What To Write In A Farewell
Sadie
Is this something that people have struggled with in the past? I find that when you look at a card and everyone is writing the same thing, or someone who knows the person well writes something very fitting and personal, it always makes the next person's job that much more difficult.
In Japan, people change departments quite often, and each time you have to write a farewell message for the people who leave, so you get in to the habit of writing these sorts of cards. After seeing these things from hundreds of people (and having received them myself several times), the 'safest' pattern I see is:
General gratitude is very straightforward, doesn't require any specific knowledge, and it is a nice positive message. You can go at it from several different angles, but at the end of the day you just want to make sure it is positive and actually reflects what the person did. For instance:
Even if you don't know the person well, you probably wouldn't be invited to write something on a card if you had never interacted with them at all. This doesn't need to be work-related, it can be anything positive and personal. For instance:
While it was a great experience working with you, I'll especially miss your restaurant recommendations -- the Thai place you recommended has been a hit with everyone I've taken there, and makes me look like I know more about food than I do!
I really wanted to thank you for that time you helped me with that pesky bug I was struggling with. Thanks to your help teaching me how to debug that part of the legacy code, I've been able to lessen my daily frustration, and am grateful you took the time to teach me how to do that on my own.
The goal is just to point out that you have some personal positive experience with the person, and letting them know that it was appreciated (even if you didn't say much but 'thanks' at the time). Everyone loves feeling appreciated.
I wish you the best in finding even more success in your next position. From working with you here, I am sure you will be a great fit. The world is a small place, and I hope that we get the chance to work together again in the future.
If they are leaving the job for something entirely different (stay-at-home parent, going back to school, starting their own business, etc.), wish them the best of luck in the change of pace, or anything that is positive and says, "Things change, but don't worry, you'll do great!"
The person will likely read the card once or twice, and just wants to come away feeling good. You just want them to come away with a smile, so there's no need to be particularly profound on the card. Even if you know the person very well, the farewell card isn't the right place for honest feedback or oversharing, as other coworkers will likely read what you wrote, and if you're that close you can share the same info over a beer without any of the problems writing it down on a card may bring.
@Jmac's answer is great for when there's plenty of room to sign, but here's a note for when the card may be going around to a lot of people and you don't know the person well - keep it short, e.g.
This is the 34th time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together 8 years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been saving for a long time.
One of the things about the Presidency is that you're always somewhat apart. You spend a lot of time going by too fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people through tinted glass -- the parents holding up a child, and the wave you saw too late and couldn't return. And so many times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well, maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
People ask how I feel about leaving. And the fact is, ``parting is such sweet sorrow.'' The sweet part is California and the ranch and freedom. The sorrow -- the goodbyes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again -- and in a way, we ourselves -- rediscovered it.
The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82, to the expansion that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made a difference. The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created -- and filled -- 19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in and said, ``My name's Ron.'' Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback -- cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began.
And in all of that time I won a nickname, ``The Great Communicator.'' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.
Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than ever because American industry became more competitive and at the same time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home.
Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons -- and hope for even more progress is bright -- but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola.
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great rediscovery of the 1980's has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.
When you've got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th birthday you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and it was right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with my career in the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into politics because I wanted to protect something precious.
Nothing is less free than pure communism -- and yet we have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no because we're basing our actions not on words but deeds. The detente of the 1970's was based not on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
4a15465005