So reprehensibly cutthroat and Machiavellian! I love it.
A.K.Light, that's a great story -- it gave me a lot of perspective, since I used to be in the place of your underling. I wish all my unfortunate authorities were as wise as you in dealing with my younger desperate self. (Instead they got all passive-aggressive and I gave up trying to please them and deliberately failed at everything I did instead in order to try and kill my ego. Er, could've been handled better?)