After working for nearly fifty years, mostly in leadership positions in education, social welfare, health and the arts, David Meldrum describes himself as a very lucky man. Always drawn to the projects that might make a real difference, especially for people in trouble, he sometimes found himself facing failure, and even danger. More often, the satisfaction he got from the people he worked with, and the results they enjoyed, have left him with few regrets. In this memoir, he begins by looking back at the boy who wanted to become a manager of people, like his father; a boy with some fears and faults who nevertheless rose quickly to increasingly senior jobs. But the sense that his own shortcomings, or random bad luck, would find him out never really left him, and led to the title of this book. Now mostly retired, David lives in Adelaide, where he tackles writing, cycling, Indonesian language and playing bridge, along with several ongoing commitments as a volunteer.