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.
Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out."
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:4, Informative)
Talk about comeuppance.
Fixed that for you.
You acted like a douche, and then had to deal with the results. OMG!
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, if he'd killed them he wouldn't have had this problem.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Specifically asked,
and
2. The answer is glaringly obvious.
I.e. "Would you have sex with Rosy O'Donnell?"
"Yes. But then she would be a necrophiliac."
If on the other hand you sent a little private note to each of the hotys in the office that said: "I never approached you because we are coworkers but now that we no longer have that barrier to contend with, do you want to go out with me? Being out of work, I can't take you anywhere fancy but I am a pretty good cook and I finally have the time to clean my apartment."
That would be cool and may go a far way to easing your pain at loosing a job. It worked great the last time I left an employer. Until these hotys started trading stories about the new boyfriend.
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, Funny)
The worst part is that the title was "OMG! Kittenz." Everybody had to read it.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, Insightful)
Who uses a mail store that doesn't single-instance attachements these days? A 9MB email to 1000 recipients should take ... 9MB in the email store!
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.
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, 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.
Indeed. This is certainly a case where honesty is NOT the best policy. Because I generally leave on good terms I've been offered consulting gigs with old employers and I get good recommendations. I also have been offered full time employment by former employers and former co-workers.
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:4, Insightful)
"Leaving with grace is always better then leaving with attitude."
Generally. But if you are going to burn bridges, why not nuke them? :)
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:4, Funny)
For brevity, a book I once read had this nice farewell "letter": "Upshove job asswards".
It doesn't need to say any more after that...
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Jeebus, what is that, Newspeak?
"And your mom bellyfeel my penis doubleplusgood!"
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From a summer ssociate at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft:
In case ya'll are doubting my declaring CWT a TTT:
By the time you read this in the morning, I am sure that you will have heard of what happened to me. All for no reason. I warn all the summer associates this firm is a joke of what it used to be. Read the history. With a man like Jordan Schwartz in charge what can you expect. For those that do not know my mother has cancer and I asked if I could leave the firm next Wednesday to take care of her. I was
Re:Sometimes the simplest statement is the best (Score:5, Funny)
Advertising (Score:3, Insightful)
Too short, wrong tone. Any "Farewell" e-mail should be looked at as advertising for your now forced move to self-employment (I don't care if you're officially laid-off and unemployed, everybody on slashdot has skills that friends and family use for free that can be marketed to strangers to meet the difference between paying the mortgage and eating). It should be relatively upbeat, thank people for the privilege of working on their team, contain a very short skills list of what you did for the team to remi
well... (Score:3, Interesting)
"You should've taken away my database access before telling my I was being laid off."
Yeah.. vengeful geeks. Nothing new there.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, never rehire someone who insulted everyone on leaving. And never rehire someone with a known track record of sabotaging the company. Any company who thinks someone is indispensible this way deserves what they get.
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)
Been there, done that, pressed charges (Score:4, Funny)
We ended up needing one all-nighter to recover. Most of it was spend figuring out what exactly he had actually deleted, as lack of permissions had prevented most of it. In any event, I didn't mind, the sight of him doing the tazer dance in front of everyone was totally worth it. I won't advocate tazering people indiscriminately but he totally absolutely deserved it. You had to be there, it defies description how funny it was. He went from attacking people with a yardstick to quivering wreck on the floor in about as fast as you could say "quivering wreck on the floor".
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have found that big companies are just as likely to treat you decently and give you a fair shake if they have to let you go. I've heard plenty of stories from people who have worked at small businesses (such as start ups) who were at the mercy of personality wars and psycho owners.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
How is it "failure" that he stopped making TVs that were overpriced and fired people who were not adding value? Where I come from that's called "success."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To be fair.. ...even when the person/company on the receiving end deserves a kick in the arse.
Professionalism is acting with grace and civility...
