The long goodbye

When a workmate resigns, it’s not the loss of their talents – or even their company – that hurts the most. As Paul Connolly writes, it’s the @&%# farewell card.

When you work in an ofce, all too often a colleague – let’s call her Barbara – will interrupt your busy social media browsing by thrusting an oversized farewell card in front of you.

“Sam is leaving on Friday,” Barbara will say, falsely presuming you have the faintest clue who Sam is – or, imminently, was.

Then it gets worse. “We’re getting a present, too. Chip in what you can.”

Barbara – who is either more thoughtful than you or at least smart enough to play the long game because, who knows, Sam might just turn out to be an employer one day – stands in front of you waiting. Although every fibre of your being is willing you to take a 20c piece from your pocket and coolly flip it in the air as you say, “See what you can get with that, Barbs,” you retrieve your wallet because you have no choice.

Barbara hovers over you like the Death Star then clears her throat reproachfully as you reach for a $5 note, making you hand over $20 instead because you don’t have anything smaller. Then she strolls away as if everything is fine. But everything is not fine. Not only are you down $20 – money you could have given to charity if indeed that was the sort of thing you do but, let’s face it, generally isn’t – you also still have that ruddy big card in your hand, without the vaguest idea of what to write in it.

You could write nothing at all, of course, but you know Barbara will check and she’ll remember. You know this because she hasn’t forgotten the time you threw up in her wastepaper bin after the McRobertson contract-signing celebrations – and that was eight years ago.

You also know that Barbara processes your time sheets.

When you open the card, your heart sinks. You see that you’re one of the last to sign it because the only available section to write on is smack bang in the middle. Understandably reluctant to draw attention to their own inane inscriptions by taking up prime real estate, your colleagues’ scribblings are clinging to the edges like capsized ship passengers to lifeboats.

“Hmm... Sam,” you wonder as you pick up your pen, wanting to end this nonsense as quickly as possible. Is she the one with the hair? Or that bloke with the laugh that sounds like a lawnmower refusing to start? Maybe Sam’s the one who leaves those passive aggressive notes in the staff kitchen, the ones with all the apostrophes.

Play it safe, you think, with something generic. But can you really write, “Best wishes, Sam, all the best”? It’s not that it’s a boring cop-out – although that’s precisely what it is – it’s that most of the entries on the card already say that.

You consider a few other possibilities: “This place won’t be the same without you” (which is logically correct); “Good luck, Sam, keep in touch!” (but what if Sam takes that literally?); “Hope your new venture is a thrilling one!” (Sam isn’t leaving because of a terminal illness, is s/he?); and “Every once in a while, you meet a person you instantly click with!” (which at least is true, though of course it’s not true of you and Sam).

Oh God, why can’t you write exactly what you want to write? “Dear Sam, you owe me $20.” Because life’s not fair, that’s why.

So, sighing deeply, you resign yourself to the inevitable and get it over with.

“Best wishes, Sam, all the best.”