PK: A Glowing Tribute

No, not the gum.

With the URL for my blog bookmarked in their web browsers, apparently both my boss (aka PK, aka Paul) and my co-worker (aka Corey, aka Good Ol' Country Boy, aka the guy who is married and is younger than me) took the opportunity to go through my tawdry Internet scrawlings.

I just got off the phone with Paul, and through the course of the conversation, he accused me of having a crush on Corey. Apparently if you mention a guy twice in your blog, you're suddenly secretly in love with him. I mean, I do have that shrine to Corey made out of all his used coffee cups, but you don't know about that, Paul!

In any case, Paul seemed a little hurt that the only time he was referred to in the blog was in the capacity of being "the boss", so I made a promise to post a glowing tribute to him. In my ever-growing attempts to be a man of my word, here is that promised tribute.

I got hired at My Place of Business while Paul was away hot-air ballooning in the wilds of Africa. Yes, he's that sophisticated and interesting. Upon his return, he must have at some stage noticed the sickly looking boy hugging the walls while delivering the mail, and rather than call security, he deduced that I was the new office assistant.

Paul and I started to gel after, having had a few upsets in my personal life, he was kind enough to stay back, drink some wine and lend a supportive ear. If ever you're in the middle of a crisis, the guy you want to be there is Paul.

After that, I got a few invites to lunch and some subsequent shopping trips, and the ball started rolling from there. A few months after we moved offices, and I had been taking on an increasing number of responsibilities in the marketing department, Paul had me moved from my corner of the office into his (which apparently involved a bit of fighting behind closed boardroom doors, as this move involved my transferring of departments. I didn't know about this until months later).

From there, I've taken on more and more marketing responsibilties, to the point now where I feel like I'm actually doing some pretty important work for the company, and I actually know what I'm talking about.

Paul attributes my asking Simone out to the confidence I developed as part of the marketing team, and I wouldn't say he's wrong.

Now, you might all think I'm being a kiss arse by posting a wordy tribute to my boss five minutes after he's found out about my blog, but the thing of it is that he's just accepted a position with another company overseas and is going to be leaving at the end of the month. And the fact is, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank a friend - a great friend - for all he's done for me.

Paul is the best boss I've ever had, because he's far more than a boss. He's a mentor, he's a counsellor, he's a style consultant, he's a foul-mouthed schoolmate, and he's a brother. And he's one of my best friends.

Oh, and I accidentally said his team was the Cats. He actually goes for the Bombers.
But from the game I saw, he'd have been better off going for the Cats.

Paul, PK, boss ... I'm going to miss you.

Now how's that for a tribute?