bonerus

I was on my way to Sainsbury's and an elderly woman looked at me and said: 'Are you the librarian?' It was as though my secret identity had at last been revealed. 'Yes, Madam', I felt like saying, 'you have guessed correctly: I am The Librarian!' Then I could have thrown a couple of books at her and run away. Instead, I said no - 'But I did used to work in the bookshop on the High Street'.

She seemed satisfied with this.

Of course, I am now The Strategic Marketing Assistant, which confers few secret powers upon me... or does it? Having taken on some, ahem, extra duties recently, I am now in receipt of what is termed a 5% 'responsibility allowance'. Woo hoo! Of course they forgot to pay it to me. Then they forgot again. Then they remembered - and how.

I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that the deductions in my most recent pay packet were almost exactly equal to my usual take-home pay, while my pay itself had more than doubled. It transpires that, having calculated 5% of my yearly pay, they seem intent on paying that to me every month. Perhaps the responsibilities I am to take on are graver than I thought. Perhaps they are going to drop me into Libya.

The question was - should I mention it? Unfortunately I gave it away immediately by staring down at my wage slip in slack-jawed amazement. I may even have been drooling. When I told this to Ross later he maintained that I should have told curious colleagues that I had an erection. It's what he would have done. And it would have had the desired effect that their attention would then have passed hastily on to something else. Oh well, I'll save that line for the court case.