For laid off workers, so hard to e-mail goodbye
WASHINGTON -- When Jim Neill got laid off, he sent around a farewell e-mail with a subject line designed to get people's attention: "Free food in the employee lounge."
Then Neill, who had been with the National Association of Manufacturers for years, left 'em laughing.
"These are tough times and with a young family I'm hunting for employment," he wrote, "but you'll be pleased to know I've also begun work on my long-delayed book and instructional DVD 'Rhymes with Truck: How to Use Profanity in Every Sentence.'"
There's an art to the goodbye e-mails flooding inboxes as a result of massive layoffs. A few, like Neill's, are laugh-out-loud funny. Some are bitter flameouts. Some read like brief memos or mysteries with no explanation of the move; others are like lengthy Oscar speeches thanking co-workers.
Whatever the tone, they are everywhere; more than 45 million Americans were either laid off last year or left their jobs for greener pastures.
In the days before company e-mail distribution lists, the task of letting friends and colleagues know about your departure was primarily done by phone or through an interoffice memo written by Human Resources.
With the wider reach of e-mail and more casual messages comes some danger: An e-mail will last longer and may pop up into the inbox of unintended recipient.
Lawyer Shinyung Oh's angry goodbye quickly made rounds of legal blogs. Oh was let go from the Paul Hastings law firm's San Francisco branch six days after having a miscarriage. She wrote a blistering e-mail accusing the firm of heartlessness, and sent it to all her colleagues.
"If this response seems particularly emotional, 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," she wrote.
Oh has since started her own blog but declined to comment on the incident.
Truly angry flameouts are a rarity for that reason — most people understand they will whip through the ether at breakneck speed. One scathingly funny goodbye that has been posted on blogs around the world with the subject line "So long, suckers! I'm out!" turns out to be a hoax, written by comedy writer Chris Kula.
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