Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren as Steve is on holiday.

Hasta la vista, baby. A pretty good exit line, at least if you’re Arnold. For the rest of us, once we make the decision to move on it’s time for the standard formula; notify our manager, wait to see if there is an exit interview, clean up and hand off any open tasks, and send out a final email letting people you’ve worked with know how to contact you (and catching up on your LinkedIn connections). All while – usually – trying to avoid burning any bridges on the way out.

Most of know that burning bridges is a waste of time and energy and few do it deliberately. What about accidentally though? A long time ago the network administrator of a company I worked with was unhappy with the direction things were taking and decided to seek a new position. Nothing wrong with that. Then he sent his final email and part of it was that he was “moving on to greener pastures and more money”. Not incendiary at all, perhaps it was intended to be funny (and it was, a little it), but it didn’t resonate well.

It’s definitely tempting to do something less formulaic and more memorable when it’s time to go. My sign-off email once included a link to the Killer Bean video which probably resulted in a small drop in companywide productivity on a Friday afternoon!

That has me wondering if you have a great exit line that you use, or one that you’ve seen used? Or an interesting exit tradition at someplace you’ve worked? SQL you later, alligator.