“The role Jeff occupied,” he began…and I knew I was in for my comeuppance.Īll of which brings me back to Jenni Murray and the kind words uttered about her by the outgoing Director General, Tony Hall. My colleague seemed suitably impressed with this gem of advice and I thought nothing more about the conversation until a year or so later when I was the one leaving and the same colleague had been called upon to say a few words about me. And you can live with yourself afterwards and everyone can enjoy the cake and go home happy.
It’s no lie to say that it’s going to be hard to find Joe’s replacement.” It’s a role that required long hours of hard work, infinite patience, a lot of humanity and real dedication.
“Joe occupied a position of real importance here in the company. You begin your speech describing Joe’s job and the skills and dedication required for success.” Suppose it’s the leaving do for Joe Bloggs and everyone knew he was a lazy, arrogant, conceited so-and-so. “Well, instead of saying what a hard-working funny guy the person was, you talk about what’s needed in the job and people assume you’re talking about the person who’s leaving.” “It’s easy,” I said, “You talk about the role, rather than the person.”
The little boy off twlight lightzone full#
“So how do you do a speech like that?” a colleague once asked me, “I mean, you must feel like a total hypocrite saying all those kind words in front of an office full of people with cake in their mouths.”Īt that point I tapped the side of my nose, winked and began to impart my wisdom before he thought I was having an allergic reaction to the cake. It’s so much harder if you are secretly glad to see the back of them or, even worse, have actually been the boss responsible for their departure. It’s easy enough to do if you actually liked the person and thought they were good at their job. I promise we wont laugh (much).ĭame Jenni Murray’s graceful exit from Women’s Hour yesterday reminds me of the times I’ve been asked to write or say a few words on the occasion of a departing colleague.
The little boy off twlight lightzone free#
Have a look yourself and feel free to share your own childhood fear. Many talk about a fear of the dark or confined spaces, others mention mysterious noises in the attic and one person singled out the Hound of the Baskervilles. Against a backdrop of spooky images and sound effects, it poses the simple question: what frightened you when you were young? Already we’re receiving answers from around the country. I hate to brag (he lied), but the most successful of these has been the one I suggested around the date of the book’s launch: Halloween. Then there are the promotional videos that have been running on social media – set to hit a reach target of 100,000 before the end of the month. That’s not completely gratuitous because my chocolate eating habit is a running theme of the book. There are press releases and publicity postcards ready to fly and lots of little independent bookshops are receiving cardboard tubes stuffed with – not only postsers depicting the book – but delicious wrapped chocolates too. In the meantime, no one will be able to fault my lovely publishers for the effort that is going in to letting people know that the book exists. Scary, really, but that’s the thing about this writing lark you spend so many months locked in a room, hammering out words on a keyboard and then one day, way down the line, those words eventually see the light of day and you can only hope that people like what they see, Less than a month before the launch of my new book and thoughts now turn to the reaction of readers.
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