In the grand scheme (assuming there is a grand scheme), I’m not a very important person. Of the eight billion people on the planet, it would be arrogant of me to think I was in the top half, as far as who matters to the advancement of civilization. I don’t contribute much, but I do try to live without taking too much for granted, either. I try to stay out of the way and not do any harm, and for the most part I do okay with that.

Given the modest place I hold in the world, I’m still a fairly essential cog in the machinery that makes my company run. The company might be in the bottom half as well, but a few people depend on it for their livelihood, and others enjoy the products we produce. So it’s not as if I work for an outfit that destroys virgin forests or poisons reservoirs. At least I have that going for me.

Still, I could do without days like today. Today the Boss was extra needy, and he didn’t want to hear my answers to his questions. He doesn’t like to get bad news, and sometimes there isn’t any other kind. When he hired me, he told me that he didn’t want to know that a problem had been solved, because he didn’t want to have to know that there ever was a problem in the first place.

Like most companies, even perhaps polluters and pillagers, we are going through a difficult time. If there are jobs out there that we can do, we need to know about them. We can’t wait for them to find us, as we were able to do even a year ago.

So I spent most of my afternoon chasing down information on an upcoming project that I knew was too big for us to do, and that it turned out we probably can’t even be a part of. It would mean working with a mega corporation and being their lapdog. When I discovered this situation, I tried to discourage the Boss from pursuing it, because he always wants to be the big dog.

I didn’t get far with that, and so my next phase of this potential fiasco will be to deal with the mega guys and see how far I can get. You can tell by my voice how enthusiastic I’m likely to be, and my level of enthusiasm often foretells my level of success. Still, I have to try, or at least seem to be trying. No, try. I have to try.

To be a little more honest, I don’t really think there are four billion people who are better than I am. How could a person live with himself if he thought like that? I have my bad and bitter moments, but most of the time I think I’m at least a good person, if not quite an essential cog in the planet’s machinery.