DealBreaker's Guide To Getting Laid Off: A Modest Resignation Notice
So you're a first year and just got laid off, excuse me, finished your course load early. Not much left to do but pack up your shit and mosey on out of there, right? Wrong, you unimaginative fucks. First, you need to gather the e-mail address every single client, colleague, superior, family member, frat brother, and journalist you've ever encountered or thought about encountering in the last decade. Second, you need to fill out the form letter that follows (not that you aren't all special in your own way, but minimal variation is necessary, and I'm not paid enough to work on a case per case basis. If you'd like something one of a kind, it's going to cost extra).
Anyway, the letter. It serves multiple functions: first, it violates your employer in the most gruesome fashion in front of clients and other interested parties. Second, you "leverage" your experience to make yourself sound better than you are (if your three months on Wall Street have taught you anything, it should be that leverage offers handy short-term gains. Dick Fuld knows what we're talkin' about here). And third, it will amuse us, which is this only solace I take from this hellish Siberia of financial journalism. Please, when you send said letter, I implore you, stick us on the BCC (unless you've got a pair bigger than Oyster Boy's, in which case, feel free to add us as your legal adviser at the bottom).
To: All parties CC:ed
Importance: high as FUCK
Subject: mayday
To whom it most definitely concerns,
[Name of firm] is going to tell you I was "let go" today, as part of a right-sizing effort. But it is a bold-faced lie. I am leaving of my own accord because THIS SHIP IS SINKING. I suggest you do the same. Here is the shit, feel free, nay, encouraged, to disseminate widely: Our balance sheet is completely made up. Our CFO, [fill in name here], selects random bar code numbers in place of the true horror story that will soon engulf this cesspool and consign it to the scrap heap of corporate history. In truth, [insert CEO here] has been a straw man for years [or months when warranted] and I have been propping this place up like Atlas.
Exhausted from swimming against an endless tide of ineptitude (not to mention a constant barrage of same-sex harassment by [insert name of CEO here]), I have decided to move on. To those of you shocked by these revelations, fear not! I offer a port in the storm: I am starting up a hedge fund the strategy of which cannot be disclosed over email because of its sheer fucking awesomeness. If you act quickly, I will trim my fees for the first $2bn in AUM with an 8-year lockup.
At the very least, for the love of God, pull your money and cease all relationships with the shithouse known as [insert name of firm here]. I have it on good authority that Bernanke himself has it in for this dump, and there will be no bailout should one be necessary. And I assure, it will be.
All the best,
[Your name here]
