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The Art of The Farewell EmailComments:703
Posted by
samzenpus
on Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:01 PM
from the so-long-suckers dept.
from the so-long-suckers dept.
With so many people losing their jobs, the farewell email, letting colleagues and contacts know where you are moving and how you can be reached, has become common. Writing a really good one, whether it be funny, sad or just plain mad is an art form. Chris Kula, a receptionist at a New York engineering firm, wrote: "For nearly as long as I've worked here, I've hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support." In May, lawyer Shinyung Oh was let go from the San Francisco branch of the Paul Hastings law firm six days after losing a baby. "If this response seems particularly emotional," she wrote to the partners, "perhaps an associate's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills — and cowardice — on your parts." Let's hear the best and worst goodbye emails you've seen.
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Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
he gets laid off and his final email (sent to everyone in the office) read simply "Fuck all of you! I'm outta here.
Bridge burning can be a bad thing.
My last farewell email involved me making a list of everyone I would or would not engage in sexual acts with. Little did I know that I would be crossing my old coworkers as a contractor only a few months later. Talk about embarrassing.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Guess DOS'ing the mail server is a good way to go
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Those are just a few. Imagine the most useless item to be forwarding to all staff (in a gov't org) and it probably happened.
Combine that with the myriad of reply all responses of, "Take me off the list!" and it's amazing I got any work done.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather not burn bridges - you never know if you may want to work at a company where a previous co-worker is employed at. Leaving with grace is always better then leaving with attitude.
Burning bridges (Score:5, Funny)
I would rather not burn bridges - you never know if you may want to work at a company where a previous co-worker is employed at.
I agree somewhat. It all depends on the situation though. Some places need a response. You don't need to be nasty (for the very reasons you mention), but sometimes you do need to do something. If only to keep your sanity.
Last place I left was so bad I left without putting in a two week notice. Only time I've ever done that. Showed up late, walked around and personally told everyone I cared about goodbye. Handed my boss typed up instructions on my project and how to use it so the next guy won't be screwed. Gave him my passwords and all that.
Then loaded up my PC, turned on active desktop, set my desktop to Badger Badger Mushroom, and walked out.
BTW the place was a madhouse. This was entirely appropriate behavior. The HR lady who did my exit interview? She was terribly unhappy about my unprofessional exit and lectured me about the appropriate way to quit a job. But. Two months later she went out drinking margaritas at lunchtime with the CFO. And ...never came back. Neither of 'em.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Jeebus, what is that, Newspeak?
"And your mom bellyfeel my penis doubleplusgood!"
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
I love the smell of burning bridges in the morning (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention possibly career ending. Someone about 10 years ago was leaving a company I worked at, and wrote a blistering goodbye email. A few years later at another company, a fellow ex employee of the first and I were on the interview team. And guess who walked in!
Needless to say, he got a very short interview and absolutely no consideration. When asked why, both myself and my coworker said 'Unprofessionalism'
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why we should all endeavor to display a complete lack of 'unprofessionalism.'
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad but true. When an employee does something wrong it's unprofessional. When an employer does something wrong it's business.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
The employee is the supplier. The employer is the customer. In most cases, customers can abuse the relationship a lot more than suppliers.
Having said that, I'm sure that employers who abuse their employees pay for it when times are good and good people find better places to work. Usually the people who leave are those who can find other jobs - which are precisely those you want to keep.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
The employee is the supplier. The employer is the customer.
That's a good point, but I don't think it's the only issue at play. There's also the issue of power, and big companies have much more power than individual people. When I buy something from Best Buy, I'm forced to agree to their terms, take it or leave it. If I work for Best Buy, then I'm pretty much forced to agree to their terms, take it or leave it. It's not a negotiation between equals.
And also businesses can hide behind an organization. When a company acts, it's not always entirely clear whether it's the decision of "the company" or the individual within the company. If I'm a manager and I want to make someone's life miserable, I can do that while justifying it as "policy" or "good for business". I can say, "Sorry, it's out of my hands. It's just policy." If the employee turns around and tries to make my life miserable, he can't hide behind his actions as easily.
That's not to say there's nothing you can do. There are strategies for managing relationships where you're the weaker party. But let's not pretend that power doesn't come into play.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
Documentation and training manuals can only go so far. If you are consistently turning over your employees then you essentially end up with a temp force. You get people that not only don't care but they may actively dislike the company. The "anyone is replaceable" mentality is, IMO, one of the most organizationally destructive in America.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this all started with Neutron Jack Welch. The thing about good ole Jack is that his purpose, basically was to eliminate American manufacturing jobs and turn his company into something else that didn't do manufacturing. In fact, he turned it, General Electric, into yet another useless financial company, while the jobs that generated the real national wealth shifted overseas. In the future, I think he'll be seen for what he was, a parasite who reduced America to third world status and made billions doing it.
