Six months ago, Shytte Management Facilities Ltd. employed 500 people and was booming. Today, it employs just one person, an elderly gentleman of 64 years who resolutely refuses to retire, despite former colleagues beseeching him to do so.

According to former HR Director Karen Krackstick, the problems began when the elderly gentleman was hired: “We were quite a young workforce at the time,” she opined. “Dynamic, you might have said, in the times when it wasn’t discriminatory to use such a word. Anyway, we were told that we had to hire someone older than 20 in order to balance things out, so when Mr Chunnersby applied for a role in the accounts department, we snapped him up.”

“He told us he was looking for somewhere nice to spend the day, which we thought was lovely. However, within a couple of days, people started pulling sickies – especially those who worked close to him. I began to suspect something when he came into my office, took a seat without being asked, and started reminiscing about the “roaring fifties” and how things were “so much better back then.” I let him continue for a while but I felt this nagging sensation of wanting to disembowel myself or prick my eyes out with knitting needles.”

Within a couple of weeks, the company had lost 100 employees who claimed that they just couldn’t hack it any more. The entire training team left within a week, claiming exhaustion, fatigue and a chronic sensation of “doom” after having to explain that the Internet was not called “The Google” and that putting a Blackberry to your ear would not make a gooey mess.

Adverts in the local Jobcentre were routinely ignored, partly because of word of mouth that SMF Ltd. was a “pretty naff place to work”, but also because of Jobcentre requirements that adverts be as bland an inoffensive as possible. Their latest ad, which asked for “organised, motivated and passionate individuals” was banned as it discriminated against “disorganised, lazy and nonchalant individuals”. Instead, it asked for “people”, which had to be reviewed by a Jobcentre panel as it was thought it might discriminate against “non-people” such as animals.

Receptionist Kathleen Yardstick said that she left after Mr Chunnersby asked her to “feel his thighs”. She explained: “He had a thing about cycling to work and his ‘rock-hard’ thighs, you see. If it were anyone else, I’d have done him for sexual harassment, but as it was Mr Chunnersby, I just couldn’t. After that, he just kept hanging round reception talking about how he liked his tea. I thought he’d resign because he was missing Countdown, but then he explained that he’d just got ‘that Sky Plus thingy’ working and he could watch it any time he wanted. That’s when I decided to leave.”

As the weeks went by, the company pruned itself down to the bare bones. With no HR department to fire Mr Chunnersby, eventually only CEO Harry Pantsfire was left. He told the Daily Shame: “I was going down with the sinking ship, as it were, when I thought to myself – how much longer do I have to cope with this crap?”

Shytte Management Facilities Ltd. is now a one-man band, and passers-by often remark on overhearing the droning undertones of a man who has not yet realised that everyone else has left.