diff --git a/lib/worker_config.sh b/lib/worker_config.sh
index bd827b80..1c4dc08f 100644
--- a/lib/worker_config.sh
+++ b/lib/worker_config.sh
@@ -101,9 +101,7 @@ get_config_section() {
 
     # Attempt to extract the section and handle missing/null cases
     local extracted_section
-    extracted_section=$(echo "$config_json" | jq -r ".config.${section} // empty" 2>/dev/null)
-
-    if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then
+    if ! extracted_section=$(echo "$config_json" | jq -r ".config.${section} // empty" 2>/dev/null); then
         log_error "Failed to parse section '${section}' from configuration."
         return 1
     fi