The thing is, if you are essentially just cutting your losses and planning on eliminating business divisions completely, you have no reason to care about the years of experience walking out the door. He's considered a success because he "made money," but he didn't make G. E. competitive with the Japanese. Here's a quote from an article, "I came into a company that had at least an extra 100,000, maybe 150,000 extra people. It was the early '80s. We were making television sets in Syracuse, N.Y., and the Japanese were selling them at the mall cheaper than we were making them." Jack Welch: 'I Fell In Love' [cbsnews.com] So, essentially, he made money from failure.
Well, we've had years of this as the U. S. transformed into a nation of middlemen, shady accountants, lawyers, and "would you like fries with that" type jobs. The U. S. is basically the B-Ark from Life, the Universe, and Everything, with all the thinkers and doers being in the Eastern part of the world now. Good for them, not so good for us.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Insightful)
You have an odd idea of what professionalism is if you think it relates to perks for the company. Professionalism is not getting angry with people because they disagree with you no matter which method they choose to employ to persuade people. It's arriving at work on time and in proper attire. It means doing what you say you will do and when you say you'll do it. These are not unpaid perks that the company enjoys, they make for a work atmosphere which gets a lot more work done so I guess you could say you are doing more work without getting extra money but its all work you should be doing instead of arguing about stupid things.
Professionalism has a lot of characteristics that obviously vary from profession to profession so I'm mainly focusing on professionalism in an IT position. You need to intelligently be able to defend your position at all times even when someone that has no business making decisions is voicing an opinion and just happens to have the ear of the CTO or CEO in my case. You must be able to illustrate the lack of common sense those that would disagree with you would clearly have through polite means often with careful politicking. You need to be able to demonstrate the business sense in your goals and what you are proposing, how will this help the company make or save money? It's mastery of a craft, confidence that can't be shaken when the wind turns the wrong way which it inevitably does. It almost means consistency in behavior.
In the context of this discussion professionalism is a warm goodbye email that talks about what you enjoyed at the company and most times includes alternate ways to contact you.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like you've run into each other again!
As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
. . . Good for the managers. Personal problems shouldn't affect their decisions. What, the managers should instead lay off a better employee because they're feeling sorry for this woman?
Also keep in mind that Law Firms are KNOWN for letting go female associates after miscarriages, or if they know that they are trying to get pregnant. They don't want maternity leave and dealing with moms and kids, but they can't fire a pregnant woman. Having a miscarriage can be a career ending event at some firms, because they know you want to have children, but you're no longer pregnant.
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly it's too late for your mother to heed your advice.
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I was getting so down after reading his comment... But then I saw yours. Thanks.
Yes, on the one hand, there is some abuse of maternity and family leave policies. People think they should be able to shrug their work off on others and then still get the credit for it when they return, in terms of advancement, etc. As a single, childless woman, that really irks me. The other side of the issue is that it is in society's best interest for mothers to spend a lot of time with their newborns. It's in society's best interest to have children who feel secure, breast fed when possible, etc., etc. There is a middle ground. It's up to us to find it and to push for it, and not to be completely blind to one side of the issue.
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Employment is a privilege, not a right or entitlement.
It's neither a right nor a privilege. It's a business transaction. If either party doesn't want to do the deal or continue the deal, they're entitled to end it.
-jcr
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't put them out of business but if her work was decent before but has fallen to complete crap, you have a problem. It's standard problem business face after employee suffers traumatic personal life issue. How long do you let them heal? 1 month, 3 months, a year before you demand the same performance? What if they never heal? Miscarriages are particularly difficult one to deal with. At a job I had as computer tech, we had one lady who had one. She was gone for 2 months and when she finally came back, her performance wasn't great. She then got pregnant again and that was mess. She was at Doctors at least once a week if not more. She started to become ultra protective where she need someone to lift anything over 10 pounds for her so she couldn't even haul desktops off the user's desk without assistance. She would question our health if we even coughed and got mad at me when I went to doctor and wouldn't tell her why I went. One day she just disappeared and never came back and found out she was gone on medical issues and finally the company let her go. Officially, I think it was mutual separation due to medical problems.
Re:As far as the miscarriage one goes. . . (Score:5, Funny)
I was sent simply (Score:5, Funny)
An unintentional goodbye email... (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, when he clicked send, the mailer garbled the "to" line in such a way that it went to the company-wide email list. (The company-wide email alias was "world"--the email address he was sending to had "world" in it, and I assume he had accidentally put a space the middle of the email address, causing it to be mis-parsed.)
