I supported $22m worth of business as the only person in the company capable of doing the engineering design necessary to support the company's goals at the company's budgets. It cost me 90+ hours a week. They held a board-level meeting about what to do about "the kleinbl00 problem."

The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space.

A week later I discovered two of my 22" CAD monitors had been stolen "to put on a project" by another engineer. Well, not an engineer. A CADmonkey with a years' experience that got dragooned into fucking up other peoples' projects because we simply didn't have the manpower. I didn't notice for a day because I was so busy training the receptionist how to be a project manager. Lovely girl, tried hard. But she needed to understand distributed audio systems and video over IP and hadn't taken algebra. I spent half an hour trying to teach her Ohm's Law but gave up shortly thereafter.

A week after that they laid me off and gave my job to the CADmonkey's husband, who had never done more than hook speakers up. He was certainly cheaper. The "efficiency expert" had known, and had known that any solution the company tried would lead to catastrophic failure.

A month after that the company lost $22m in business. I was on a beach in Thailand solemnly swearing to the Universe that I would never, ever work in a cubicle ever again. That was eight years and a substantial chunk of a million dollars ago.