one legged man, wallpapering

It is true, my sweet and scrumptious punkling, that your dad is considered at his job to be what's known as a 'subject matter expert'. In this particular case, the subject in question is business documentation.

A title of this type, whilst useful in fostering a workplace environment that contains a good deal of change and variety in one's daily regimen, can have its drawbacks.

In business, as in life, it is difficult to plan your strategies for improvement if you do not have an accurate idea of your starting point. Regular updating of variables is essential to ensure that your attack is up to date and correctly targeted.

Unfortunately, pumpkin, the whole world has conspired against me to decide that such reporting must be undertaken in all instances on or around the first week of any given month.
The first days of November, then, have been composed for your dad almost entirely of:

Talking to two people about some figures, getting different answers then trying to figure out which one is right or indeed if they are both wrong

Composing lengthy documents that must at some stage contain a mixture of the wrong figures and the right figures contained at random places throughout said document

Printing a draft of the documents to show his boss, being told that the figures therein are 'not the right shape' and having to go back to the original number provider and ask for a new one

As I'm sure you can understand, this type of sustained workload gives little opportunity for the updating of pumpkindiaries.

This is, unfortunately, the way that all great projects are created. An architect will have a vision, and then lackeys will spend significant periods of time attempting to interpret the architect's thoughts into reality. Your father, pumpkin, is a lackey, albeit a well-paid and respected one.

Ultimately in life, with the exception of a very very few people, we are all lackeys. Even those of us fortunate enough to run our own, successful business, such as two of your three grandfathers, are lackeys, just to their bank managers rather than their bosses. The trick, pumpkin, is to get to the stage where you're a lackey to as few people as possible.

PS while you live under my roof, you live by my rules. This makes you my lackey by definition. Get used to it, I'm only doing it for your own good.

Love you.