How to Say Goodbye to Coworkers You Barely Know

Here's the short answer. To say goodbye to a coworker you barely know, keep it to four lines: a friendly opener that names them, one specific thing you appreciated (even small), one honest sentence about leaving, and one clear stay-in-touch option. Send it in the channel you already use with that person. No forced coffees. No paragraphs.

Every notice period has this quiet problem. There's a group of coworkers who fall into a middle zone. Not close teammates. Not strangers. People you sat two rows from for a year, or shared a project channel with, or nodded to in the kitchen a hundred times. On your last day, you feel a small tug to say something. Then you freeze because you don't know what to say to someone you didn't really know.

The freeze usually ends one of two ways. You skip them entirely and feel a small pang later. Or you overcorrect with a warm, oversharing paragraph that reads as strange to a near-stranger. Both are avoidable. There's a short middle path that lands well.

The 4-line script for a coworker you barely know

Use this exact structure. Four lines, in this order:

1. Line 1 - name and warm opener. Use their first name. Keep the tone plain. "Hey Priya," or "Hi Marcus," works.
2. Line 2 - one specific thing. Name something concrete they did, said, or contributed. Even small. "Your notes in the customer research doc were unreasonably clear." "Thank you for always answering my Q4 tagging questions." "I still think about your talk at the offsite."
3. Line 3 - the leaving line. State it plainly. "Friday is my last day here." No reason. No new-job details. No apology.
4. Line 4 - the one stay-in-touch option. Give ONE channel. "If you ever want to stay in touch, I'm on LinkedIn." Or: "My personal email is priya@gmail.com if we cross paths again." Not both. One.

Total length: 40 to 70 words. If you're writing more than four lines, you're writing to the wrong person - that person deserves the fuller team farewell email templates, not this short script.

Who actually counts as "barely know"?

Three tests. Any one of these makes them a barely-know:

• You've never had a scheduled 1:1 with them.
• You couldn't name a project you worked on together end-to-end.
• You've never DM'd them about anything unrelated to work.

If all three are true, they belong on the barely-know list. If one or two are true and you feel a real pull to say more, they're a close acquaintance - upgrade the script by adding one more specific memory and skip the numbered structure. Anyone who fails all three tests is a real teammate; write them the longer note they've earned.

Six real examples of the 4-line script

These are the shape. Not templates to paste verbatim - swap in your own names and specifics.

To someone in another department:

Hi Elena,
Thank you for the pricing walkthrough back in March - I still use that spreadsheet.
Friday is my last day at Acme.
If you ever want to stay in touch, I'm on LinkedIn as Sam Reyes.

To a coworker who covered on-call once:

Hey Jordan,
I don't think I ever properly thanked you for taking that Sunday shift for me in July.
This Friday is my last day here.
LinkedIn is the easiest place to find me if we ever cross paths.

To a person in your Slack channel you never met in person:

Hi Ana,
Your bug reports were always the clearest ones on the queue - honestly a small gift.
Friday's my last day.
If you're ever hiring or job-searching down the road, I'm reachable at ana.follows@gmail.com.

To someone senior you barely spoke to but respected:

Hi Rafael,
Your all-hands from Q2 - the one on customer retention - has stayed with me.
This week is my last at the company.
Thank you for the work you do here; wishing you the best.

To someone who joined recently:

Hey Nadia,
Sorry we didn't get more time to work together - I've heard good things about the launch prep you're leading.
Friday is my last day.
Best of luck with what's coming, and feel free to find me on LinkedIn.

To someone whose name you almost forgot:

Hi Priya,
I don't think we ever worked directly, but I always liked seeing your name pop up in the customer channels.
This Friday is my last day.
If you're ever job-searching, I'm happy to help.

Notice what none of these do. None reveal the new job. None promise coffee. None say "we should catch up sometime." A vague coffee promise to a near-stranger reads as filler; it makes the goodbye worse, not warmer.

Where to send it

Channel matters more than most people think. Send it where you already talk to that person.

