Other side of the mirror: When the new boss comes

He quit. And the office was shocked. His direct staff, all thirty-two of them moaned and groaned and wrung their hands in agony and said they would never get a boss like him, those were the days, the best was gone, things would never be the same again.
They said they felt professionally orphaned and from now on things would be only downhill. A few even suggested that they would start looking for jobs because now that the boss was leaving, there would be no fun, no point sticking around. They also said that wherever he went they would follow since no other boss could replace him.
Overwhelmed by all this touching stuff, he went home and shared the warmth and the glory with his wife.
I can’t believe it, he said, they were devastated, some of them even wept, I almost feel guilty leaving.
His wife said uh, huh, and continued working which he thought was rather churlish of her seeing as how he was basking in the sunkissed popularity radiating from a loyal and supportive staff, all of them like an extended family. He reminded himself he must write them all first rate testimonials and even considered taking a couple of the chaps with him to his new assignment.
On this high note he entered that 30-day notice period, which is rather like a stretch of no man’s land. You are there but you are not, you count but you don’t, you are in but you are out.
And then, on the eighteenth day the replacement arrived and was ushered into the small room next doors which would be his temporary office until the incumbent left two weeks down the road.
The staff of thirty-two did not take all day to shift allegiance from the old boss to the new one. In the desperate rush to shuffle themselves into positions of ingratiation and score points they took about twenty minutes.
The old boss was nonplussed and then even confused when in the executive toilet he overheard one of his most loyal ex-staffers tell the girl who had cried at his resignation that it was a bit much the old boy not giving the new boss the office, merely good manners, don’t you think, I mean, you don’t need it, you are history, tee off, go, why do they hang around, he’s yesterday’s people.
And she said, he was always one of those hang in there till the end types and wasn’t the new fellow really nice, it will be a pleasure to work for him.
Get some action around here, said the loyal ex-staffer, he looks like a go getter, thank goodness things will be different.
Over the next week, so as not to be identified with the old regime and thus risk annoying the new boss, the thirty two sidled past the old chief’s door, waved surreptitiously, grinned sheepishly, avoided his eye and cheerfully mauled him in conversations with the new boss.
The departee heard how he had been an indecisive leader with no new ideas, how he had led from behind and not from the front, how he had belonged to the old school and was not on par with modern methods and there was not a kind word, not even a hint of the mass hysteria the day he had resigned.
On the last day, he packed his personal things and went down to the car park with not one of the thirty-two escorting him for the final drive away...all too busy.
He came home, went to his room and began to tear up all the testimonials he had drafted.
Then he went looking for his wife. At least her loyalty would not be in question.