Under the circumstances of a job you didn’t particularly care for but for which you were valued, respected, and/or otherwise appreciated, how have you said goodbye to your co-workers (and cow-orkers alike)? I haven’t been at the job I’m about to move on from for very long and they’ve been pretty good to me, but I’ve come to the realization over the years that it’s almost always a bad sign when everyone tries to make you feel welcome when you first you start a position, particularly when it’s one inherited from somebody else on short notice.
I’m sure my goodbye will be something simple along the lines of thanking them for the opportunity, and hanging a “happy holidays” wish on there as well, but I’m curious as to what sorts of creative ways others have said goodbye to good colleagues or supervisors at thankless jobs. Handshakes? Hugs? Kisses? Gunfire?
It totally depends on the job, the number of coworkers, and how close I am to them. Normally, I try to get to everyone in my department and shake their hand. Often, it turns into hugs. If someone is not there, I don’t make any effort to contact them.
Well, at my last job (which I like just fine–it was just chronically underfunded), I just went around and said good-by personally, since I only worked with a few people, locally. The long-distance ones were contacted by email or phone. It was a little uncomfortable–I was the latest to be laid off in a project that wasn’t going to continue to be funded and some of the people I was saying goodbye too probably weren’t feeling very secure either. I wanted to keep all the bridges intact, though, particularly since I was probably going to need references soon.
When I retired, I just went to the office and worked my last day, and left at the end of the day. My boss collected my id before I left. I’d worked for them for 25 years. It was a Wednesday.
Nicely. Go out for lunch with them or something, say goodbye, provide them with email/phone number and stay in touch. Even with bosses that I thought were truly incompetent I was pleasant and professional.
It would have gained me nothing to be a jerk to them (even if they deserved it) and there’s no point in burning any bridges behind you - you may have to work with those people again in the future.
I did the email farewell–I actually did three different ones.
The first one was to people I’d worked with and was more along the lines of a farewell and thanks for everything.
The second one was to people I really valued so was warmer and also included contact information.
The third group included very special people who’d really gone out of their ways to mentor me or otherwise just be great folks. The third group got individual emails calling out exactly why I thought they were so great.
A guy I worked with sent out an email when he left. Part of it was something like, “The only reason I even stayed here so long was because of all the great people. Now I have to unlearn all of the crazy knowledge that I picked up while working here. If I ever need to apply the knowledge that that you need [xyz work-related knowledge here] to do [work-related thing] again, I’ll consider suicide. You guys can facebook me, or call me at 555-555-5555. The worst thing that can happen is that I won’t answer. Suckers.”
That’s me being secretive about where I work because if I filled that in you’d all know, but it made sense and was hilarious.
(I still work there and it is the absolute greatest group of co-workers I’ve ever worked with!)
I’ve never said goodbye to coworkers before, just bolted, so I can’t be more use.
I have always fantasized about just leaving a sticky note on the desk. However, I usually send emails. There are so many people I work with that I do not share an office with, it is hard to communicate a good bye effectively in any other way.
The last job I left there were about 50 or 60 people in the whole location. I’d been there 14 years, and was a fairly visible person, so I went around to every department and said goodbye to people individually.
I was in this exact same situation during the summer: people I loved working with, for a company I despised. I did it in the time-honoured British way - went out and got drunk with them.
There are two ways it seems to happen around here. The first being a personal email to people they associated the most with saying they are leaving and a hope their lives cross again.
The second is that they fade away and you have no idea they were even leaving until you wonder where they have been for the last two weeks only to find out they have quit.
There have been a couple good bye parties that have been conducted outside the office but those have been for long, long, long time employees that either retired, changed careers or were let go suddenly do to organizational changes.