Dear Mr. Fulton

Dear Mr. Fulton,
I am terribly sorry for bothering you, and I truly would not have, had it not been so important. I must apologize in advance, because I’m afraid that you will be a tad upset, when you read the rest of my letter. The reason I’m writing to you is that I forgot to do something terribly important, and I think you might wish to know about it.

My name is Martha Moore, and until a week ago, I was your employee. I know that you are a very busy man and certainly can’t possibly know all your employees, especially considering that you have more than hundred of them. Therefore I should also inform you that I worked in the filing section of the accounting department of your firm ‘Fulton Enterprises S.A.’ for the last ten years, well nine years, ten months and twenty one days if one wished to be accurate.

I am well aware that Fulton Enterprises is your pride and joy. It is drummed into your employees right from the first day of work at the company. This is the reason I had to write you this letter. I had to warn you that you are in danger of losing the company, or at least half of it partly due to my actions or rather my inaction.

Stalling, even in written speech, is a form of cowardice, so I shall proceed and write the rest of it. But first, I would like to mention that it was not something I did deliberately, but rather something I forgot. You might think, that one could forget to apply make-up, or to buy milk or even to call an elder aunt on her birthday, but there is no way one could forget to do, what I did. Well, if you thought that, you would be apparently wrong, because I did forget to do this tremendously important thing.

At this point of my letter you are probably very happy that you fired me, even though firing me had nothing to do with my performance or lack thereof and was entirely due to your decision to deem the filing section obsolete. I sometimes wonder how Miss. Perkins will be able to perform the entire company’s filing on her own, but that would be a problem entirely of your making.

The present situation is also partly your responsibility. I’m not trying to accuse you of my forgetting to do what I had to do, I’m just saying that your part in achieving your predicament is not negligible.

Had you not bought a white ermine coat two months ago, nothing would have happened. As it was, though, you sent the receipt to the accounting department of the company which is also taking care of your household expenses. Had the amount not been exorbitant, it could have easily been considered a company expense. It was not like there were no such company gifts to clients. As it was, though, it ended up in your household expenses. Naturally, such mix ups were frequent and it was my department’s job to clear them up and correctly file everything.

On that specific day, everything started normally. I made my morning coffee and sat down to peruse the receipts. Being trained in recognizing such mistakes, I immediately realized that the extremely expensive white mink, could not belong to your household expenses, as your wife favours dark colours, something I knew by having been filing her receipts for the past ten years. I made a mental note to place the receipt in its correct place, the black envelope, which formally does not exist and is labeled as ‘other’. Most of your employees in the filing section called it ‘The Mistress File’.
Unfortunately, as I was about to perform this duty, I was called to your human resources department, and was told that I was fired. I hate to admit that I spent the rest of the day wallowing in self pity and trying to tie all loose ends, so that I could deliver all ongoing filing projects before leaving. It was thus that it completely slipped my mind to remove the receipt from the household file and place it in the correct one. I think everyone would agree that forgetting just one thing while in that state of mind is completely natural and could happen to anyone.

Therefore, I sincerely apologize and feel much better for having let you know about it. Had I thought that this would go unnoticed, I might not have bothered you now with this. Unfortunately, through your wife’s frequent letters complaining about my filing system, I happen to know that she reads each and every receipt. For this reason, you might wish to consult with a good lawyer, lest you find yourself bereft of more than half your company. That being said, I wish you and Fulton Enterprises S.A. all the best.

Sincerely,
Martha Moore