It's like this. Every month we have an organization-wide report that tells upper management how we're doing. The data is collected at the most primary level and then summarized at the supervisory level. I take the supervisors' reports and combine them into a regional report and send it on up.

This is one of the most boring tasks I have ever had to do and I find myself procrastinating until the penultimate day. Which is today. It's due tomorrow.

I think the underlying source of my resistance is that this data could be captured by computers and the report formatted any way management desired. Putting it through a series of human hands is first, a waste of time and second, an opportunity for error at every level of review.

I'm good at detail work but I'm not at all averse to handing it over to a machine, especially after correcting the same errors month after month resulting from work done in a hurry by people who don't give a damn. The supervisors who report to me are operations types, not detail-oriented bean counters--and it shows in their reporting.

So I sit here going through each one of their Excel files, correcting their mistakes and trying to keep my concentration sharp. What is a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? Oh, yes, earning a living. That's right.