He pointed to a small, hand-drawn star next to a line item. “That’s the extra cost: 8%. The cost of failure? The bridge carries a regional hospital’s only ambulance route.”
“Arjun,” she said, “most people bring us sixty pages of rendered flyovers and concrete tilt-up warehouses. You brought us a pothole, a napkin, a spreadsheet, and a broken bench.”
“This is a photograph of a pothole,” he said. portfolio for civil engineer
“When can you start?”
“And this?” Elena asked.
Here was a spreadsheet. But not the neat, filtered kind. This one was chaotic—scribbled notes in the margins, coffee rings, a single column highlighted in furious yellow. The column was labeled: Days of rainfall, 30-year projection.
“Let’s see your bridges, Arjun,” said Elena, the lead principal. He pointed to a small, hand-drawn star next to a line item
Arjun didn’t flip to the back, where the glossy renderings of completed overpasses and culverts lived. He opened to the first page.