When the email hit everyone's inbox, there was a moment of silence on the whole floor, followed by phrases like "holy shit" and laughter. The last anyone saw of him was him ducking and half-running down the hallway with his backpack. He apparently thought he'd never be able to live it down, called HR later in the day to resign, and never showed up at the office again.
Re:An unintentional goodbye email... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, did you reply back with a yes or no?
Re:An unintentional goodbye email... (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be joking.
The average person only has one email address, their work email address. They don't have Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo or anything else, they have one email address and that's their work email address. And when they switch jobs, they switch email addresses and everyone has to update their lists.
And when they're not at work, email does not exist. You send them something at 5:01 PM on a Friday and you're not getting a response from them until Monday morning.
And they only know how to use one button, "Reply All". They don't know what the difference between "Reply" and "Reply All" is, all they know is that they once used "Reply" and the person they intended the message for didn't get it, so they just use "Reply All" because that works every time.
So no, I don't doubt for one minute that this story is newer than ten years old because I work with people dumb enough to do this every day. Here at Slashdot we nailed this whole "email" thing back in the 90's. The average person hasn't and they also don't care. Some of them even view email as a nuisance they were better off without.
Be Careful! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unprofessional? (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't a mail (Score:5, Funny)
When the manager entered one of our guys came forward and asked him for a kiss.
Upon the managers indignant reply "Why would I kiss you?" our Hero explained he liked to kiss while being screwed.
Part notification (Score:5, Funny)
I thought that was pretty clever for a farewell done in good humor.
Important to keep emotions under control (Score:5, Insightful)
This is NOT the time to explain who you hate and why. It is imperative to be professional about the process (no matter how bizarre the situation might be). Your co-workers already KNOW to the self-promoting a$$holes are, who is sleeping with whom, the golfers, the entrenched dead wood, etc. There is a time and place to orchestrate a response, but it can wait for more favorable circumstances. If you're really pissed off, help find a new job for everyone who is competent and useful. But help yourself first. It starts with being viewed as a resource within your industry, and you can't do that if you have spent your time bad-mouthing anyone. Besides, you never know who you might be working with in the future.
It takes time, but bad things happen to bad people. Always.
"Out of Office" (Score:5, Funny)
Now everyone reads all the vacation emails carefully, just in case.
The email has become tradition, with every subsequent departure using the same message, verbatim, changing only one thing... the first email said that he hoped the people at his new job would be half as cool; the next said one fourth, then one eighth, etc.
Make it easy for your boss - be a douche (Score:5, Insightful)
Your boss loves it when you write a stupid, vengeful email after being made redundant.
No-one likes laying someone off, unless they're incompetent or have it coming. So receiving the FU email after breaking the bad news makes the task that bit easier. They can go home thinking "Yeah, we made the right decision there, that guy really was a real douche and we never knew it until now", and sleep guilt-free in their beds.
So go ahead, write that email that tells all your colleges what you really think of them. Your boss will thank you for it and everyone else won't miss you once you're gone.
The Three Envelopes (Score:5, Funny)
The Three Envelopes.
IT manager starts a new position.
All goes well for a few weeks, then something big breaks. Lots of pressure. Rooting around in his desk, he finds 3 envelopes. The first is labeled "Open at the First Crisis". On a whim, he opens it and the note inside reads "Blame it on your Predecessor". He decides to take this advice and to his surprise, it works like a charm, management is satisfied, he is given time to fix things.
A few months go by and a something much bigger breaks, seriously disrupting operations. He is in trouble. At his desk, he decides to open the envelope labeled: "Open at the Second Crisis". He'd been saving it for something big, and this is it. The note inside says: "Form a Committee to Study the Issue". He does just that and, to his surprise, it works great. The committee wastes time and accomplishes nothing, but blame is diffused.
A few years go by. The third and final envelope is labeled: "Open at the Third Crisis". He thinks about opening it many times, but he waits, saving it for a real disaster. One day, it comes. Catastrophic failure. He takes a deep breath, tears the envelope open and inside, finds a note that reads: "Prepare Three Envelopes".
(I liked this story so much that I left a set of envelopes behind at one job.)
When Karma comes around... (Score:5, Funny)
A few years ago I worked for a college at NCSU that hired me to redo their website. Interestingly enough another group at the college did the same and we were told to work together. This guy claimed to have years of experience in designing sites and print media... but couldn't even tell you the basic HTML tags for a webpage.
Long story short, I was fired for not working well with him but hired almost 2 weeks later for more pay at a better job, better office, and all around better situation.
He on the hand, failed to bring their site online, convinced them to implement a CRM that he could manage, deleted the ENTER site (15,000+ pages) not once, not twice but three times.
Applied styles around my SQL code and claimed that I didn't know what I was doing... but the best part...
