Old personnel file of my wife's

I met my woman that I would eventually marry the first day of my senior year in high school. Her dad had been transferred from a neighboring state and she was now attending my school. We were friends at first but by spring we were dating steady. She hated the move and that she had to finish high school away from the friends that she had grown up with. Shortly after graduation she moved back to the city where she had grown up. Rather than lose our relationship, I moved with her. We rented an upstairs flat in her old neighborhood, and I got a job in a restaurant nearby. She was taking night classes and working in a factory where her father used to be a supervisor, the one he worked at before being transferred. We had lived there for a little over a year and we got engaged. We were saving for a down payment on a small house, and I assumed that we would settle there for the rest of our lives. However, one day, completely out of the blue, she came home from work early and announced that she had quit her job with no notice. She also said that she wanted to move back to my hometown where her parents still lived. I knew that she had found that living in her old city, especially after high school, was not the fantasy that she had remembered and that several of her closest friends had either moved away or started lives of their own. But I found it strange that she wanted to move so suddenly. We gave our thirty-day notice on the flat and I gave notice at my job. She moved home almost immediately and within two weeks of her quitting, we were both back to my hometown, and we have been living here ever since. She never explained her sudden change of heart. I would only learn why years later.

In a reversal of roles, I got a job in the factory where her father worked, and she became a waitress at a diner. It was an entry level job, but over the next twenty years I worked my way up to becoming the plant manager. Several years ago, the company closed the location in the city where she had grown up and she had worked so many years ago. All of the records for that plant were transferred to our offices and put in storage. The police were digging into a cold case file, and we received a subpoena for the employment records of a man that had worked at the old plant. The HR director was on vacation, so I searched through the old files to find what they had requested. His last name was very close alphabetically to my wife’s maiden name and as I retrieved his file, I couldn’t help but notice that my wife’s employment file was noticeably thicker than I would have expected. That kind of thickness indicated that the company was investigating the employee.

I read through her file, and I am not sure how to process what I learned. It was, after all, twenty years ago. It was obvious that she didn’t quit as she had told me, she had been fired. Her personnel file documented that for over six months she was being investigated for having inappropriate relationships with several employees both inside and outside of work. In total there were five male co-workers that were involved. The file contained depositions by two of the men. There were also multiple warnings given to her regarding her activities that she had signed. I was surprised at the details in the depositions and reports. Perhaps it was the permissiveness of the times or the fact that her father had been a supervisor, but we would have long since released an employee for that kind of activity these days.

These were not romantic relationships that she was having. Apparently, she enjoyed being with more than one man at a time. Her last warning specifically listed that it had been reported that she had gone to her apartment, where I also lived, after work with all five of them. The warning said that they couldn’t fire her since the activity had taken place outside of work of work hours, but it was still considered inappropriate behavior. The handwritten notes said that she confirmed that the reported activity had taken place, but she pleaded that it was her idea and that she didn’t want the guys to get in trouble. I cross-referenced to the two of the other men’s personnel files and found similar warnings given to them. Their files contained other details containing reports of her having sex with them at work. One report said that the men would often take turns with her in the woman’s break room. Since she was the only woman working on the shift they would not be interrupted.

What finally got her released was when she was actually caught in the act at work. Two of the guys had been spotted going into the woman’s break room. A woman from the HR department went to investigate and found them naked having a threesome. That was the same day that my wife announced that she had quit her job with no notice and wanted to move back to my hometown where her parents still lived.

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