Card ideas
What to write
in a retirement card.
Most retirement cards say some version of 'enjoy the well-earned rest'. The person has just finished a working life and would probably rather hear what it amounted to. Here is what to write instead.
About the work
- You trained half this department and most of us are still doing it your way.
- Thirty one years. I cannot get my head round the number, and I have only seen the last four of them.
- The place ran on you knowing where everything was. Nobody has said that out loud and someone should.
- You were the person everyone quietly went to when it had gone wrong. That is a whole job on top of your actual job.
About them
- You have never once been in a bad mood in the kitchen at 8am. I genuinely do not understand how.
- Best laugh in the building. It is going to be very quiet.
- You are the reason I stayed past the first year.
If you want it funny
- Thirty years of service and you still cannot work the printer. Consistency, that.
- Enjoy it. Do not come back in three weeks 'just to help out'. We both know you will.
- Taking your parking space. It has been agreed. Do not fight it.
If you want it sincere
- Thank you for the years you gave this place, and for being decent to everyone the whole way through it.
- I hope you get to be completely, gloriously bored.
- Go and do the things you kept saying you would do.
What makes a good one
Name the span
Thirty one years is a fact worth stating. Numbers make it real.
Say what they were good at
Not 'you will be missed'. What, exactly, will be missed.
Avoid the golf jokes
Unless they play golf. Then one, maximum.
Write to the person, not the milestone
They are not retiring at you.
Questions
Say the number of years out loud, then one thing they were reliably good at. Length of service is the whole story and most cards skip past it.
One joke then one true thing is the strongest shape. Pure comedy reads as avoidance, pure sentiment reads as a eulogy.
Thank them for something specific you personally relied on. Coming from a manager, specificity is the compliment.
Or do not use a card.
A card gets four names and no stories. Send one link instead and everyone writes properly, on their own, without reading what the person above put. Free, and nobody you send it to has to sign up.