Now, the thing about spending time away from the office is that you have to pay for it. I arrived this morning to fifteen trillion e-mails. I proceeded to wade into them. No, that's not true. Before wading into them, I first paid a visit to my old friend the coffee vending machine. I actually had to make my own coffee while I was away, believe it or not.

Reading my e-mails evokes all kinds of emotions. It's like watching the events of last week unfold in fast-forward: five days of successes, failures, communications, and miscommunications all compressed into a couple of hours. It's nerve-wracking to see e-mails flying back and forth discussing how to do things without me. At first, it's flattering to think that things don't work right without me. Then it occurs to me that things moved along just fine. Everyone is perfectly capable of coping with the extra workload for a week.

Shhh. Don't tell HR. "Indispensible". Tell them I'm "indispensible".