If employee e-mails you after being let go, should you e-mail back to send best wishes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the best ways to avoid litigation is to treat people with decency and kindness whenever you can.

Employment lawyer

Why do you think so many fail at this, then?

Huge number of reasons -- people fail at common etiquette all the time is the biggest one. Second biggest one -- People get tangled up in "litigation avoidance" as meaning that they can't reach out and be human, as in here, which is preposterous. The very rules of evidence are actually structured against the notion that post-tort apologies and the like -- sending flowers to an accident victim in the hospital, for instance -- could be used as evidence of liability -- the rules of evidence explicitly state that such actions cannot be used as evidence of liability. Most people don't realize that such measures are harmless and encoutraged by the law. Third, when lawyers get involved, people begin to legalize every situation and start running common sense notions through a legal filter. It saddens me that the notion of whether to reply to someone's goodbye email (Best of luck Larla! Keep in touch!) is being run through a litigation meter. That's crazy.

Thank you for weighing in with reason. I think it must be very hurtful for people who leave a job (for whatever reason) to feel like the place just smoothly closed over upon their departure as if they were never even there.

It is. I was let go/resigned in a restructuring. Still occasionally have PTSD-type thoughts over how my departure was handled. The shunning was really unnecessary.

Yep. Fucking sucks to suddenly and unexpectedly become persona non grata and be actively shunned by people you saw every day for years. People who can't even respond with "best wishes." Screw modern American business culture. (and I hope every one of those spineless cowards contracts a raging case of drug-resistant syphilis.)