Over the course of the nearly seven years I have worked for my present employer, I have been on the receiving end of countless mass e-mails with some version of "so-and-so is no longer with the company." On a few occasions, that has been followed with something notfiying us that "the code to the front door has been changed."

The most recent e-mails came today.

I knew the contents of the first even before its arrival. The second took me by surprise, but I wasn't altogether shocked, either.

My department manager said it was an "amicable parting," told the 10 of us who were still there late on a Friday that the recently departed former co-worker did excellent work, and that sometimes, things just don't work out. (Well, that and we'd have to come up with a strategy while we were down one person -- a person who'd been doing the job for years and will be difficult to replace.)

Nobody's perfect. And, in this case, I believe it was a "three-strikes-and-you're-out" kind of deal. Today was the third strike.

I'm hoping this person will be able to take the experience and learn from it, though I doubt that's possible.

In nearly seven years, four people in my department have inspired "so-and-so is no longer with the company" e-mails and two have warranted "the code to the front door has been changed."

Today, though, it was different. Today, I was sad.