Thank you for the response. With regards to my first question, your solution is ideal. I did not know that that environment variable. Just a slight correction: the actual variable is $ENV{PAR_0}.

I have to retract my second question. This was a user error. Near the top of my script I had a chdir($ENV{PAR_TEMP}) that I forgot about. That is why it appeared that my pwd was a PAR directory. Sorry about that.