What to Write in a Leaving Card

Somebody has put a card on your desk and it already has eleven signatures on it. You have about ninety seconds before it moves on. This page is sorted by who is leaving and why, because that is the thing you actually know, and it changes what you should write more than anything else does.

Start here. What kind of leaving is this?

Answer three questions before you write anything. It takes half a minute and it rules out most of the ways this goes wrong.

1. Did they jump, or were they pushed?

This is the one that changes everything.

If they chose to go, it is a safe occasion. New job, retirement, moving away, going travelling. You can take the mickey out of them directly and it reads as affection, because nothing has been taken from them.

If it was decided for them, it is a wound. Redundancy, being managed out, ill health, a restructure with their name on it. On a wound, the joke goes at the company, never at the person. Same joke, wrong target, and it lands as a kick. “You’ll be missed” is fine when they chose to go. It is hollow when they did not.

If you are not sure which one this is, assume pushed. The cost of getting it wrong in that direction is a card that is slightly too kind.

2. Was it announced, or was it confided?

Announced means the all-staff email went round, the leaving do is in the diary, everyone knows. A card is expected and a joke is safe.

Confided means they told you quietly, they told about four people, and there is no card going round yet. That information arrived as trust, not as news. Answering it with a punchline is a betrayal even when the joke is good and even when it is aimed correctly. If nobody has started a collection, do not start one.

Quick test: does everyone know? Announced. Did one person tell you afterwards? That is a story, not an occasion. Do a handful know, told carefully? Leave it alone.

3. Who is going to read this out loud?

A leaving card gets opened at a desk, usually in front of people, sometimes in front of the person’s manager, occasionally in front of their family at a do. It is the least private thing in the building.

So write the line you would be happy to have read out with you standing there. If a line only works because the person cannot answer back, it is not a joke. It is a last word. Those never land the way you think they will.

That is it. Jumped or pushed, announced or confided, and would you say it out loud. Everything below assumes you have answered those three.

For a colleague

Most leaving cards get signed by twenty people who all write “Good luck!” and then panic about the empty space underneath. You do not need a paragraph. One line that sounds like you is worth more than four that sound like a corporate email.

These work for someone you got on with, who chose to go, and who you are not especially close to. Which is most people.

For a work friend

This is the hard one. Not because you cannot think of anything, but because the honest version is too much and the polite version is not enough.

The trick is to say the warm thing once, flatly, and then get out. Do not build up to it. Do not explain it. A single unadorned sentence does more work than a paragraph, and it is much easier to write.

For your manager or boss

Two completely different cards live under this heading, and Google will not tell you which one you need.

If they were a good manager, say the specific thing they actually did. Nobody ever tells managers that, and a concrete sentence will mean more to them than anything general.

If they were not a good manager, go to the last section on this page.

One warning that applies to both: a leaving card for a manager gets read by the next manager. Write accordingly.

If they were good:

If they were not:

For a teacher

The buyer here is usually a parent, and the recipient has spent a year with your child. Specific beats effusive every time. Name the thing they actually did.

One rule: the joke goes on you or your kid, never on the teacher. They are leaving a job, not being roasted at a leaving do.

For someone going on maternity leave

This is not a leaving card. It is a see-you-later card, and the difference matters, because half of what gets written in these accidentally reads like a goodbye. Nobody wants to be handed a card that implies their career just ended.

The other trap: the joke never goes on the baby. Aim it at the office, at the sleep, or at yourself.

For someone you barely know

Google autocompletes “what to write in a farewell card for someone you don’t know”, which tells you how common this is and how little anyone admits it. You have been handed a card for a person whose name you are ninety percent sure of.

The answer is not to fake a relationship. It is to be honest and brief about it, which is funnier and reads better than a forged sentiment.

The rude and funny lane

This is the section most people came for, and it is the one where it goes wrong most often.

