Name: Farewell emails.
Age: No older than 51.
Frequency: Rapidly increasing.
I’ve been sent hundreds of these lately. This, my friend, is because we are living through the great resignation.
Refresh my memory again. The one upside of Covid is that it has awoken the workforce to the gloomy, exploitative conditions of their employment. As such, millions of people have left their jobs in pursuit of something that won’t crush their soul.
That’s fantastic! It is. It’s wonderful. However, especially with the advent of home working, it means that all these people are saying goodbye to their colleagues over email.
Oh no. Hey, don’t be like that. Done right, a farewell email is an incredible thing. If it manages to be grateful and diplomatic, while revealing just enough juicy gossip about the reason for their resignation, it can sustain workplace conversation for weeks.
But done wrong? Oh, done wrong, they’re a nightmare. They drone on and on and on, thanking everyone whom the sender came in contact with during their job in the incorrect assumption that people will care enough to read it. It’s a goodbye email, you idiot, not an Oscars speech.
Is there a way to make my farewell email memorable? You could record a video instead.
Why would anyone do that? Because they want to go viral. During his last week working for the music-streaming service Pandora, Oriol Nieto filmed himself playing a rock song called Goodbye Pandora, including his reasons for leaving, his contact details and a lengthy guitar solo.
Did it go viral? No. In a year, the video has been viewed only a couple of thousand times. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. When Marina Shifrin quit her job at Next Media Animation in 2013, she recorded a video of herself dancing to Gone by Kanye West. The video was watched 19m times and pushed the song back into the US Billboard Top 20.
Can I be brief instead? Yes! In fact, you probably should be. Imagine a world where every farewell email was accompanied by a video. It would be hellish. Say goodbye and move on.
Do I have to write one at all? Well, there’s a theory that all these farewell emails are actually hastening the great resignation. Imagine that you receive a couple of goodbye messages a week. Eventually, you’re going to start wondering what’s wrong with your company and think about leaving yourself. According to Anthony Klotz, who studies resignations at Texas A&M University, they can be contagious.
So I shouldn’t write one. Your boss would prefer it if you didn’t. So, yes, you should definitely write one.
Do say: “Just to let you know, this is my last week at work.”
Don’t say: “To explain why, here is a link to an embittered 45-minute rock opera I’ve written.”
