Farewell messages for a colleague

Six messages you could actually send

Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.

1. All the best for the next one. Thank you for the years of covering, explaining and not complaining, which is a job nobody assigns and everybody notices the moment it stops getting done.

   Continue writing with message 1

2. Good luck with the new place. You made a genuinely difficult year here easier for a lot of us, mostly by staying calm about things that didn't warrant calm. They've no idea what they've picked up.

   Continue writing with message 2

3. All the best. You were the person people came to when something broke, and that was never in anybody's job description. Thank you for it. Keep in touch properly, not in the LinkedIn way.

   Continue writing with message 3

4. Congratulations on getting out. I'll be handling your share of the nonsense from Monday and I'd like that acknowledged in writing at some point. All the best, seriously. Go and enjoy it.

   Continue writing with message 4

5. All the best for the new role. I keep thinking about the week we both stayed back to fix something nobody ever thanked us for. That's what I'll remember about this place, and you're most of the reason it was bearable.

   Continue writing with message 5

6. All the best for the new role. Thank you for being the person people came to when something broke, which is a job nobody assigns and everybody notices the moment it stops getting done. This place will be measurably worse from Monday, and I'd rather say that now than at the leaving lunch.

   Copy

Writing your own

Name what they did for the team, not what they did for the company. Great contributor is a performance review. You were the one everybody asked when something broke is the version they will remember, and it describes a role no job title ever recorded.

Mean keep in touch or leave it out. Everyone writes it and almost nobody follows through, which makes it the most hollow line on a farewell card. Either propose something — a call in a month, coffee when you are next in the city — or say nothing and just wish them well.