Retirement Roast Speech: How to Roast a Coworker the Right Way

Good evening, everyone. I'm Rafael, I work with Gary in IT, and I want to start with a confession. I was told to keep this under four minutes. Gary, have you tried restarting me?

That's the thing. On our team, he's known as "Restart Gary." Twenty-eight years, and his first answer to every problem is the same: "Have you restarted it?" Printer jam? Restart it. Wi-Fi down? Restart it. The day the coffee maker broke, he walked over, looked at it, and said, "Have you restarted it?" It's a coffee maker, Gary. It does not have feelings.

Gary is also prepared for anything. He keeps a drawer full of cables from 1998, just in case someone needs a VGA adapter. Nobody has needed one in years. But if that day comes, Gary will be ready. He is the Noah of obsolete cables.

His out-of-office email is three paragraphs long. It includes a troubleshooting checklist. Most people write "I'm away, back Monday." Gary writes a user manual. You don't even get to enjoy his vacation. You get homework.

And do not mess with the schedule. Every morning at exactly 10:15, Gary eats one granola bar. One. If a meeting runs into 10:15, you can feel the room change. Superintendents have seen it. Brave people have looked away.

Now, Gary takes his work seriously. During the big email migration in 2019, he taped a sign to his door that said, "DO NOT KNOCK. I WILL KNOW." Very intimidating. Then he locked himself out of his own office. He had to call Luis, our custodian. The same Luis Gary had told, the week before, to "try restarting the vacuum." Luis made him wait twenty minutes. Honestly, Luis showed more restraint than I would have.

And then there was the board meeting. The superintendent asked Gary to fix her laptop. Her screen was still projected on the big screen. So the entire board watched Gary, our technology expert for twenty-eight years, type into Google: "why is projector." Gary, in your defense, it's a very good question. We've all wondered.

But here's the truth, and I'll say it without jokes for a minute. In twenty-eight years, Gary has never made a single teacher feel stupid for asking for help. Not once. Not for the tenth "my screen is frozen," not for the same password reset. He just says, "Let's take a look," and he means it.

When our building flooded in 2017, Gary came in on a Sunday. He carried sixty laptops up two flights of stairs so the kids could take their state tests on Monday. Sixty. Nobody asked him to. He just did it, and he never made a big deal about it.

And he trained every person on our team, including me. Everything I know, I learned from Gary. Except the Google part. I'm told that was a one-time improvisation.

Carol, boys, thank you for sharing him with us. Gary, you've fixed our computers, our schedules, and our bad days. We're going to miss you more than the VGA drawer will.

(Raise your glass)

So please join me. Gary, congratulations on a great career. After twenty-eight years of keeping everyone else running, you've earned it. It's finally time to turn yourself off and on again. To Gary!

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Mei, and I teach down the hall from Harold. That means I've had a front row seat for 34 years of chemistry. Well, my share of them.

Let's start with the bow ties. Harold wears one every single day. But he has one covered in the periodic table that he saves for "special occasions." Do you know what those occasions are? Fridays. Every Friday. Harold, I love that you think Friday is a holiday. Honestly, you're right.

Then there are faculty meetings. Harold never just says something. He starts with, "Just to play devil's advocate." Every time. Harold, after 34 years, I think the devil should be paying you.

He also grades in green pen, because red is "too aggressive." June, I hope you know you married a man who worries about the feelings of a homework assignment.

Now, every Halloween, Harold does the same foam experiment for his students. In 2016, he used a little too much. The foam rolled out of the classroom and into the hallway. And our principal walked right through it. In her good shoes. Harold calls that year "the great expansion." I call it the only time the hallway was clean AND bubbly.

Okay, I'll be serious for a moment. Harold, years ago I was a first-year teacher, and I had a terrible day. I hid in the supply closet. You found me. You didn't ask questions. You handed me your lesson plans and a granola bar, and you never mentioned it again. Until now, I guess. Sorry.

That's who Harold is. Students come back years later and tell him he's the reason they became nurses and engineers. He makes everyone around him feel capable. That's the best reaction he ever created.

Harold, thank you for everything.

(Raise your glass)

Everyone, please join me. To Harold: may your retirement be full of good chemistry, no aggressive red ink, and Fridays every day. Cheers!