The Art of The Farewell Email 703
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.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, Informative)
Talk about comeuppance.
Fixed that for you.
You acted like a douche, and then had to deal with the results. OMG!
Executive Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Executive Summary:
Mrs. Oh was excoriating the law firm's (more precisely the elite senior partners) campaign to blame law associates with a record of _excellent_ reviews for the associates' firing.
Why? She alleged the law firm was not bringing in sufficient business to grow (a partner's raison d'etre), that the firm did not want to publicly admit the fact, BUT, it wanted to maintain an illusion of grandeur so as to entice new elite-law school graduates to continue to apply as new associates.
The miscarriage, her exemplary reviews, one partner's unsolicited glowing! praise days earlier, his about face, her firing, her presentation of an NDA type document for severance pay at the last minute firing, her emotional rawness, her refusal to be stampeded at such a vulnerable moment, her outrage and refusal to submit to the law firm's fig leaf for its own hiring duplicity, her email to "the" partner, et al all make up the rest of the story.
Last heard, months ago when this broke, she had committed major corporation career suicide but she apparently did not let that stand in her way. She's of Korean ancestry and cute though married.
She's Cute... (Score:4, Informative)
You can find a picture here [wsj.com].
You can find the entire email here [abovethelaw.com].
Outlook supports (Score:2, Informative)
bgsound and script tags in html emails.
Just saying.
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:Bought some books... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stuff written by co-workers TO you when you lea (Score:2, Informative)
Goodbye and good luck
Goodbye and go
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:1, Informative)
The book would have been 'Banana Sunday: Datelines from Africa', I believe, by Chris Munnion. And it wasn't Newspeak, but telgraphese - when you're a foreign correspondent, been charged by the word to send a telegram, it assumed that as part of your job you learn to be succinct and expressive.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Informative)
So he burned his bridges and paid the price for it. Do I regret it? Not one bit.
Re:Unprofessional? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it is. See, two can play at that game.
And most states are "at will" employment, which means either party can terminate employment for any reason, or no reason.
Not for any reason, but for any legal reason. And if you terminate for "no reason" when it's likely it could be for an illegal reason, the jury will assume you terminated them for the illegal reason, because if you didn't have any reason to fire them, you wouldn't have.
Unless you're dumb enough to write down "I am firing you because you are (black|asian|female|etc.) there is no chance of successful suit.
I think you are confusing how you think the laws should go with how they are actually applied. If you fire the one and only one black person in an office and he asks for the reason and you state "I'm not telling" or "I have no reason" or "ooh look, clouds," then you will get your ass sued, and you will lose. It may not be what you think should happen, but it is what does happen. That's why people document firings and try to make them "for cause" even in an "at will" state. Otherwise, lawsuits are too hard to defend against.
Remember, they would be civil in nature, so you just have to convince a jury it's more likely than not. You can assert that the one black person in the office with stellar evaluations was singled out for no particular reason, and the plaintiffs just have to say "good record, only black, only person fired" and you lose. That's why people build cause, rather than leaving it up to the courts if someone sues.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:2, Informative)
Now, if this was sent to everyone OUTSIDE the office,
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:3, Informative)
It's actually a little older -- Anthony Burgess relates the use of this phrase by Evelyn Waugh while discussing Orwell and the influences on his Newspeak.
Some brief Googling brings up someone quoting it here:
http://enmasse.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7519&view=next&sid=bf3c691e58dff22645eacc20f5a2fe4f [enmasse.ca]