We had the retirement luncheon for the chairman today. (I wrote about a meeting with him last year.) He’s had 28 years with the company under his belt. He’s always kept himself in shape---he was even featured as a “running CEO” in a local business magazine---and could pass for a man decades younger.
Fifty people crowded into the restaurant’s private dining room, and the drinks flowed freely. After the dot-com bubble burst, and busy workers began working through or exercising during lunch, the three-martini lunch became extinct. This was my first office boondoggle in years.
I had a couple of glasses of wine---a self-imposed limit because I had to return to the office later---but some of my coworkers had no restraint. (One disrupted the proceedings and had to be ushered quietly from the room.)
Several colleagues got up to roast and toast the chairman; they toned down their comments because his wife was there, but she proved a good sport as the jokes became more off-color and the laughter more raucous. The crowning moment occurred when someone brought up his well-known affection for blondes and everyone on his table--old and not-so-old, male and female--donned a blonde wig.
In the tradition of a roast, he rose to toss back some insults at his good-natured tormentors, but his heart wasn’t in it. He choked up as he tried to sum his experiences and feelings in a few words. He had worked with everyone in the room for at least ten years, and his life wouldn’t be the same after today. He has plenty of money, he owns properties in Marin County, Lake Tahoe, and Chicago and is set for life, yet there’s something about us that he will miss. And most of us will miss him, too.
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