This is fictional snark. Based on emails from jobs I've had when someone retired.
Hey, sinners,
Pope Benedict is retiring and we’re having a going away party! Thanks, Benny, for your wonderful service to the company and we all wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors! Alfredo says you need to work on your golf handicap at Castella Golfo! Haha.
We will be closing early at 4:00 today. There will be a going-away party in the break room for Pope Benedict from 4pm until ??. Attendance is recommended but not mandatory. You can go home early to beat the traffic if you want to, but, hey, it’s your last chance to kiss the pope’s ring and get his mumbled blessing. Just kidding, Benny – Don’t excommunicate me!
We’ve ordered ten pizzas, including two veggie pizzas (which nobody seems to like, but we always order a couple just in case someone is a vegetarian). When the meat pizzas are all gone, people who are still hungry can grudgingly eat the veggie ones. We’ll have a couple of bottles of wine, too. I think if we ask him very politely, maybe Benedict will magically change them to blood. We’ll have a sheet cake (with a scene from the Sistine Chapel very artistically rendered by the cake department at Walmarto) and spinach dip in Hawaiian bread and bacon-wrapped water chestnuts with a toothpick to hold them together. Yum!
Benny has promised a surprise announcement. It might be even be ex cathedra and infallible. He’ll be leaving precisely at 5:00 with a cardboard box of personal things from his desk. He’ll fly on the papal helicopter to join his long-time companion at Castella Golfo (lol). So the party ends at 5:00, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Or until the pizza is gone. Haha.
Hope to see you all at 4:00. Oh, also, we’ll need to cover the phones, so I’ll send separate emails to Giovanna and Nicola to work out the schedule for that.
One more thing. We’re changing the security codes on the Xerox machine (we do this every time we change popes), so check with your supervisor to get a new code tomorrow. Also, with the Pope gone, we’ll be reassigning parking places, based on seniority.
See you there! I think this party will be fun!