I've got a gawk script that controls other gawk scripts, one of which displays overall progress on the command line. While a progress display is simple to implement given iterations within a given script, I wish to monitor the progress of the controlling script via process id and to add an estimate of processing time remaining. Despite attempts with processes started in the background, the monitor script prevents the main script from moving to its next procedure or ending. Perhaps using gawk for these tasks adds a redundant layer of complexity on top of the shell. I humbly seek your insight.