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Pink Slip Literature

Though I am a veteran of many job changes, I am yet to write any kind of memorable farewell email.Unless I suddenly take leave of my senses I probably never will. I stick with the well-worn, yawn-inducing cliches and don't say too much. I have however, come across some interesting mails from others who don't set much store by prudence or caution.

These mails get your attention and get talked about by the water-cooler. I used to wonder what might provoke someone to leave a job with a resounding last word.Apparently they are in good company.This article talks about the emergence of a new art form - the farewell email.

The farewell e-mail has suddenly become commonplace, a new art form in the electronic age. Yet like so many aspects of the Internet era -- how to unfriend on Facebook, how much to reveal on a personal blog -- the technology has gotten ahead of the etiquette. There are, quite simply, no rules.

The last time pink slips made so much news was probably when the dot-com bubble burst. Reading this old NYT article on the dot-com survivors brings back to mind the mayhem in the job-market at the time. The ability to find humor in adversity is no less important today than it was then.

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