Farewell

The message below was recently sent out by a long-serving employee in my company. Some details are intentionally masked to maintain some confidentiality. Otherwise nothing else is changed (including spelling and grammatical errors).

 

"Today I have reached my retirement and also my last working day with xxxx. It has been a wonderful and memorable 36 years and 5 months if I'm not wrong with this great international organization. It's time for me to bit farewell and goodbye to my colleagues, friends, for those who knows me and also to my current and previous OIC and supervisor, and also not to forget all the RMs from various units, which I have been working with. My heartiest thanks to all for your kind co-operation, quidance, patience, teamwork and most of all your friendship and understandings.

 

I wish all of you continues success and best of luck, especially to those tellers(ladies) from xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with I have spend half of my working life with them. It has been most unforgettable, wonderful, memorable and most of all I'm going to miss you guys ladies talk and gossips. Anyway it has been a great pleasure working with all of you and I would like to express my sincere apologies for any inconviences caused.

 

My very best wishes to all of you and do keep in touch. I can be contacted at my H/P xxxxxxxx.

 

GOOD-BYE"

 

 

This was then followed by a very gracious message from the CEO:

 

"xxxxxxx,

 

On behalf of everybody at xxxxxxx, let me say a big THANK YOU for giving almost 37 years of your life to this company. Your contributions are lauded, and your presence will be missed. After such a long period, it should not be Good Bye, but rather, the Italian "Arrivederci".. till we meet again. Because at xxxxx, you will always find a home..

 

Wishing you the best in your retirement,

 

xxxxxx"

All the sentimentality got me thinking. What if I was the old-timer? What would the CEO say? My twisted mind got to work:

 

"So, you finally decided to call it quits. Got tired fighting the system heh? Whatever it is, you can't deny that we've helped you buy a house, a car and looked after your medical benefits right? While those are tangible things, what about those lunches with der happening chicks? Yeah, I admit there are quite a lot of scumbags too but that's der fact of life and every company has a fair share of them. Anyways, like der Hokkien phase, just "KNN" them like how you did - they deserve it anyway. We're sorry we took away your chance to run more often but having work is better than being downsized isn't it? Else how are we to justify your fat paycheck? Wishing you der best in your running. Always remember to pia kau kau lat!"