Employee of the Year

So, I've worked for the same company for 14 years. The past seven years, they've given out an Employee of the Year award at the Christmas Party. All of those times, I've felt like I deserved to win, and a couple of times, I almost expected to win, but I never actually did.

Which brings us to tonight, the company's annual Christmas Party, and this year I have no expectation of winning the award, not because I don't feel like I deserve it but because there have been other times when I did feel that way and did not win, so I feel like it's not something I have a shot at. So, my daughter is babysitting my son, and when we try to call to check on how things are going, the phone is busy, which is strange because we have call waiting. So we try several times over the next 15 minutes or so with no luck, so we decide to go home to see what's going on, since we've been at the part for a while anyway. So we kind of sneak out, so not to interrupt anything, and on the way home we hear from my daughter, everything is fine, and she doesn't know why the phone was busy.

A few minutes later, people start calling me from the party wondering where I went, and of course, at this point I have a lousy signal, so I'm having a hard time talking to anyone. Anyway, of course, since I had to leave early, I ended up winning Employee of the Year, and wasn't there to accept it. That's ok, I guess actually being there for the announcment was jinxing it the whole time. At least I didn't have to make any kind of speech. No congratulations, please, just send gifts.