Reputation

Melody Bigger, the facilitator, had spent half the afternoon going on about how, in business, the most important asset you owned was your reputation. She said it was more important than your job title, your salary, your CV, or what you actually achieved. What matters, she said, is what people think about you.

Then she said that this was true-times-two for women. Even in the twenty first century. This had Antonia and Caroline nodding sagely.

I mention this to explain what was in Caroline's mind when she agreed to help Alistair with his 'problem'. She had thought no-one would see her naked in the pool imagining her secret desire. It was late. People should have been asleep. When Alistair admitted that he had seen her, and openly admired her breast stroke, she was devastated. It didn't take much to imagine the knowing looks of her colleagues in the finance department if Alistair told them, even one of them, what he had seen. It would go round the office faster than an email with stationery cupboard pictures from the Christmas party.

She decided to follow Melody's second piece of advice on the protection of reputation:

'If someone has got something on you, make sure you get something on them.'

C thought she knew the solution to Alistair's problem and that if she helped him, he wouldn't dare say anything about her in the pool. Without going into too many details here, there is a recognised method for dealing with Alistair's problem, and she charitably put it into effect. He left her room a changed man.

Reputation saved. Problem solved.

Except that Alistair was not the only one of her colleagues who was not asleep at one in the morning.