SO when the boss tells you to unclog the toilet in the bathroom you reply:
"No problem sir. Would you prefer I use a plunger or the toilet brush as I am updating my resume and want a good list of what technologies I use in my work?"
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:4, Insightful)
I hate people that think like you do.
Was he a good employee at the previous job? Do you know EXACTLY why he REALLY got fired? Did he deserve it?
Being unprofessional is one thing, but sending a pissed off email because you were wronged doesn't really bother me, and 9 times out of 10 due to politics you really don't know why someone was fired. You may hear 'because they did XX', but thats likely just an excuse for 'he made me or my boss look stupid, which we are, but don't want anyone to know'.
So if you guys know for a fact that he was wrong and that he was a bad employee at the previous company, then fine. But giving him a crappy interview for something ten years ago that you don't know the full details of is unprofessional of you. Either way, 10 years is a long time and people do grow up sometimes. You could have just cheated yourself out of an excellent employee because you're unable to look over mistakes people have made in the past.
Like I said though, its entirely dependant on the situation, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume from the way your stating it that you really don't know what truely happened to him.
For the record though, your bragging about handling the interview the way you did, is extremely unprofessional, and pretty damn childish. You didn't even have the balls to tell them why you blew the guy off.
Re:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like you've run into each other again!
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:I love the smell of burning bridges in the morn (Score:4, Insightful)
Professionals can resist the urge to vent publicly.
And he told the guy the reason they blew him off -- he acted unprofessionally in a previous position. That's a real insight to an applicant's character that is rarely available. They'd bee idiots to ignore it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Though, to be fair, I think that sort of thing should be saved until retirement.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s300/sjclark1967/FarSideLoneRanger.jpg [photobucket.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically, he was competent, but not stellar. He was about average for the role he was applying for, but his past history was a mark against him. There were better
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.
Your boss isn't going to show up on your deathbed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi, big strong alpha Silverback male, father of large family, here. Have work gloves, will lift heavy things.
Sorry to put it this way -- cruel to be kind and all that -- but if you're sacrificing family for your career, you're a damn fool. If you're living to work -- and your job doesn't involve healing the sick, feeding the hungry, saving children, etc. --
then you have missed the point.
Your job title will not cry with you in the night. It won't watch the sun with you in the morning. The company car won't care that your parents just died. Your subordinates won't look up to you, and the responsibility you have for them won't grow your soul.
Apart from that, I'm shocked at the callousness of the some of the posters here. Sometimes, it's just a matter of basic humanity. I'm a big strong guy. I don't mind pulling a double-shift if someone's wife just went into labor. I'm not made of spun sugar. Some poor woman has a miscarriage, I don't mind covering for her until she can get her head back together, and yeah, that might take a while. Some single Mom's kid falls out of a tree and breaks his arm, I don't mind watching her keeping her network in one piece while she runs to the emergency room. I'm not a helpless little girl -- I can carry a little bit more of a load for a good cause.
Listening to some of the thin reedy voices of the Ayn Rand acolytes on this board, I can tell they're just not ready to be husbands and fathers. I pity them for their loneliness, and I know if they don't dig deeper and find their hearts and testosterone, they'll never be ready.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm, is that like a 90 degree angle? Or some other kind of angle...
(You aren't very bright, are you?)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, the original poster is correct insofar as "best" was put into scare-quotes. Pure captialist thinking defines "best" as in producing the most profit (or, collectively, the highest GDP, or "the best value for shareholders.") Not the most happiness, the most ecologically sustainable outcomes, the lowest infant mortality rates, the lowest suicide rates, the highest measures of contentment and satisfaction, the longest lifespans, or anything else.
The circularity produced by that understanding of "b
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: (Score:3, Funny)
Speaking of "whoops" emails and people leaving. This morning I came in to my office as usual, checked my email and saw one from someone I didn't recognize. I figured it was some HR banter about the new office building we're moving to or some new corporate directive, but instead it was a specific message telling me that my services were no longer required.
