There are two kinds of retirement card. The first says "wishing you a wonderful new chapter", gets signed by forty people who mostly write "all the best", and is in the recycling by Friday. The second gets read aloud in the pub, photographed, and kept. This article is about the second kind.

A retirement is a jailbreak, and the card should acknowledge it. This person has survived decades of meetings that could have been emails, emails that could have been nothing, and at least one team building day involving a hard hat. Here's what to write, depending on who's escaping.

For the colleague you'll actually miss

1. Congratulations on your escape. Send us a postcard from the outside.
2. You gave this place the best years of your life. What a fucking waste. Still, it's over now. Congratulations. (That one's doing so much heavy lifting we put it on the front of a card, for offices that can handle the truth.)
3. Retirement suits you already and you haven't even left the building.
4. Enjoy doing absolutely nothing. You've been in training for years.
5. The place won't be the same without you. It'll be quieter, mainly.
6. You were the only reason the Monday meeting was bearable. I'm not coming in on Mondays now.
7. Congratulations! You've officially finished your emails.

For the honest offices

8. Don't worry about us. We'll replace you with AI and a laminated sign. (Also a card, and I'd argue the definitive retirement card of our era.)
9. Your leaving does at Frankie's, your job does not exist by March. Godspeed.
10. Thanks for your years of service. The fridge thief was never caught. It goes with you, doesn't it.
11. You always said you'd leave. Nobody believed you. Fair play.
12. Retirement: because you can't spend your whole life pretending to care about quarterly objectives.
13. Congratulations on never having to say "can everyone see my screen" again.

For the boss

14. Thanks for being the boss who made work feel less like work. The bar was low. You cleared it beautifully.
15. Congratulations! We promise to keep exactly none of your processes.
16. You led us through mergers, migrations and the Great Printer War of 2019. Rest now.
17. The best boss I've had. I've had four. Take the win.
18. Your out of office is now permanent. We're all very jealous.

For the sentimental moment, briefly

19. Work was better because you were in it. That's the whole message. The rest is padding.
20. Some colleagues become friends. You became family. The kind we like.
21. Whatever this place achieved, you were a large part of it. Now go and be a large part of a garden.
22. You taught me half of what I know. The useful half.

What NOT to write

Small public service announcement. Avoid: "you'll be bored within a month" (they will not, they'll be asleep), anything about "one last spreadsheet", and "keep in touch" unless you mean it, because retired people have time to test that. And never write "happy retirement" alone in a card that forty people are signing. You're better than that. You've read this far, so you're definitely better than that.

The logistics bit

If you're the one buying the card: our leaving and new job cards cover everything from beloved colleague to good riddance, all A6, blank inside with room for the whole office, printed in Manchester. Get the biggest pen you can find, start the signatures in the middle of the card, and don't let Steve from finance go first. He writes enormous.

Now go and give someone a proper send off. They served their time.