Feeling like a hero, Mike walked into the conference room and started talking to his coworkers, “I know it’s Ted’s last day, so I bought some…”
Mike trailed off and looked around the conference room, almost dropping the donuts in his hands.
His six coworkers sat around a conference room stuffed with tributes to Ted’s last day. A banner read, “We’ll miss you, Ted.” Balloons covered the ceiling. A bagel spread sat on the conference table. A giant card sat next to it, ready to be signed.
Beatrice spoke up, “We all had the same thought, Mike. We need to celebrate Ted’s last day.”
“Do we like Ted this much?” Mike asked.
The general consensus was no. Ted was fine. They’d miss having him around, but he was not the glue holding the whole office together.
“Worse, Denise’s last day is next week,” Beatrice said. “Is this the precedent we’re setting for last days?”
No one really liked Denise all that much.
“Quick, let’s get rid of all of it,” Mike said. Leslie opened a window and started pushing balloons out to float off into the city. Mike started eating the donuts really fast. Levy ran out of the conference room carrying the bagels. Beatrice leaped up and pulled down the banner. Joe took the card to the shredder.
A few minutes later, everyone sat in the conference room, frazzled. Mike convinced everyone to eat a couple of donuts, so they were trying to ignore the sugar rush. Ted walked in carrying a bag.
“Hi everyone,” Ted said. “I don’t know if you know, but it’s my last day.”
“Oh Ted, we’re definitely going to miss you,” Mike said. The others nodded their heads and echoed the sentiment.
“Thanks, everyone,” Ted said. He set the bag down. “I actually spent some time over the weekend making a small painting for each of you. It’s something to remember me by.”
Ted pulled out canvases. It turned out that Ted was a great artist. The canvases featured flowers, mountain scenes and even a clown for Leslie, who loved clowns. Everyone loved how personal each painting was.
Finally, Mike couldn’t take it anymore. “Ted, we did have a big plan for you today! We had balloons that accidentally blew away and a banner that fell and donuts that Joe ate.”
“And Bagels,” Levy interjected, and ran out of the room to find the bagels.
“That’s so nice, everyone,” Ted said, as Levy came back with the bagels. “But do you really want to set this kind of precedent for Denise’s last day?”