Elvis leaves the building

This is a transcript of the speech given by Mr Bizzle on the occasion of his leaving the employment of Acme Outsourcing after some ten years and more.

Ladies, gentlemen, and accountants. It is gratifying to see so many of you gathered here this afternoon, to satisfy yourselves that I am actually leaving Acme Outsourcing.

In truth, I am myself surprised at this turn of events. When one has laboured over such a number of years (more than I care to remember) to achieve the begrudging respect of one’s peers and colleagues, one does not set it lightly aside.

My especial genius must have been apparent to all from my earliest days at Acme Outsourcing. It was never difficult to stand out against such mediocrity, and I am grateful to my colleagues from the sales team in particular for having the courage to display their mental enfeeblement to the world for the purposes of comparison.

[Some agitated murmurings in the assembled crowd are apparent at this point]

I recall in particular, and with no little fondness, our plan to sell call centre services to the Spanish market. It unexpectedly transpiring that the people of Spain do not universally speak or understand English, and persistent monolinguality being rather a feature of the post-industrial communities that are our source of cheap labour, this scheme fell sadly short of the glorious success that had once seemed so assured.

[Cries of “Olé!” from the floor]

And who could forget the modest proposal to break into new markets by identifying customers of our banking clients who find themselves in straitened circumstances and offering them the welcome relief of paid for debt management plans? The sight of creative genius stymied by the footling bureaucracy of mere data protection law tugs at the heartstrings.

[Here a voice, tentatively identified as the Sales Director of Acme Outsourcing, can be heard to whisper loudly, “I still say that was a great idea”]

But I am grateful to the originators of these and other initiatives, for keeping me gainfully employed over the last decade and more. It has been, if not exactly fun, never less than entertaining.

I am also grateful for the opportunity that has been afforded to me to hone my lawyerly skills over the years. I know that you have come to appreciate, even admire, the perfection of my withering sarcasm for questions that I deem to be unworthily trivial, and my virtuoso profanity when discoursing on impossible deadlines and the moral turpitude of salesman.

You may also recall with wistful nostalgia my patient explication of complex legal concepts with judicious applied expletives and artfully disguised contempt for the mental capacities of my audience. Perhaps you will chuckle fondly as you reminisce about the elegant restraint with which I demonstrated the superiority of my intellect to colleagues and clients alike.

But I would like to reassure you all that, when I was shouting at you, patronising you, and, yes, even when I was throwing a chair at you [Here Mr Bizzle looks meaningfully at the Head of Business Development], it was always for your own good. My only intention was to save you from yourselves and your own rampant half-wittedness.

[Some objects are thrown from the crowd. Mr Bizzle is struck a glancing blow by what may be a stapler]

Settle down, settle down. I will finish in short order.

It remains only for me to make one final announcement. You have known me over the last several years as merely a lawyer with a sarcastic tone and anger management issues, but I am so much more than that.

Yes, the time has come at last for me to reveal myself as renowned legal commentator and ursine cigar aficionado Legal Bizzle. I tell you this now because you, as much as I, have been the stars of the much-loved blogs and tweets that I have produced as a leading Internet celebrity.

[Much hubbub from the floor, from which can be discerned divers cries of “Legal who?”, “Is ‘e ‘avin’ a laugh?” and, from the Head of IT, “What’s a blog?”]

Some of you may feel that writing frankly about the moral, intellectual and sexual failings of colleagues is a repugnant and unprofessional breach of trust. However, I am certain that, after the passage of time and some medication, you will be grateful to me for recording your triumphs and, more frequently, inglorious failures for posterity.

On the other hand, bite me.

And now I must take my final leave of this asylum for the insanely optimistic and clinically incompetent. I wish you all luck as you face up to the future, and to your own inadequacies, without me. You’re going to need it.

[Fighting breaks out in the crowd. Mr Bizzle exits accompanied by security]