Memorable farewells

The observation on another thread that newsrooms aren't good anymore for much but going-away cake "celebrations" got me to thinking that farewell cake, pizza, etc., has dwindled in these days of buyouts and layoffs, at least where I've worked. Didn't have any at my last shop when people took buyouts, and I don't think it bothered anyone. At my longtime former paper, the tone-deaf assistant management editor wanted to bring in a cake after one of the first rounds of buyouts 10 years ago, but a departing copy editor with a reputation for being a bit pugnacious told him if he did, she'd smash it in his face.

Thinking back, though, I've seen some memorable final-day scenes involving departing employees. Possibly the best was at my first paper in the early '80s when a talented reporter who never got along well with management showed up four hours late for his final shift, drinking a bottle of Old Style (and he'd obviously had a few before his arrival). He was the first departing employee (but far from the last) I heard say, "What can they do -- fire me?" The city editor came over, told him he was excused from work for the rest of the day and wished him luck.

A close second was the finale of Sharon Rosenhause, the Sun Sentinel's managing editor when things began to go bad. After consuming a liquid lunch on her last day, she returned to the office and spent awhile tottering drunkenly around the newsroom before making a merciful exit.

Anyone else have similar stories?

 

I worked at a weekly in the mid-80s where one of the reporters was asked to come in early the next day to meet with his editor. The reporter had already seen a memo stating he was going to be laid off and they wanted to get him out of the office before the rest of us arrived. But the guy took like four hours to clean out his desk, telling each of us what a-holes management was as we showed up.

 

I commandeered the executive editor’s corner office (he had departed a month or two prior) for my last week.

 

There was a mass layoff at my paper—I want to say 100 or so let go at once. Just about everybody ended up in a bar mid-afternoon. I was young. That's the first time I understood that journalists deal with layoffs by getting drunk and then fucking each other like donkeys. That bar was like the Playboy Mansion in 1972. Every toilet stall had at least two sets of feet in it.

 

I dropped a "F-- you, I quit" in the middle of the McKinney (Tex.) Star-Telegram news room. Exit strategy was prepared. It was awesome. Always wanted to do that. Cell phone was ringing non-stop with congratulations for hours after that.

 

We were supposed to clean up our desks for a corporate visit.
One reporter proceeds to really clean her desk; drawers, cleared off the top of the desk. Nothing but the monitor and keyboard. She asks the guy sitting next to her to help carry a box of this crap out to her car. He'd worked there for a like a week.
She's leading him out of the newsrooms, stops turns to us, and declares she's quitting and says good-bye. He's standing there, all "WTF do I do now?" before he continues to help her get the stuff to her car. No one ever saw her again. She had worked there for like 10 years.

Thirty minutes later, the editor, who was buried in his work, or maybe on the phone, hollers for her - to give her an assignment. He had no clue she up and quit. He was oblivious.
Neither the reporter, nor the editor have lived that down.

 

Ryan Kelly took a Pulitzer--prizing winning photo:
Pulitzer Winner Took Photo on His Last Day at Work

 

Probably just memorable to me, but I learned something on my last day at a small daily in northern Michigan.

We had a one-man human resources/business manager department, and he wanted to do an exit interview with me. I told him, "I don't want to say anything negative about anyone," but he insisted I give him an honest evaluation of my boss, the managing editor. "Don't worry, this will stay anonymous," the HR guy told me.

His office was upstairs. When I was done, I went to grab something at a vending machine, then walked back to the newsroom. By the time I got there the ME was already glaring at me, and later he stomped past me when he left for the day.

Lesson learned.

 

First job out of college, SE at a twice-weekly that was going daily within a year...I'd been there a month, went out to first day of HS football practice to introduce myself to the coaches...returned back to the office several hours later and was greeted by an eerie silence. Being young, brash and dumb (one of which I am no longer, mind you) I belted out, "What's going on! This place sounds like a morgue!"...at which the publisher came to the door of his office and motioned me over...only then as I walked past the mark-ups did I see tomorrow's headline, "Podunk Paper Ceases Publication."

I was so angry at the fucker who hired me (a longtime mentor of mine) that I couldn't stand the thought of attending the wake that evening.

 

It's never too late, you know, to call that HR guy and say, "You're a fucking asshole."

 

A couple years ago, our business manager, who had been there awhile, got her paycheck on Friday and noticed it was much larger than usual. She went to the controller to point it out, and the controller (somewhat sheepishly I would think) told her that was her severance pay. They were going to tell her she was laid off the following Monday, but the parent company put in the severance pay too early.
Some months earlier, the manager's husband had redecorated his office and had no use for his old conference room chairs, so our manager brought them into our conference room, which had old beat-up chairs.
That weekend, her and her spouse came in to clean out her office and they took the chairs out of the conference room, loaded them up in a truck and left with them. When, I heard about that the next week, I laughed my ass off.