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The Performance Review
by Luna Austin
I didn't hear my boss come up behind me as I stacked my edited performance review on top of my outbox.

"Ruby, it's time for your performance review." He noticed the copy on my desk. "What's this doing here?" he frowned. "Employees aren't supposed to see these until the one-on-ones."

I shrugged, not wanting to give myself away.

"I'll be taking this." He swiped the paper from the pile.

"I could just shred it," I offered, holding out my hand for it. "It's probably an extra."

"Perhaps. But I'll keep it for now, I want to check something. Come with me."

I trailed behind my boss, a well-muscled man who clearly spent a good amount of his non-working hours at the gym. He closed the office door for privacy and told me to sit down.

"I don't know if you're aware of this, Ruby, but when I first get the reviews, I scan them into each employee's file before sending the whole lot to be shredded. Which means this," he tapped on the sheet he'd removed from the inbox, "should not exist."

I paled a little. But nothing was proven. I'd keep my mouth shut.

"Now, it could be a simple mistake. I'm not sure how it would have ended up in your outbox in that case, but I'll get to that later. For now, let's see if it was a mistake. If it was, there shouldn't be a scanned copy in your file." His eyes never once left my face, and I could tell he was watching for any hint of guilt. I wasn't any good at hiding my emotions, and I knew it. I was screwed. A few swift clicks had my file open, and sure enough, the original performance review document was there.

"Okay, Ruby," he said, voice steady but with a hint of anger behind his eyes. "How far did you go?" His eyes flipped between the scanned copy and the paper one in front of him. "I see you modified your scores."

"Just a little!" I burst out, then covered my mouth as I realized I'd admitted I'd messed with the document.

"That is irrelevant at this point, Miss." I fell silent.

"How did you get the original copy?"

"I... I..."

"They never leave my office after they are scanned in one piece. Which means you, or someone else, came in here and got it for you." I didn't want anyone else to come down with me, if I was going down, which seemed inevitable.

"It was me," I confessed.

"And you are towards the end of the alphabet. This means to get to your review, you had to look through most everyone else's review. Invasion of privacy." He leaned forward, and almost simultaneously, I leaned back.