Departing employee e-mails acerbic 'leaving letter' to his colleagues.
An enduring fantasy of many employees who toil in the workaday business world is to use their last day on the job as an opportunity to tell off co-workers and supervisors they have foundinconsiderate, incompetent, or otherwise irritating (but with whom they had to pretend to get along for the sake of workplace harmony and continued employment). Most of us are too civil to turn that fantasy into reality, though, and even the not-so-civil among us usually recognize that the momentary satisfaction to be gained from berating former business associates is not worth the price of burning bridges they may have to cross again someday.No such restraints reined in Cian Kelliher, who on his penultimate day of employment at the Dublin office of the Ernst & Young professional services firm in January 2007 sent out the above-quoted e-mail broadside, a cyber-tirade that lampooned his employer, his supervisors, and his co-workers, and delivered barbs aimed at several colleagues identified by name.Although Mr. Kelliher maintained that his 'leaving letter' was intended as a joke (rather than a genuine expression of animus) and was not original to him (but was based on a text he found on-line), it became a decidedly unfunny issue to his employers when it was - predictably - forwarded outside the company and reproduced across the Internet. A follow-up apology from Mr. Kelliher was required to quell the resulting brouhaha:Hi Guys Last Thursday I sent out a going away email. It was meant to be a joke email but I now realise that it has caused offence / upset and has been passed on to a wider audience than the intended recipients. The text was something I pulled off the Internet. I apologise for any offence that I have caused. I regret that the email could adversely impact on the reputation / good name of Ernst & Young and my former colleagues. I wish to emphasis that none of the comments were meant to be taken seriously. I hold Ernst & Young and my former colleagues in the highest regard. If you have passed on the original email or shown it to anyone outside of the recipient list can you please also pass on this apology and refrain from futher forwarding of the mail. Regards, Cian KelliherA spokesman for the firm afterwards said that 'Ernst & Young considers the matter to be closed.'
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