"Even though I haven't moved up the corporate ladder, I now and again merit these awards for excellence in various categories. One or two have had a high degree of prestige.
"I was nominated for one four months ago, and it came down to this: My last supervisor, a woman I had had a disastrous affair with, had to sign her approval to the nomination, as it was proposed by my current manager (a woman with whom I've always gotten along very well), and it upset my old supervisor to have to sign the form as she had written some bitter notes which she made part of my personnel folder. She checked the folder to see if the notes were still there and discovered they weren't.
"She let it be known the notes were missing and though they had only her word that they had ever been there, the bank started an investigation.
"They discovered that one day for about twenty minutes I had had access to my folder and they were ready to accuse me of tampering with bank records. I was put under pressure until one day last month when my old supervisor, my ex-girlfriend, had a nervous breakdown in the office and it became clear she had been ready to crack for some time.
"They found denigrating notes, scores of them in her desk, in which she had written false accusations of a plot concocted by me and my new manager, of whom she was insanely jealous.
"So they gave me this cruise for two to make up for it. I'm here with my new girlfriend, who's a writer. We intend to write my story and see if we can make some money from it.
"I know it is only a matter of time until they squeeze me out of the job. They don't like these kind of things occurring during working hours. I think they were surprised I didn't ask my manager to come with me."
