My theoretical future manager at work is out on leave so my hopper is filled, largely, with random tasks that fall off of other people’s plates. I didn’t have much to do except for training and when a coworker popped by saying “are you busy?” I said “no”. “Good, I need you to come up with a proof of this transformation we’re using because the source data is wonky. Someone vaguely remembered an equation from an actuarial paper published in the 80s or maybe early 90s in one of these two journals. Find it, verify the proof, and tell us if we’re doing it correctly”.

I had gone from copy and pasting worker compensation growth rates from Excel to Access to verifying math with symbols I hadn’t even seen before. I wonder if this is the source of many of my coworkers claiming that there’s “never a dull moment” at my workplace.