In the beginning there was Mildred. And Mildred was short and stout and capacious in all her abilities, and she was like a sturdy grandmother whose execution of her duties was as swift as her words-per-minute. And there was no coffee that she wouldn’t get for her young bossling or collation that she wouldn’t accomplish with a smile on her kindly face and a wink in her eye. And it was the evening and it was the morning and it was the first years.
And Mildred begat Margo, who was the apotheosis of an Alsatian shepherd, guarding us all, keeping us safe, anticipating and besting any wolf who dared appear at the door. And Margo was lost to the vortex in a massive merger although we still have lunch sometimes. And it was the evening and it was the morning and it was the end of a decade already.
And Margo begat Edith. And Edith was splendid but with a great deal more starch in her shorts: prompt, pugnacious, and as tough as a leg of mutton, adroit at all things except perhaps in the handling of the phones, where she functioned not so much as a welcoming ambassador but as Cerberus at the Gates of Hell. And when she told me she wanted to retire, and I argued against the idea, she asked me, “Stan, how old do you think I am?” And I said, “Sixtysomething?” She replied, “I’m 78!” And so I had to let her go.
And Edith begat Albertina, who arrived for her first interview with an armada of books under her arms to show me all she could do in the job, and she was hired and things were happy for quite some time until lo, my corporate card was declined in a critical situation that was quite humiliating. And so it emerged that Albertina had filed no expense reports for me for nigh unto eight or nine months, during which time she had carefully stowed all my receipts in her desk drawer. And it was the evening and it was the morning and it was the second decade.
And Albertina begat Kevin. And Kevin was the nicest guy God ever gave a haircut but maybe not the sharpest letter opener in the credenza. There was the time Kevin was asked during a busy day to go out and get me a tuna melt. “No problem,” said Kevin. Five minutes later, my phone rang and it was Kevin, calling from the deli. “Do you want cheese on that?” he inquired. “Kevin,” I said, “It is in fact the cheese that makes it a tuna melt as opposed to a simple tuna sandwich.” “No problem,” said Kevin. Two minutes later my phone lit up and it was Kevin, with another query. “Do you want the cheese melted?” And so it came to pass that Kevin works for his uncle in New Jersey now, although he is always welcome here as a temp.
And Kevin begat Midge, who left unfortunate things about the company on her Facebook page, who begat Bob, who was intensely OCD, who begat Eileen, who left for a job as a kindergarten teacher because, as she put it, she wanted to deal with more mature individuals.
And Eileen begat Sally begat Sandy begat Shawan begat Leonora, who was begat because she was a friend of Rose the All-Powerful, All-Seeing Eye of the Chairman, a woman of such terrifying might that none may offend her and live. And Leonora begat Elizabeth, who today sits outside my door and for whom no task is impossible but perhaps to spend a day without getting upset or depressed about something, which may just be her karma, but for whom no medical form, no lunch reservation, no meeting schedule, no flight plan, no prodigious edifice of daily duties is too difficult, and who is most probably reading this now. Hi, Liz.
And it was the evening and it was the morning and hopefully that about wraps it up for the next decade or so.
Follow Stanley Bing at stanleybing.com and on Twitter at @thebingblog.
This story is from the October 07, 2013 issue of Fortune.
