Farewell email to colleagues

Friday is my last day at a company I’ve been with for 5 years but I’m self-debating the worth of the goodbye mail. Does everyone send one? My boss left in a huff and did not send one but it’s rarely mentioned.
Those I worked most closely know my private mail already.

Err, no. Just no

Sure, why not? Good luck with the new venture. :)

No.

Surely, it’s as simple as:

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Over the years, I’ve come to regard you as people I met.

nobody cares about you

Maybe write a song.

I’m in a similar situation as I leave for pastures new too on Friday. I will be emailing or calling people who I genuinely like and have enjoyed working with. This will be a very select bunch probably countable on one hand.

If anyone else wants to contact me then I can be found on Linked In easily enough.

Although I do like jam-bo’s suggestion. :-)

How about a poem – struggling to finish this one…

I’m leaving here on Friday
And picking up my last buck
Some of you will say goodbye
But most couldn’t give

Donuts at break time and a drink after work.
Still friends with a lot of people after leaving 5 different companies ( never left because of fellow colleagues).
Bump into people I haven’t seen for 20+ years and it’s always nice to have a chat

Similar situation here.

I’ve emailed and spoken with immediate team members, and emailed a couple of partnership groups I work with to say thanks for your support over the years etc. Also going to speak to a few contractors who have worked regularly for me.

Why wouldn’t you want to let people you know and have enjoyed working with know that you’re going? Isn’t it just polite? Also, I’ve no need to be burning bridges.

I’m under no illusion that life will just go on and once my successor is in post no one will give me a second thought, but for me that’s no reason to just vanish without a good bye.

Title: Birthday cakes in kitchen!

Subject: Only joking. I’m leaving.

One of our middle managers retired after almost 40 years. Something he said stuck with me.

I’m sure my retirement will leave a hole in this company like taking your hand out of a bucket of water.

If you’re leaving, just leave. Surely those worth knowing outside of work are people that you already know outside of work.

Big company who you’ve worked for, with many people over the years, definitely. It’s common decency because there will always people you might not have regular recent interactions with who would still want to know.

Just send it to yourself and personal email and bcc everyone you have enjoyed working with and say thank you and goodbye properly.

The best ones don’t go to the manager ;-)

Common decency +1

Just go, you’ll soon be all forgotten about.

Some good ideas there, thanks. Very big company but based in Germany and i’ve not seen the kitchen for 2 years as i work from home but host and participate in teams calls.
Not always sure about the forgotten about bit as i have in the recent past been contacted by previous companies’ i’ve worked for.

A polite ‘it’s been good working with you all’ keeps bridges in place and is common decency.

The tirade of unsubstantiated claims, misinformation and abuse sent to everyone but management, followed by deleting all your work inbox and OneDrive in an attempt to cover various attempts over previous 6 months to take colleagues, customers and freelancers with you to a new role and undermine the manager whose job you wanted, is not so appropriate….

Depends on what you want to say and how those to whom you send it might receive it. Before becoming a contractor, I worked for a large corp with a strong people culture. There was a lot of respect and far less BS and politics than the norm. So when people left having been there a few years, most would send round a goodbye email to a few select peeps. TBH, they were all genuinely sincere (and often humorous) and certainly felt appropriate.

A polite goodbye is rarely wrong. There’s nothing to be gained from a flouncing diatribe, if that was what you were thinking of.

Very big company but based in Germany

Mein Handtuch liegt jetzt nicht mehr auf dem Liegestuhl.
Auf Wiedersehen und danke für den vielen Fisch!

A simple bcc with “we’ve been discovered, flee immediately” should suffice

I worked for a large corp with a strong people culture

Tyrell Corporation?

Everywhere I’ve ever worked has always had leaving dos with gifts & cards for leavers. I got a set of pots and pans when I left Nortel. Everyone gets called to one floor (open plan) for a goodbye presentation of gifts + leaver’s speech, then we all head down the pub etc…

Slightly different in Covid land as we no longer have an office (100% remote working), but we’re off to a leaving pub do this week for a project manager on their last day.

The only good ones are those with universally funny or interesting anecdotes. Otherwise it’s self indulgence.

Tyrell Corporation?

I thought Omni Consumer Products 🤔

I’ve always just turned my computer off and headed off to get pissed in the park by myself. But I’m a millenial so this is the new normal.

Probably left 12 jobs in the last 17 years (see, millenial!). Never had an exit interview, never had a gift. Maybe had two thanks emails from managers.

But also never been gaslighted enough to thank people for renting gigantic amounts of my crucially important time to them under threat of poverty so they could profit from it. Eh. Never had a Jag. Never stomped on the neck of my lessers.

You sound fun to work with

Just email everyone to say the first round is on you at the local pub then see how many people join you …

I just go with:

” its been an absolute pleasure to work with you all, except for…”

or alternatively you go for one the greatest Rimmer quotes from Red dwarf (I paraphrase) :

“We’ve been through a lot and I consider you all to be people I…met”

Our emails get locked the week before

Probably left 12 jobs in the last 17 years (see, millenial!).

Have a 20 year service award plaque thing in a cupboard somewhere…

4 jobs in 30 years and two of those were with the same team (company spin out), so more like 3…..

“I’ve met and worked with some great people over the years, but they have either died or retired now so I’m off”

The only ones that do that at my place are retirees, everyone else just quietly exits stage right. Even then there are more than a few retirees that just disappear one day with no fuss. Never heard of anyone taking the hump with that yet.

One place I worked at for eighteen years I was given £100 when I left, most of the others I was either made redundant, or given the boot, in one particular instance, after what basically constituted workplace bullying. Most were small businesses where I knew everyone so could say goodbye personally.
Emails didn’t even exist with some of those businesses, or else were only between certain departments.
Where I am now, if I left, I’d be speaking to individual people who I work closely with, and who I consider friends, email would be too impersonal.

Empty and shred all evidence from your secret cupboard of shame.
Tell Louise that that thing at the Xmas party will never be forgotten.
Remind Andy about that £30.

Then email all staff :-

“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
“So long and thanks for all the fish”
Xx

Never done it, never really seen the point. People at work fall into three camps:

1) Those I’ll keep in contact with anyway.
2) Those I’ve enjoyed working with, and I’ll say bye to those directly.
3) Everyone else, who will, at best, barely notice I’m gone.

Left my last place after 14 years. The team had lost the boss and was being run from the US by someone that did not have a clue. My last day saw me come in, say goodbye to three of the people I worked with and the office manager, steal a few biscuits and go. I think I sent a goodbye e-mail to the team, the site manager and the head of Engineering and that was about it. No card, no leaving gift, nothing.

Meh, G.A.S