Well, he hadn't been wrong and Greengrass didn't seem put out by his snarky comment. The inevitable question about the ministry had him unintentionally bristling. It should be a perfectly benign inquiry, if he didn't hate his job.

"It's... not what I'd like to be doing." He flexed the fingers on his bad hand, annoying for the millionth time that he couldn't just ball his hand up in a fist to show his frustration. With his broommaking career over, Alvin had suspected that at least maybe working with brooms in some capacity might help him stay connected to what it was he'd like to do, but it had only proved to be so far from that expectation that he wasn't sure he'd set himself up for further failure of it he was just not cut out for it.

"And therefore a little miserable." Alvin hadn't admitted as much aloud in quite so many words to anyone, but he suspected that this was more of a superficial conversation and he could handle that.