A rude leaving card line has to survive being read out at the desk, in front of the person, by someone who was not in on it. If it only works because they cannot answer back, it is not a joke.

The reliable structure: say the polite thing, then flatly deny it. Or admit you are the problem. Both land. Cruelty does not.

When they are starting a new job

A leaving card and a new job card are two different cards, and most people write the first one by accident.

Everything about a send-off is framed as loss. We will miss you. It will not be the same. Who is doing the rota now. All true, and all of it about the people staying. If they have actually got somewhere better, the line that lands is the one that mentions what they are walking towards, not what they are leaving behind. One trap, and it is a real one: this card is going round an office and their manager is going to sign it too, so keep the escaped-at-last material for the pub.

If the new job is the whole point of the card rather than the goodbye, the leaving and new job cards are the shelf to start on.

When they were pushed, not when they jumped

Redundancy is not a leaving do. The card still goes round, because the card always goes round, but everything you would normally write is now wrong. “Good luck in the new place” assumes there is one. “You’ll be missed” is what you say to someone who chose to go.

Here is the only rule that matters, and it fixes almost every line: aim it at the company, never at them. They did not do this. It was done to them. Anything that lands on the person reads as pity or as a dig, and both are worse than saying nothing. Anything that lands on the employer reads as solidarity, and solidarity is the entire job of this card.

The second rule: do not offer a silver lining. “Everything happens for a reason” and “it might be a blessing” are the two things people who have just been made redundant report hating most. You are not required to make it better. You are required to be on their side.

When they are retiring

Retirement is safe. Nothing has been taken from them, they chose this, and they have almost certainly been counting down for two years. So the joke can go straight at them, warmly. This is the one section on this page where teasing the person is the right move.

The card usually goes round twenty desks and gets handed over at a do, so write for reading aloud.

When you did not like them

This is the most asked and least answered question about leaving cards, so here is the honest version.

Can you write something pointed about someone who made your life difficult? Yes. Should you? Almost certainly not, and not for the reason you have been given.

The usual advice is “rise above it”, which is useless because it explains nothing. Here is the actual mechanics of why the pointed line fails.

They will not recognise themselves. This is the part people get wrong. Someone who bullied you, took credit for your work, or made every Monday worse does not think of themselves that way. Your carefully aimed sentence gets read as a slightly odd compliment, and they move on with their day. The person it lands on is you, because you now have to sit with having written it.

Everyone else will recognise it, and it will read as bitter. Sarcasm needs tone of voice, and a card has none. The line that sounds withering in your head reads flat on the page, and the twenty colleagues who see it before it is handed over will read it as you having a go at someone on their last day. That is a story about you now.

If you have to explain it afterwards, it failed. Any line that needs you to tell a colleague what you actually meant has not worked. That is the test.

So what does work?

Sign your name and nothing else. This is the loudest thing available and it is completely deniable. In a card where everyone else has written three lines, a bare signature is unmistakable to the one person it is for, and invisible to everyone else. Nobody can accuse you of anything, because you did exactly what you were asked to do.

Or write something correct and short. “Good luck.” “All the best.” Full stop, nothing after it. Brevity does the work. It is unarguable and it says everything.

Or do not sign it at all. Perfectly legitimate. You are allowed.

One last thing, and it matters more than the rest of this page. If what happened to you was bullying or harassment rather than someone being irritating, a leaving card is the wrong instrument entirely and it will not give you what you are after. That goes to HR, or to a union, or to someone outside the company. Not into a biro, on their last day, in front of everyone. You deserve a better outcome than the one a card can give you.

Still need the card itself?

We make leaving cards for the occasions that actually happen. Redundancy, retirement, the colleague who never shut up, and the collection that never quite reached its target.

Blank inside, so the words above are yours. Printed and posted in the UK.

Browse the leaving cards

The cards we print for this

Written for the last day, the whip-round and the card going round while they sit ten feet away. Blank inside, printed and posted in the UK.

See all the leaving and new job cards.