Yesterday Marilyn

Marilyn, admin assistant for both the CEO and his new right-hand President, is retiring. We had our "traditional" cake party today in her honor, when everyone gathers in a large conference room and stands around awkwardly for 30 minutes or so. Because I'm taking over some of her job, I needed to say a few things...

I would like to start out by saying how hurt and jealous I am: the most attractive woman in the company is going away and I have no one to sing my lame “Good Mornings” to with the same daily hope that she will rush out of her cubicle and, like the beautiful Lauren Bacall she reminds me of, whisk me off to a wild romantic adventure. Sorry, other admins, but you’re married. And Marilyn, as we all know, can handle difficult men – so while I’m a shy, quiet type, I know that she would make up for all that.

Sigh… so much for my fantasies about Marilyn.

A lot of you don’t know that Marilyn, always elegant and classy Marilyn, started off her career as a stevedore and trucker mama. This gave her the perfect training for coming here to work for our CEO, who in his prime was considered somewhat of a strong personality. Now, of course, everyone thinks of him as the cuddle bear of corporation, but when Marilyn came he was known to breathe fire and, occasionally, eat an administrative assistant for lunch, washing it down with an engineer or accountant.

Seriously, the CEO's exacting standards – then and now – met their match with Marilyn who, at least in my personal experience, set a high standard of support performance for the company executives that I’ve had a hard time matching up to the halfway mark.

Damn you, Marilyn, couldn’t you have been a little more snappish, incompetent and sloppy?

You had the perfect chance when the new President came – but Nooo, you had to go and adapt to his style and create a working relationship that, well, for lack of a better way of putting it, works too well.

So now you’re going off and retiring. Well, don’t think we’re going to forget you. Wherever you travel, there will be a little bitty tiny GPS tag in your belongings and we will know, yes, we – will – know, exactly where you are: in our hearts.

And now, because it is important for me to embarrass you and myself with something sentimental, you will have to imagine that there is a full orchestra playing the Beatles’ “Yesterday” behind me - Can everyone hum? – as I sing:

(Well, of course 45 people stood there like mutes, but I soldiered on anyway.)

Yesterday
All my files were lost and gone astray
Then you showed me where to put them away
Thanks to you
I wasn’t fired
Yesterday

Suddenly
The CEO is not as mad as he seemed to be
And with you he acts so reasonably
Now he belongs,
Sadly, to me.

Our new President came
And you made
Him feel
At home.
There’s no one with the same
Patience you have
And now
You’re gone gone gone gone.

Marilyn
If you go away it is a sin
What a lonely state you’ll leave us in
Oh I will miss you
Marilyn -

We all
Will miss
You
Marilyn...

(Everyone sang the last word with me. Sometimes things work out nice. )

(Sorry to be sentimental today: I'll miss Marilyn.)