My Honest Farewell Email To My Coworkers

======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====

Hello everyone,

As most of you know, today is my final day working in Treasury, and I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts: “Maybe the real treasure in Treasury is the friends we make along the way.”

Maybe it’s not though, you know?

It’s not that the friendships I made along the way don’t matter to me; they do. Some of you will remain in my “recents” on Slack for days to come. Some of you, I might even suggest grabbing coffee with from time to time. We won’t get that coffee, but it’s nice to ask.

But most of you — while wonderful, brilliant, accomplished people — are still just another person I’ve worked with or near or for over the last fifteen months with whom I avoid eye contact while walking towards each other in the hall until the last possible second. In fact, most of corporate life is just that; not making eye contact too early. But now I start anew, with fresh eyes to avoid and new fake smiles to force and new people to please.

Perhaps we’ll meet again someday. I’ll be in a different corner of the Schill or Baileys or some other overpriced dive bar we frequent when departing this building on Thursdays so we can feel that the people we work alongside are not only coworkers, but friends. Of course, if we were really friends and not just coworkers, we’d be able to socialize without said overpriced beverage in hand, but that’s a story for a never time. I’ll glance from the corner of the bar where I perch, going through the motions of talking about my commute with a new group of disinterested colleagues and see you. We’ll make eye contact for a fleeting moment as all the old memories rush back. You’ll think of the time I showed you how to Vlookup in Excel, or the time I showed you how to link tabs in Excel, or when you asked me to show you where that document I’d sent was and I showed you that document and you said “thanks” and then I returned to my desk where time stood still. It’ll be great.

Maybe we’ll share an elevator one day and we’ll exchange pleasantries before staring at the changing floor number on the screen in the corner as if we really need to keep an eye on it or else we might lose focus and get off on the wrong floor. I hope it’s not a Wednesday. Wednesdays are a bad day for small talk. You can’t ask about someone’s plans for the upcoming week, because that’s just way too far away. And you can’t ask them about what they did last weekend, because that’s ancient history. And are we really that interested in each other’s lives that for the two days we spend outside of the same building we need to ask what each other is going to do and then follow up afterward to make sure that what they said they were going to do is, in fact, what they did? I think not.

That being said, if anyone wants to come to the Schill tonight for a ceremonial adult beverage and some forced conversation, I’d be honored. Calendar invite to follow. .

40

Respond

Email this to a friend

Hey, I saw this on Post Grad Problems. Check it out.

Unenthused