My purse swung off my shoulder and plopped into my office chair. I went for my coffee cup. Then I noticed the barbecue sauce splattered all over the file cabinet.

"Eww . . . this is really gross and weird," I thought as I cleaned it off. The thick red sauce splatters were clinging to tables and desks and file cabinets. Hand-prints told me that someone had eaten a sloppy meal and fondled my cubicle. Weird.

A day passed. Another day was passing. I forgot about the sauce prints. I was listening to a book on my Kindle while I slammed invoices into a computer with a chah-cha-cha-cha of typing. . . thunk of a stamp . . . swoosh of flipping the invoice over. . . a momentary pause as I savor completing the task . . . repeat ad et infinitum. The email pinged and my boss wanted me to go into the locked file cabinet to count the petty cash. I did. It was there, except for fourteen dollars, which were in receipts under the tray, who woulda thunk it.. . Being new to the job, I didn't know these things.

"We had a theft, and $1,600 in tips from this weekend was stolen from the top drawer. It's good that they didn't look for the petty cash in the second drawer," the email read. 

I felt so insecure. I was the new girl, and we had just been robbed. The company had never been robbed before. How could they not think . . . I need this job! This lovely, satisfying job . . . type type type thunk swish . . . type type type thunk swish . . . type type type thunk swish . . . et cetera.

Time passed and I wasn't fired. I felt like I wasn't trusted and it made me feel so awkward. I tried to show the company that I wanted to be here in every way I knew how. I just wanted to keep my job. 

Meanwhile, fuel costs were a bit high, and fuel was bought at gas stations that we don't use . . . but I don't have access to gas cards.

After the theft, which had to be by an insider, I quit carrying my purse and Kindle to work. I carried my wallet in my pocket and used my work computer to listen to books.

There was a guy who had quit right after the theft, and he'd had financial troubles . . . so I thought maybe the thief was gone . . . but the mystery transactions continued . . . and that guy wouldn't have had access to the building that night.

Sometimes bills don't make it to my desk, and I have to go looking for them. I do a lot of this at the end of the month for some unknown Principles of Accounting reason. There is a grocery store that we have a credit card with and I was missing a lot of receipts. I went online and printed off a stack of papers that said that we bought dry ice and gelled chaffer fuel, onions and thermometers. My accountant has been fussing at me to get all invoices signed before I pay them . . . so I packed the stack of papers to the chef and he went through them, signing all but three. 

"We don't buy laundry soap" — he looked at me — "but we do buy onions." He slid that receipt to the side and continued. "We don't shop at this store, or this one," he said, showing me the address on both receipts. "Clackamas, who lives in Clackamas? And these aren't things we buy . . . it looks like someone went grocery shopping on our card." 

I took the suspicious papers back to my desk and type type type type type . . . little emails went flying in all sorts of directions. Awhile later an email from the store came back with signatures on the receipts and a note that said, "It looks like they were all bought by a guy named Jose." 

I was shocked and saddened. I like Jose. He works hard. He's nice. With heavy fingers I forwarded the email on . . . I'm sad. It was a bit exciting to have a raccoon-like bandit around, with clever little paws and a black mask over his eyes . . . but to have a real thief who is our friend. What a betrayal. I shut my computer off and went outside and cried.