The Economist March 26th 2022 Business 67W
hen harrytold me that he was
leaving the company, one of the
first things he said to me was that he
didn’t like sentimental goodbyes. I have
decided to take him at his word. Every
thing you will hear me say tonight is
unvarnished and to the point, just like
the man himself.
Harry has been in the finance depart
ment for seven years. In that time he has
not done anything remotely funny. I
asked several people if they had anec
dotes about him, and the best they could
come up with is that he once accidentally
changed a formula in the annual budget
spreadsheet. Since the mistake was
quickly spotted and fixed, it had no
impact at all. I asked Charlotte, who has
worked with you closely for three years,
if she had anything to share. She was
silent for what seemed like hours, and
then said that she thinks you like wal
nuts. (Ah, I see you shaking your head, so
that is neither funny nor true.)
No matter. We do not hire people
because they have an amusing habit of
getting stuck in lifts (yes, Brian, I do
mean you) or promote them because
they can recite pi as a party trick. It is true
that a mediocre colleague who happens
to have some eccentric habits (and yes,
Brian, I still mean you) would have pro
duced a much more enjoyable leaving
event than this painfully stilted affair.
But that should not obscure more impor
tant things. Harry has been a diligent,
competent and wellliked employee. He
has been a good manager. Every job he
has done for us he has done well.
Not so well that he is indispensable,
of course. We did offer him a raise when
we found out he was planning to leave,
but we opted against throwing in a sab
batical. In the end we recognised that he
wanted to go and decided that we wouldcope just fine. There is no shame in that.
Everyone is dispensable; it’s just a ques
tion of how quickly people come to that
realisation. In Harry’s case, it was neither
all that slow nor embarrassingly fast.
Since then, we have all been waiting for
him actually to leave. Once it is known
that a person is moving on from their role,
everyone immediately prices it in. People
with ambition start writing memos about
what they would do if they had that job.
Rebecca’s pitch arrived the day after we
announced your departure. I can see now
that you didn’t know that, and that she
didn’t expect me to mention it.
Meetings quickly start to disappear
from calendars. Decisions are deferred or
simply taken elsewhere. It’s like the period
between an election and an inauguration:
there is someone in office but no one in
power. By the time we get to this point,
holding a glass of Prosecco and staring at
you as if you are an endangered species,
it’s something of a surprise to find that
you still exist.
Will Harry be forgotten? Not at all,
though for reasons that he may not fullygrasp. This is an evening in which the
person who is leaving receives presents
(as well as a card from people whose
names you don’t recognise but who just
loved working with you). But the ex
change goes both ways. The leavers have
a parting gift of their own to bestow: a
convenient scapegoat.
When someone dies, the convention
is not to speak ill of the departed. When
an employee exits a company, it’s the
opposite. Things that don’t work as well
as they should can be laid at the door of
someone who won’t answer back. Frus
trations that have been suppressed can
finally be blamed on someone. When we
speak of you, we will say things like
“Harry had many strengths but...”, and we
will persuade ourselves that you held us
back a bit. This will not be true, but it will
be convenient. I’d like to take this oppor
tunity to tell you that we are grateful for
this final act of service, which can last for
as long as a year after someone has actu
ally left the building.
After that, memories tend to fade. I
wish I could promise you that you are
part of company folklore, or that your
role in banning plastic straws from the
office will reverberate through the ages.
Instead, the only guarantee I can give is
that no one here will ever read your
exitinterview notes.
This may all seem a little sad. You
have spent many years at the company,
and yet will probably leave compara
tively little trace. But you should still feel
pride in your time here. To have done
your work well and to leave at a time of
your choosing are achievements that are
beyond most people (and on both scores,
Brian, I am still thinking of you). So
please raise your glasses to Harry. He has
been an excellent colleague and won’t
really be missed. What would an honest leaving-do speech say?BartlebyThe toast with the most
that secured some money from the judges,
threefifths were run by firsttime entre
preneurs. More than twofifths had female
cofounders and a third were cofounded
by someone from a small city rather than a
business hub like Bangalore, Delhi or
Mumbai. Only nine of the winning busi
nesses had a founder who boasted a degree
from the prestigious engineering and busi
ness schools that are the traditional path
way into India’s economic aristocracy.
Some of the winning pitches seemed
humdrum (banana crisps). Others were in
genious (an engineer whose family had
been devastated by the abrupt death of
their cow developed an electronic ear clip
to monitor bovine health). Some were both
(a bicyclemounted pesticide sprayer).
Even some losing proposals won recogni
tion. Reversible dresses (good for a day in
the office and a night on the town) were
dismissed by one of the judges as suitable
for a mop; his wife subsequently appeared
wearing one on tv.
“Shark Tank” may have struck a chord
because it came at a time when Indians as a
whole were becoming more enterprising.
Indian entrepreneurs have registered over310,000 new businesses in the past two
years, up from 250,000 or so in the previ
ous two (see chart on previous page). The
ranks of retail stockpickers doubled be
tween March 2019 and November 2021, to
77m. Some of this happened out of necessi
ty: the pandemic upended lives and led
millions to seek new opportunities. But
some was probably by choice. The number
of candidates sitting India’s exacting civil
service exam appears to have peaked in2016. Some eggheads whowould once have
become bureaucrats mayhaveopted to be
come capitalists instead.n