Well... "protects me" in as much as anyone can be "protected" in a job. I don't hold compromising photos of the CEO, or anything.

But I am the one guy in the company who can do the work necessary to maintain the clients where about 70% of our revenues come from. (Government contracts.) Yeah, they could hire someone else to do the writing I do, but then they'd need at least three tech people, two people from the Installations/Training teams, a lead salesperson/account manager, and sales administrator to do every one of the projects I work on.

And I have 7 in the hopper right now, all that must be finished and submitted by the end of next week.

If I bunked off today, they could do two of those projects, max.

I kinda see myself as the spine, and my collaborators as the ribs. Each of them does an important job (less important as you go down), but none of them work with each other, and without me, they can't communicate or replace the work I do.

In the end, yeah, I'm a glorified specialist writer. But not one that is easily replaced, and one that has several other departments invested in ensuring my success.

Right now I'm just watching my ETH and wondering how long I need to go before I just pull up stakes and retire. :-)