Retirement Messages for a Coworker
You sat near them for years, which is more hours than most friendships get. The card should sound like that rather than like a company statement.
- The one rule
- Write about the desk, not the organisation. You knew them at close range — use it.
- On a group card
- One line, your own, plus your name. Read what is already there so you do not repeat it.
- If you never spoke much
- Say one true small thing. "You always said good morning first" is a real observation and lands better than praise you cannot back up.
Short, for a group card
- 1
Happy retirement — it has been a genuine pleasure sitting near you.
- 2
All the best. The place will be quieter and worse.
- 3
Thank you for nine years of good company. Enjoy every minute of this.
- 4
Happy retirement. Do not come back.
- 5
Wishing you a brilliant retirement, from the other end of the office.
The specific thing you will actually miss
Small and true beats large and general every time.
- 6
I am going to miss the running commentary on the car park more than I can explain.
- 7
Nobody else knows which printer works. This is now my problem and I resent it.
- 8
You made the first ten minutes of every Monday bearable. That is not nothing.
- 9
I will miss you leaning over and saying "have you seen this" about six times a day.
When you worked side by side for years
- 10
Eleven years opposite each other. I have spent more waking hours with you than with most of my family, and it has been good ones.
- 11
We got through two restructures, one flood and that entire summer of the new system. Thank you for all of it.
- 12
You have talked me out of resigning at least three times. Two of those were the right call.
Thanking them for the everyday help
- 13
Thank you for every time you answered a question you had already answered.
- 14
You covered for me the week my father was ill and never once mentioned it afterwards. I have not forgotten.
- 15
Thank you for showing me where everything actually is, as opposed to where the handbook says it is.
Funny, at the job’s expense
- 16
Happy retirement. You are now free of the all-staff email.
- 17
Enjoy your retirement, and think of us every Tuesday at ten.
- 18
You are taking twenty years of undocumented knowledge out of this building and we all know it.
- 19
Congratulations. Your login will be deactivated and your legend will not.
If you did not know them well
- 20
Happy retirement. I hope it is a very good one.
- 21
We did not overlap much, but you were always kind when we did. Enjoy it.
- 22
With best wishes for a long and happy retirement.
A work anniversary, while they are still here
The same card, one occasion earlier. Mark the years without pretending it is a leaving do.
- 23
Twenty years today. Thank you for every one of them.
- 24
Happy work anniversary. A decade of this and you are still cheerful, which is suspicious.
- 25
Congratulations on ten years with us, and thank you for your work throughout.
Staying in touch
- 26
Do not vanish. My number has not changed and I will use it.
- 27
Lunch, October, my shout. I will book it so you cannot avoid it.
- 28
You are still on the group and you are still expected at the Christmas one.
Questions people actually ask
What do you write in a retirement card for a coworker?
Something only a colleague would know. The desk-level detail — what they said every Monday, which drawer had the good pens, the thing they always noticed — is the part a company card cannot contain and the part they will read twice.
What do you write on a group retirement card?
One line of your own plus your name, and read the card before you write so you are not the fourth person to say they will be missed.
What do you write for a coworker you barely know?
One true, small, kind observation and a good wish. Do not attempt warmth you cannot evidence — it is obvious on paper.
Is it appropriate to be funny on a coworker’s retirement card?
Yes, if the joke is about the work. Jokes about their age or their ability to cope with free time are the two that reliably land wrong.