I about freaked. Then I re-read the email. It had my email address on the To: line, but the email started out "Dear Martin" which isn't my name. Reading fu
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)
Re:Be Careful! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm an IT consultant
Which basicly means you're on and off regularly, and personal relationships matter for future contract possibilities. If you haven't got the good sense to be professional then, you're in the wrong job in the first place :)
The TechTV legend... (Score:3, Funny)
Unprofessional? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it does. You talk to her (manager to employee, with HR present). You tell them "Your performance has gotten worse, and if it continues we can no longer justify employing you. What resources do you need from us to help you get back to the high level of performance we know you can deliver?" You have one more meeting two weeks after that, letting them know that it hasn't improved to the p
Obligatory Office Space quote... (Score:3, Funny)
When I was given the news, I was able to tell the head of the department:
"Good luck with your layoffs, alright, I hope your firings go really, really well."
Others weren't so glib, but then others hadn't already planned to quit and secured a 40% raise elsewhere. For me, the severence was a bonus.
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.
Why bother (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me to be more of an exercise in massaging one's own ego. I, personally, find it more productive to use a site like spoke or linkedin to keep connected to my former coworkers. No long winded e-mail necessary.
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.
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.
A Cautionary Tale (Score:4, Interesting)
Many moons ago, I worked for a consumer hardware/software company that no longer exists...but their mascot was a professor. With an egg-shaped head. Ahem.
Anyhoo...a manager was packaged one day. He was well-liked by his co-workers and employees, but butted heads with the exec team. On his last day he wrote a lengthy email to everyone in the company detailing why he was very sad to see a company with so many good people and good products go to hell because of poor management, and proceeded to detail examples of what he deemed to be poor management. As he was packing up his desk and saying his goodbyes, he was pulled into the Operations Exec's office along with two corporate lawyers, and spent the last three hours of his last day apologizing for sending the email, and pleading his case as to why he should still be allowed a package, and not be fired outright and have any severance payments and benefits denied on the spot.
Yeah...oops
She's Cute... (Score:4, Informative)
You can find a picture here [wsj.com].
You can find the entire email here [abovethelaw.com].
From The Soul Of A New Machine (Score:3, Interesting)
Which every hacker should read. [theatlantic.com]
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.)
Short and sweet (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
You worked for HP? (Score:4, Insightful)
I knew Carly was bad, but I never know anyone who worked for her personally.
PS - they did finally get rid of her, but I heard she's found an organization which matches her personality. I hope the Republicans have plan to get rid of her.
I've done this twice (Score:4, Funny)
I've left my job with one company by leaving all of my stuff in the server closet, a piece of paper with the passwords, and a note saying "Good Bye!" They bounced several pay checks, and delayed disbursing paychecks for several months beforehand.
The second time, I dumped my laptop and gear at the data center, and sent an email to the HR drone saying "I can't take this anymore. I'm gone effective now."
This one, we had 3 Canadian contractors who made my life hell, by making it impossible for me to do my work. not giving me access, and fucking with my passwords. They kept their shitty jobs, I got a new one.
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 :-)
Stuff written by co-workers TO you when you leave. (Score:4, Funny)
I left a company about one and a half years ago to move to greener pastures (well to be precise, same global company, different country, but I did still technically quit the old job). I wrote a fairly standard and "nice" goodbye email to everyone and they threw me a nice farewell party.
However, what I found humorous was the emails I RECEIVED as I left. Some were nice ("been a pleasure working with you, blah blah"), a minority were nasty ("finally getting rid of you - fuck off and don't come back"), and some were just incredibly surprising (cute girl: "I'm so disappointed I never got to sleep with you!"... damn, had I only known earlier!).
