(FORTUNE Magazine) – Hi, folks! How many times has this happened to you? You're sitting at your desk late in the day, with alligators happily snapping about your buttocks and a passel of Bosnian potentates waiting in your antechamber, when a pal you can't quite place appears with topcoat on and the whiff of a rather lengthy luncheon about him, and amusingly asks, "Are ya havin' fun?" And you don't know what to say.

Well, it's been happening a lot to me lately, so I figure it's way past time to roll out a little quiz designed to deliver a reliable answer to this time-honored and thoroughly inexplicable query. Two reasons: First, in these crazy, helter-skelter days, it's just possible you may be having fun and not even be aware of it! That would be tragic. Conversely, many of us who believe we are having fun may not actually be doing so--and it could get ugly should reality finally crash down on us without warning.

So without further ado, please complete the following statements.

I mostly eat breakfast... (a) at home with the kids, spouse, and a newspaper, preparing myself for the day ahead with some quiet contemplation and a sense of perspective about the tasks that lie ahead; (b) on the train, with a buttered roll on my knee, a cup of coffee in my armpit, and a cellular phone making my ear feel like a baked stuffed clam; (c) What's breakfast?

Most of my meetings... (a) are very short in duration and focused around one or two specific action points. In fact, sometimes I go entire days without one formal meeting with more than one person other than myself; (b) are very well organized, with quite structured agendas and large numbers of people in attendance. Recently I attended a six-hour session on positioning. It took me three days to catch up after that one! But if I didn't go, I wouldn't have been there, and people would have gotten the wrong idea; (c) blow.

I have...(a) one boss, but he's a big one; (b) two bosses, but they respect each other and one of them is solid and the other is dotted line; (c) three bosses, maybe four, and two of them are solid line but on different coasts, while the others are in a kind of matrix that relates to itself interstitially on alternate Tuesdays.

When my telephone rings ... (a) either I answer it or it's answered by Edna, who knows to whom I should be speaking better than I do; (b) the cord gets all fouled up! Have you ever noticed that? Like, the more phone calls you get, the more twisted the cord gets until it kind of takes on a life of its own? The other day it was flipping around so bad it knocked over my third can of Diet Pepsi! (c) I feel sick.

During a normal day, I see... (a) between three and ten people; (b) between 11 and 20 people; (c) about a million people.

Most of the people in my company wear a beeper. I have decided... (a) not to wear one, because I consider it a psychotic intrusion into my personal space. If I'm managing my affairs so badly that a crisis could come up at any time, bite me, and interrupt what sorry shards remain of my life, I shouldn't be in my position anyhow; (b) to wear one, because if I don't, people might find out that I've been managing my affairs so badly that a crisis could come up at any time and bite me and I shouldn't be in my position anyhow; (c) not to wear one but worry about the fact that I'm not wearing one so intensely that it ruins my life anyhow because I constantly check my voice mail by cellular phone every 15 minutes.

The following statement best describes my feelings about my career: (a) I'm satisfied about where I am right now, but in the next 18 months I'll take a look at where I am and see if the cost/benefit ratio of my existence still makes sense; (b) I'm doing okay, but I'm also kind of, you know, annoyed about the constant encroachment Krantz seems to be making on my territory all the time. In fact, the guy is junior to me. I don't really understand why he doesn't report to me, when you think about it. He should. And until he does, I'll never rest. It's burning through my soul like a hot rock. It's eating me alive! (c) I hope they don't find out about me until I can sort of figure out what I'm doing.

For lunch, I would like to eat... (a) a generous appetizer of selected vegetable and seafood antipasto, accompanied by a judicious martini with several olives for nutritional value, followed by a delicate paillard of chicken with roasted potatoes, a small dish of sorbets, a macaroon or two, and a couple of strong espressos. The fact that this repast is taken with an influential industry analyst makes it not only expensable but laudatory. Bravo! (b) six pounds of raw fish and a brace of Kirin Light with Burbage, Morgenstern, and Shoendienst, the last five minutes of which is spent talking about future revenue trends, which makes it necessary for somebody to pick it up. This time, it turns out to be me; (c) a ham sandwich and a bag of Lays potato chips, which I pay for with my own cash and eat standing up while on the phone with the VP of human resources, trying to keep the crunching down because it's an important call and you don't want to offend the guy.

When I got that horrible flu last December... (a) I stayed out of the office for the better part of four days. It was heaven. Of course, I spent a lot of time on the phone, but that was all right. And at least three or four hours of every day I napped. I guess I've got things pretty much the way I want them. (b) I stayed out one day and went back still feeling pretty funky. Even so, I kind of like being sick at my desk. People are scared you're going to give them something, so they leave you alone. You get a lot of paperwork done and a lot of brownie points for being a good soldier. I liked it. Except for the fact that I didn't get completely well for more than two months, it was great, actually. (c) I was forced to fly to Los Angeles for a marketing presentation. My eustachian tubes were so clogged up during the flight I punctured my eardrums. I had to be there, though, because it was my meeting. I called it. It was my agenda. Death would have been the only excuse, and a poor one at that.

At night, when I am sleeping, I dream... (a) rarely, if at all; (b) about Marcie Bruce, who developed an unbelievably mature figure in the seventh grade; (c) that Ed Barzun, the assistant controller in charge of the zero-based time-management process, is chasing me with a meat cleaver screaming, "Cut head count!"

Okay! We're done. For every answer of a, give yourself a 1, the lowest possible score. You're way too content, buster. An answer of b, on the other hand, earns you two points and a middling score that befits your middling status, spud. A response of c, of course, is worth ten points. You have no idea how happy you are! When you look back on them, you'll remember these as the happiest days of your life. Ironic, huh? I think so too.

So, are ya havin' fun? Consider anything over 60 a very good score. If you scored under, say, 30, I'd just like to ask you one last question.

Are ya makin' any money?

By day, Stanley Bing is a real executive at a real FORTUNE 500 company he'd rather not name.