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The Art of The Farewell Email
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.
I worked in a company once with a guy who was known for sending out long, rambling emails and overwriting everything he got his hands on. I was constantly trying to get him to edit himself better on fact sheets and the like. Well, he gets laid off and his final email (sent to everyone in the office) read simply "Fuck all of you! I'm outta here." I was so proud he had finally learned the power of brevity.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It smells like...hollow victory
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'
Which is why we should all endeavor to display a complete lack of 'unprofessionalism.'
The funniest "goodbye" email I saw occurred about 10 years ago. A guy down the hall from me was responding to a personal ad--probably in a "casual encounters" section. He gave, shall we say, a very elaborate physical description of himself. He also went into details about his various fetishes and sexual proclivities, as well as some choice moments from his sexual history. He also described exactly what he hoped to do with the person he was writing to, complete with various sexual acts and positions.
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.
Firing the tech was a mistake. Rehiring him knowing his vengefulness was a bigger one.
I'm an IT consultant - my contract was terminated early, and I wrote a tasteful goodbye email ("was great working with you all" etc. which happened to be true). Good thing I did - 3 days later more funding came through and I was called back!
In response to the article summary, I don't think Shinyung Oh's upper management knew that she had a miscarriage. It's not like they were waiting for the worst opportunity to lay someone off. It sounds more like she had a basically really terrible week. On a side note I think her response was wholly unprofessional. Let your contacts know you are no longer working for said firm and be done with it. Don't make it a personal vendetta. Junk like that only kills your chances later on in the career path.
It's sad but true. When an employee does something wrong it's unprofessional. When an employer does something wrong it's business.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
. . . 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.
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.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
We're a close group at work, and all get along pretty well and like working there, but people do move on from time to time. About a year ago, a friend sent a company-wide email with the topic "Out of Office", which is usually used if someone's emailing in sick or going on vacation. Took about an hour before someone actually read the email and saw that he would be out... permanently.
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.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
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.
Not just geeks... Years ago I went into a tiny office to set up Internet Connection Sharing for their two machines. When I started one of the machines, it threw up about a dozen "missing system file" errors before finally booting. When I asked about it, they very nonchalantly replied, "Yeah, it does that. The secretary deleted a bunch of files after she was fired last month."
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. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
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.)
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.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
Sadly it's too late for your mother to heed your advice.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 :-)
Ian Ameline
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.
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' 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.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Looks like you've run into each other again!
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.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."