I'll have a slice of the humble pie, thank you.

Put me and my high horse out to pasture.

That's right, kick our newly humbled butts to the back forty, for we have some shit to work out - and it's not the horsey kind.

Surely some people go to work, day in and day out, without any delivery of a comeupance to their desk. Surely some people have jobs that remain jobs, left neatly at the workplace, never following them home. And surely some people have jobs that don't make an oh-shit impact.

Oh-shit impact: n. the result of any scenario that warrants the reaction "Oh Shit!!!!!" when things go backassward wrong.

My job involves a sliding scale of oh-shits.

Let me demonstrate:

man, you screwed up       yikes, you suck!      assholes like you 
                                                                                                 are fired!!!!!!

1                     2                    3                       4                      5

________________________________________

Some oh-shits are bigger and accompanied by more exclamation points than others. Some are merely uttered under one's breath. But usually when something warrants an oh-shit, it matters... like matters big. Maybe even life or death kind of matters.

I pride myself on having a rather low oh-shit to hells-yeah ratio. Part of the reason I don't mess up all that much is because I love what I do. The other part is because I'm too proud to endure oh-shits that fall at my feet. I'd rather they fall elsewhere while I gather up the hells-yeah's and you're-fabulous's.

You're surely wondering what insanely important job I have, and I'm sad to say I can't tell you. But I won't leave without some examples to equate it to. My job involves A LOT of important, black or white, you-better-damn-well-be-right-because-it-really-matters questions. For example, people don't take kindly to being told they can expect a full recovery of their terminal condition. And no one appreciates the girl who informed them their bank account had ample funds when a $50 check bounced later that day.

When I mess up, there's mega potential for me to look like an ass and for someone else to be pissed off - at me.

And that pretty much sucks.

Today, I hit an oh-shit somewhere in the realm of "you've gotta be kidding me", minus any "you're fired" or "what an asshole you are!" It was kinda like I'd told someone I was 90% sure they're pregnant and that while we could do extra testing to prove it 100%, we could also just roll with it because, you know, I'm pretty damn sure.

And I'm that good.

But then I got paranoid and asked my boss to double-check me.

And then he said "Nope, nada, better leggo that preggo cause there ain't no baby in sight!"

And then I felt like an ass.

No one cared. Because really, there wasn't a not-so-pregnant mother glaring at me and I'm not a gynecologist (thankfully). But still, the call I made incorrectly mattered and, in my line of work, mistakes are not forgiven easily. I'll wear the scarlet A of an Asshole for a while in their eyes.

The fact I requested the double-checking matters not to them.

And that's the thing about my job - it humbles people. All too often, I'm riding high, hair in the wind, shit-eating grin on my face, thinking I've got this game beat. And just when I think I can kick my heels up and check this career off my list of challenges to conquer, it kicks my ass to the dirt leaving a smudge that looks all too much like poo right where it matters.

It reminds me I can always do better and I will never have it beat.

And that is why I love it.