Whole disasters are prevented, quietly, by people like Greg, and almost no one ever knows their names.

I have come to think that this is one of the underappreciated truths about how the world actually holds together.

We tell stories about heroes who do dramatic things at the last moment, but far more often, catastrophe is averted much earlier and much more quietly, by ordinary people at ordinary desks who decline to do the easy wrong thing.

Greg was not being watched.