This is how bad my story is today:

No - I mean it's really awful:

1. I just got off the phone with a council member. "You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel today, aren't you?" he said. I agreed. "Aren't there some city W-2's or something you could be looking at?"
   
   Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a new low: I now have city officials asking me please, for the love of Christ, to dig up dirt on them - just to keep things interesting. I will now beat myself unconscious with my keyboard.
   
   
2. Get off the phone with the Local editor; there's confusion whether this "story" is running tomorrow or the next day. She asks if there's a time element, cause if not she can hold it a day. Otherwise, it'll probably get buried in tomorrow's edition.
   
   Without skipping a beat: "No, run it tomorrow. Bury it." I just told my boss to please hide my story, cloaked in shame, as much as possible. Another milestone.

So to answer your question, things are going great. I will now run naked across the closest driving range, of which there are approximately 3,888 in this godforsaken wasteland.