The goodbye had to be an email.
My last day at Reality Check was the previous Friday. Then the weekend went sideways. I did not finish out the following week or say goodbye to everyone in person.
So I wrote to the team a few days later.
I had accepted the Director of Systems Operations job at Shutterstock. Reality Check and I had discussed ways I might continue helping, but the events around that final weekend killed the possibility.
In the message I called the event an attack and said it made continued involvement impossible. I did not name a perpetrator or explain the attack further. The company was still working through what happened.
I told the team it had been my sincerest pleasure to work with them and get to know them over the previous eight months. I wished the goodbye could have been more personal and asked them to excuse the email where I had missed the chance to say it properly.
I called them “all Aces.” I meant it.
The exact line was that it had been my sincerest pleasure to work with everyone and that I hoped we would not lose touch. Eight months was the period I gave.
I also offered to help if I could and said I wanted to organize drinks once everyone was out of the woods. I asked the recipients to forward the note to three colleagues whose personal addresses I did not have.
The note ends with my personal contact information and a request not to lose touch.
The email is the goodbye I missed on Friday.
It is also the only goodbye some of the team received from me.