The higher the technology, the more obscure the jobs and the crazier the “business idea” (i.e., the plan for doing something other people will give you money for doing.) 

The most money I ever made was back in the ’90s, when I worked for a telecom company. My work included crawling around information contained in databases, mining it, setting up spreadsheets, and making comprehensible the billing/technical support tickets/workflow plans for some Friday upper management meeting to which I was not privy.

Occasionally, my parents, perplexed by the amount of money I was making, would ask me, “what is it you do again?”

I would then explain it to them, never in fewer than three or four interlocking sentences so they could move, hand over hand, from one statement to the next, finally arriving at an answer that never entirely satisfied them. 

“I do (ten words) so then my supervisor can (one hundred words) which will then (five hundred words) and that means the company can (roughly one thousand words.)”

At one point I set up a spreadsheet with macros that enabled me to do in one or two minutes a chore that, before, had taken several days. All I had to do was import the comma-delimited info, then hit a couple of macros. I brought over my supervisor, and several other middle-to-upper executives to demonstrate it.

These were nice, very well-dressed people who liked my work, and they were appreciative, even impressed, but they did not seem to understand.

“See!” I said, after demonstrating my spreadsheet. “It’s done! No more waiting until the end of the week for my report.”

“Wow!” “That is so cool!” “Can we see that again?”

“Sure.”

I backed out, reloaded the info, activated the macro, and they stood behind me watching, rapt, as before their eyes the data was reshaped, trimmed, analyzed, and formatted into a neat printable report that included charts and graphs. You could almost hear dominoes clicking as everything fell into a perfect, readable pattern.

“That is soooo cool!” one of them repeated.

“Good work!” “Yes, good work.” A hand patted my shoulder.

They drifted away.

For the next several months, I spent Mondays downloading the information to my spreadsheet, activating the macro, printing the report and sending it out by messenger to the various executives in the various offices. The rest of the week was spent wandering the office to see if anyone needed xeroxing done and playing solitaire.

I could hardly tell my parents that, now, could I?