I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe …

Call Centre Tony leaves on Friday to work in credit control. Janice has been preparing for his send off and she collared me in the corridor in hushed tones, “You were close to him, would you like to say a few words as part of the valediction?”

He’s not bleeding died - although, after a few weeks in the Wigan office he may wish he had died - he’s moving on to better things. He’s mithering people who haven’t paid up for things they wanted to buy rather than mithering people who don’t want to buy things they can’t pay for. He’s shovelling up our mistakes.

Janice’s request got me thinking about some of Tony’s best moments:

… he rode around the office on a unicycle, in an Elvis suit, wearing a sign saying “Team Slave – use and abuse me” and collected coffees from the machine for the people on the phone…

… he devised a ‘feel the fear, but do it any way’ session for the Team Manager ’Away Day’ involving a dozen eggs and a tennis racquet. Janice made him pay for her dry cleaning …

… Bernard was impressed as he ‘revved up’ his team with a motivational rendition of Agadoo, failing to realise he was still leathered on WKD from the night before …

… the infamous butt-head incident …

… he made a citizen’s arrest of the bog-blocking terrorist and dined out on it for 6 months …

Credit Control Tony doesn’t have the same ring. We’ll never see his bike again.