There’s something quietly devastating about watching someone leave a workplace after 15 years with nothing more than a perfunctory goodbye. Recently, I came across a discussion from someone who’d just witnessed exactly that – a colleague retiring after a decade and a half of service, and not a single morning tea or farewell gift materialised. Just… nothing.

It got me thinking about who actually does this work in our offices, and more importantly, why it so often doesn’t happen at all.