*Drum roll please*
The person they hired to replace me (wtf did they hire someone to replace me if he was so great)... quit three weeks ago with NO notice with the reason...
"I can't take Tom anymore".
I found this out when that college sent out major SOS requests to any developers who could help them fix their site. Tom had deleted it again...
God I love my life.
My letter.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I voluntarily left a "back-up" position I was given as an apology for my boss eating my budget and thus having to eliminate my original position in the same-ish department . I was somewhat bitter entering the position, but I knew I could make great changes in my new position. Little did I know that the supervisor was angry, paranoid, irrational, and rather cruel to some people. When I quit, I left her with a long letter detailing each of her major leadership and tact-based mistakes she made in the paltry 3 months I was there. I then told her how disappointing it was that she did not have the necessary leadership skills after 15 years in that position ... also noting that my position having gone through 13 people in 5 years should be a clue.
When I resigned that position, it was required to turn in a copy of my resignation letter to HR. So I gave them a copy. "Somehow" others saw it, too. Those others liked it and expressed their condolences... specifically since the person under whom I was employed is an "untouchable" in our industry. She will always be there because of who she is.
Lay off your entire company :-) (Score:5, Funny)
Dear *your company name here*;
I regret to inform you that your services as employer are no longer required. You position has been terminated effective *your last day at work*.
This decision was not arrived at lightly, and is in no way is a reflection on the performance of your duties as an employer.
Signed,
*your signature*
Date: *today's date*
Print the above out on pink paper, and sign it. Lay off your entire company :-)
Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Firing the tech was a mistake. Rehiring him knowing his vengefulness was a bigger one.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well now the tech knows that he can always threaten to pull another "tantrum" whenever management decides against him. Keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is only a good idea when you're not beholden to your enemies.
Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One thing you may want to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One thing you may want to do (Score:5, Insightful)
You always have the option of starting the job hunt as soon as you're hit by a pay cut - and as a bonus you get to keep some salary during that hunt, AND have a less crowded job market as undoubtedly some people will take the cuts rather than look for a new job. If you're rather start over anew then you don't have to wait for them to forcibly boot you out the door before you start.
Our HR department is kinda slick (or at least they think they are). Last year we didn't receive annual merit raises, but they PROMISED that they'd give them this year. Well, they did, but decided to implement 3 unpaid holidays this year that end up adding up to almost exactly what the increase in pay was. So net change in ACTUAL yearly pay was zero. Strange when as a salaried worker my stated salary is one thing but I'm getting less than that per year. :S
Re:One thing you may want to do (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with your logic is that with the economy in the toilet, one never knows which category one falls into. While you could find another job, there's no guarantee you could find one that pays as well for a company that you would be reasonably happy working for that is within a reasonable driving distance from your home. And before you say "move somewhere else", in this economy, being able to sell one's home in a reasonably short amount of time is also not a given.
In short, your notion fails to take into account that some people actually like their jobs and like working for their employer. At some point, after working somewhere for a few years, it is no longer just a job that can be so easily discarded. Where I work, there's a startling tendency for laid off employees to end up working there again for a different team within just a handful of years.
The notion of pay cuts to avoid layoffs seems perfectly reasonable to me. If anything, it means that the company values their employees enough that they hope to keep all of them. In my book, that says a lot about the company and its management. Either it means that they genuinely care about their employees (in which case you'd have a hard time finding a comparably good company to work for) or it means that they are barely able to stay out of bankruptcy and are too scared that the hit on their stock from announcing layoffs will put them over the edge. One is very positive, the other very negative. Use your own judgment on a case-by-case basis. :-)
Re:One thing you may want to do (Score:5, Informative)
Falling stock prices often contribute to bankruptcy because of lot of debt structures are at least partly short-term, requiring it to be rolled over from time to time, and creditors are less willing to roll over the debt when the stock price is tanking. They get nervous.
And layoffs announcements often cause a bump in share price when times are good or just okay, because it signals lower future expenses. But in times like these, when investors are nervous, unexpected layoff announcements can be taken as a signal that things are the company are worse than people thought. It signals that management thinks future revenues are likely to be lower, and that they are trying to cut expenses to help compensate.
Re:One thing you may want to do (Score:5, Funny)
Ok so my pay goes down so you can keep these 4 worthless guys. I'm going to only do half the work I did before.
Correction... make that five worthless guys.
Re:It's good to give advice (Score:5, Funny)
My teammate is Italian both in looks and in name. We stated in the email that he was leaving the company to go work for his "family business",etc.etc. and that no one should make inquiries about it since the family was tight-knit and considered their business very personal, etc.etc. could be dangerous,etc.etc.
Thankfully he had a good laugh about it, but he did admit that he had some relatives in Jersey that wouldn't have found it funny.
We didn't make him the butt of any jokes after that.