Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

So many forms of corporate communications have been impacted by social media; even the classic letter of resignation has been threatened.

</font-size=”6px”>

Why bother with a bloated and often disingenuous letter, when you can cram your message into 140 words or less? That’s what founder of Groupon Andrew Mason did last week after he was shown the door. In his departure tweet, Mason had the good humor to dust off a standard corporate cliché to set up his punch line:  “After four and a half intense and wonderful years as C.E.O. of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding — I was fired today.”

In 2010, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz got the ball rolling on this trend, tweeting “Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/C.E.O. no more.”

It’s a fascinating twist on messaging when executives – and employees for that matter – are given the boot. How this might become a powder keg was on display in an episode of Netflix’s critically acclaimed original series “House of Cards.” The scene involves editor Tom Hammerschmidt, who, at the behest of his publisher, begrudgingly offers the White House correspondent job to a young, ambitious, rising star reporter named Zoe Barnes. When Barnes turns the job down, he calls her an “ungrateful, self-entitled little (expletive)” and fires her. While the confrontation has Tom steaming, Zoe calmly pulls out her smartphone in front of him and tweets to her legion of followers what he’s said and done. The end result is that Tom is forced to step down and Zoe lands a new job at a political blog.

How will this all play out in the future?  For good or bad, it’s possible that more and more corporate
goodbyes will trend toward bluntness and, gulp, honesty.

— Ron Neal, rneal@pondel.com