YOU’RE LEAVING US? AWWWWWWW …

The Managing Director of the company I have worked for these last 3 years retired on Friday. A number of functions had been held in the previous couple of weeks to mark the auspicious occasion – after all, he had worked here for over 20 years and an appropriately spiffy series of send-offs seemed well and truly warranted after such a lengthy stint.

So, rather than simply scribble a few inane remarks on the card that came around, I decided instead to send the dear fellow an email with some personal thoughts and observations as to the matter of his departure.

This was it …

Dear Mr. D********,

Even though I am a mere newcomer to this illustrious company (relatively speaking in respect of yourself, that is) I do feel that, in light of the recent comments and speeches and slideshows and spontaneous bursts of politely restrained laughter and applause that have accompanied even the most banal or slightest of enthusiastically intoned anecdotes as regards your impending departure, some things have been left out, and in the leaving of them, a somewhat skewed and unarguably unrealistic portrait has been conveyed ...

So, please indulge me a few final thoughts in order to restore some semblance of truth to the matter ...

Now certainly, while those who have spoken of you have done so fondly, I feel, in all honesty, that it is with a fondness for the man they once knew at his peak rather than the sad and distressing spectacle that so many of us have had the misfortune to witness you become in these, your declining and debilitated years ...

And while it is undoubtedly fair to say that your contribution to the success of this organisation is respectably significant (I mean, let's not so obligingly shoot our heads up our own anus just yet, shall we?), none of us who now remain will feel any sense of loss whatsoever at the recent sightings of you shuffling about the lunch-room in an old pair of fluffy slippers and poo-stained pyjama bottoms, regaling any poor bugger within earshot of the ever-increasing number of ailments with which you have now found yourself afflicted.

Frankly, we'll all be a damn sight better off now that we won't be hearing the gloopy details of your irritable bowel syndrome and erectile dysfunction problems while we're trying to chow down on a bowl of curry or a banana. I mean, for fuck's sake.

And it will certainly be reassuring to know that we will now be able to move freely through the building to go about our business without our senses being shockingly assaulted at every turn by the toxic by-products of your embarrassingly inappropriate occasions of explosive incontinence. Did you know that one of the cleaners was so overwhelmed by the fetid stench from your office that she thought she was Timothy Leary for a week and is now looking at spending the rest of her life in an iron lung? At least we'll be able to attend to meetings from now on without having to bring along our own sponge and bucket and cover our clothes in Glad-Wrap. Thank fuck for that.

Nevertheless, despite these often disturbing aspects of your character and person, may I take this occasion to wish you well for the future. I'm sure that the life you have decided to map for yourself in retirement will be an auspicious one and exactly as you desire. That is to say, spending many a gloriously lazy day at the Golden Years Caravan Park up from the Ipswich Bowls Club, eating sausages and meatballs from a can while sucking VB from a 44-gallon drum through a bendy straw and throwing rocks at any poor pigeons who have the audacity to poop on the heads of your impressive collection of garden gnomes.

Have a nice time.

P.S. I hear Pauline Hanson's looking for a fella. You'll be in the neighbourhood, why not give it some thought? All you'll need do is shove a plug up your butt on the night and who knows what might just happen?

I really do wonder sometimes precisely how I’ve managed to remain employed for the last 30 years …

But then again, why settle for just pushing an envelope when turbo-charging one is so attractive an option?

It also helps if the boss has a sense of humour.

Lucky me.