The best thing though was a large banner that my co-workers printed. As I was the "resident uber-geek", they wanted to try and do something they thought I might appreciate. They used some kind of online tool to convert ASCII to binary, and printed a large poster that was SUPPOSED to say "01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01100010 01111001 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011". Unfortunately, it got truncated somehow and ended up as "01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01100010 01111001 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111". Now, they all sort of expected me to decode it in my head instantly, so were a little disappointed when I didn't... but, being the "geek", I did so (slowly, but surely) and about 20 seconds later started laughing... they couldn't figure out why, and so I did have to eventually explain it to them. I do still wonder if someone deliberately truncated it at that point (there were other geeks there after all), but I think it's more than likely just a humorous coincidence.
My chance to burn bridges (Score:4, Interesting)
It happened once for me, and everyone deserves one chance to burn bridges.
I was living in in the USA, there on a work visa. Unfortunately, my manager was letting power go to his head, making life a living hell for the entire lab. He had it in for me, and I just wanted to finish up some things before quitting (and leaving the country), so it was a race and we both knew it.
JUST before he was about to fire me, I handed in my notice--four weeks, to ensure time to complete or transition my work tasks properly. He promptly told me to clean my workspace and avoid touching the lab equipment or computers, so within a few days, I was forced to sit at my desk, feet up, reading Hugh Johnson's wine Encyclopedia.
When it came time for my exit interview, I was asked if something could have been done differently to make me stay. I pointed out that every person in my group had a secret file in the bottom of their desk drawer, detailing the times our manager had been abusive, unreasonable, or unfair to them.
Management eventually saw those files, and "promoted" the manager to a desk position with no staff or responsibilities--just paperwork.
I prefer the Bruce Lee approach (Score:5, Interesting)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:4, Insightful)
People who can get rehired want layoffs, even if they are among them. Severance turns into a payed vacation and then you pick something else up.
People who are overemployed want pay cuts because they can't.
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:4, Interesting)
I hope companies will switch to pay cuts over lay offs like HP did and like some companies in Germany are doing (nice there, you get a pay cut but you also get hours cut so you have more life to enjoy at least).
I'd argue that that is actually necessary to future economic development. As technology advances, it's natural that fewer people can get more done in less time. At some point that means that there's less than 8 hours of work per potential worker to be accomplished. The current scheme of firing some and keeping the rest working 8 hours is obviously not workable unless we want a permanent underclass with more guns than food.
Consider, if everyone in the U.S. took half a day off on Friday (or took every other Friday off), we could go from 10% unemployment to zero in short order.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While taking every other Friday off might be beneficial for other reasons, a reduction of worker-hours is unlikely to produce an equal increase in the number of hours available for others. The labor pool is not zero-sum.
See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
One problem is that in many cases two employees working at 50% is less efficient or more expensive than one employee working at 100%.
I really do like the idea of a shortened work week, but the argument that it will reduce employme
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
the "lump of labor fallacy" is somewhat controversial (even the article you point to suggests that). While the pool of labor to be done is not zero sum, it is not fully elastic either.
Between the efficiency gains to be had through better rested employees and the reduced health care costs from insufficiently rested workers, and eliminating the inefficiency of taxing the employed to keep the unemployed from starving, it's quite likely that the increased administrative overhead is a wash.
Let's not forget that
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: (Score:3, Funny)
I'll see your "laid off from the press" and raise you a "new Chairman of the Board at the meeting".
The government agency I work in has a Board composed of 3 appointed members. The year after I started, the then Chairman of the Board was at the first meeting of the year and, from what I heard, the opening discussions went something like this:
We'd like to welcome the new Chairman of the Board,
Not an a
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation: blah blah blah I made a lot of money blah blah blah people are stupid (except me) blah blah blah I'm a pothead.
Could have saved a lot of people a lot of time with just the summary.
"Farewell notes", unless specific, positive, and heartfelt - (Dear George, you were really a fantastic coworker, and I'm proud to have worked with you...) are simply ego masturbation of one form or another. Long-winded erudition just means you're boring AND egocentric.