Slack DM if you both live in Slack. Email if you exchange a few emails a month. In-person if you sit near each other and see them daily. Never LinkedIn as the first contact - a LinkedIn message from someone you barely know reads as job-hunting, not warmth. Save LinkedIn for the stay-in-touch line inside the message, not the medium for delivering it.

Do not batch these into your group farewell email to the whole company or team. The whole point of the 4-line script is that a barely-know coworker gets a personal DM instead of a mass send. If they're in the mass send anyway, you send both - the mass one is boilerplate; the personal one lands because it's short and about them.

When to send it

Two windows work. The rest don't.

Window one: Tuesday or Wednesday of your final week, mid-afternoon. This gives the person time to read it before the group farewell email lands and puts your name in front of them while you're both still online. It also means if they want to reply with their personal email or a real coffee offer, there's still a workday left to answer.

Window two: 3 pm to 5 pm on your actual last day, for anyone you missed in window one. Not 6 pm. Not the morning of. Mid-afternoon on the last day catches people while they're still at their desks and gives you an hour to reply to anything that comes back.

The wrong windows: any time during week one of notice (too early, feels premature), the last Friday evening after 5 pm (they'll see it Monday when you're gone), and anywhere on your gardening-leave or same-day-access-cut layoff day.

What NOT to include

• The name of your next employer. Not in the barely-know note. Not yet. Keep it to "moving on to something new" if pressed.
• A vague "let's grab coffee sometime." This is the single most-recognized filler line in corporate goodbyes. Skip it or replace it with a real date offer if you mean it (and you almost never mean it with a barely-know).
• An apology for not knowing them better. "Sorry we didn't get to work together more" is optional; "I feel bad we never really connected" is over-doing it.
• The reason you're leaving. Not in this short a message. You have a separate script for handling the why-are-you-leaving question if they ask.
• A photo of the team or an inside joke. Inside jokes belong in messages to actual insiders. To a near-stranger they read as trying too hard.

Three mistakes to skip

Mistake one: Writing them a full paragraph. The 4-line script works partly because it's short. A near-stranger writing a warm paragraph is more awkward to read than a quiet two-line goodbye. Trust the constraint.

Mistake two: Copy-pasting the exact same message to twenty people. The specific thing in line 2 is what makes the script land. If you're pasting the same "your work has been great" line to twenty people, the whole thing collapses into performance. Rewrite line 2 for each person, even if it's small.

Mistake three: Skipping people who feel awkward. The whole reason this list exists is that the awkward ones are the ones you'll wonder about later. A 60-word note takes 90 seconds and closes the loop. Skipping it saves the 90 seconds and leaves you with a small residual weeks after you leave.

Four edge cases

You were laid off with same-day access cut. Write these from your personal email over the weekend, using LinkedIn to find people whose personal emails you don't have. Keep the same 4-line structure. Add one sentence acknowledging you didn't get to say goodbye in person.

Fully remote job, never met in person. The 4-line script actually works better here, because you don't have the ambient physical-goodbye pressure. Send the notes via whatever channel you both use most - almost always Slack or email.

You didn't like the person. Skip them entirely; a forced goodbye is worse than none. If you have to write something because they'll see the mass email, keep it to two lines: friendly opener, plain "Friday is my last day." Nothing else.

You are moving to a direct competitor. Same 4-line script, same rules, and definitely no next-employer reveal. If they figure it out later from LinkedIn, that is fine; you don't owe them the reveal now.

The one problem the 4-line script can't solve

You still need the actual list of names. That's the harder half of the job, and it's the part everyone underestimates. Your memory quietly over-weights the loudest people from the last two weeks and drops the quiet contributors from month eight, the cross-functional partner you worked with in Q1, and the two or three people whose names slip your mind now but whose absence you'll feel three months from now. The honest record of who you actually worked with over the last year lives on your calendar, not in your head.

If you want the full list handed to you, upload your calendar to It Was Great Working With You and get it back sorted by contact frequency in under three minutes. That's the who. This post handles the what.

Further reading: The people you'll forget to say goodbye to when you leave your job.