impact demonstrated. You know what finally demonstrated a safety impact? That cracked header on Unit 3. You know what the root cause analysis said? Welder error." She let the phrase sit. "Not spec ambiguity. Not inspection timing. Welder error."
Priya looked at the spreadsheet. Column J: Darren's reject rate, 11.2%. Column K: shift average, 4.8%. The gap was what she'd been reporting. What Helen was telling her was that the gap was the point — it gave them somewhere to put the problem.
"So I coach Darren."
"You coach Darren. His rate comes down to seven, eight percent. Close enough that nobody asks questions. And the next time 4407 produces an ambiguity on a long pour, it shows up in someone else's column, and someone else coaches that person, and the spec stays clean."
"The spec isn't clean."
"The spec is signed off. In this building, that's the same thing."
Helen picked up her mug. The ring on the table had completely evaporated. Priya wondered how many times Helen had sat exactly here, explaining exactly this — the geometry of a system that turns structural flaws into personnel problems, where the fix for an ambiguous sentence is a conversation with the man it happens to land on.
"You're a good inspector, Priya." Helen said it like a period. Not a compliment. A job description.
Priya opened a new tab. Coaching Plan — Darren Watts, Q3. She started typing. The spreadsheet stayed open in the background, column J still highlighted, the pattern still visible to anyone who looked.
No one was going to look.