Ta-da here I am. No, I wasn't canned in the most recent round of redundancies, more's the pity. I am lucky enough to still be employed in a job that discourages initiative, tortures and kills off my brain cells one by one and forces upon me the disturbing visual image of my boss in skintight lycra bike shorts far too early in the morning for my liking.

My boss went on a business trip to New York this week. He likes to manage his own diary (not trusting me with Microsoft Outlook or anything that requires me to do more than turn on my computer) and had blocked out Mon-Thurs as overseas meetings. He also emailed me last week saying he'd be flying back Thursday evening and in the office on Friday morning. Which means of course he was back in the office this morning (Thursday), making me look like a bad secretary to all the clients who had called in his absence and who I told to call back Friday.

Possibly to make up for it, he did bring me back something from the Big Apple: a handful of crumpled up hotel and dinner receipts and some scribbles on the back of someone else's business card which were meant to denote taxi expenses.

Thanks.