My team threw an "over the top" retirement party for one of the Gods of Crainville yesterday. Tony Merpi is by far the coolest boss I've ever had. He was the ad director when I was the marketing director at Automotive News. Last month, he announced his retirement because he wanted to spend more time with his family. He'd been with the company 31 years.Most retirement parties are kinda boring. Not this one. We had 180 people at the Roostertail for a Rustic Italian feast. We had fun dance music from a fantastic one-man Italian band, an overflowing antipasto station, a full Italian meal and even canollis served from a gondola. Every table had a big jug of wine with Tony's picture on it. We gave out WWTD (What would Tony do) bracelets, pens that featured a different Merpi saying every time you clicked them and a memory book filled with 60+ letters to the guy. We had a tear-jerking slide show set to Bocelli music of photos of Tony through the years. People sang songs, danced to the band and told stories from the microphone. It was a fab evening of Tony's work family, friends, clients and kids.
It was great to do something like this for a guy like Tony. He will be missed.
1 comment:
How cool!
Whatever happened to the Polish guy with the white hair that worked at the Bureau with us? For the life of me I can't think of his name.... however, I'm sure it will come to me as soon as I close this comment.
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