Departing Employee Not Quite Important Enough For Send-Off

ATLANTA—Noting the distinct lack of fanfare surrounding his departure last Friday, employees at Empire Marketing Solutions concluded that sales associate Brent Wheeler was not quite important enough to warrant a formal send-off on his last day of work. “A few weeks ago there was a whole big gathering for Paul with cupcakes and everything, but for Brent, there was just this one-sentence mention in our weekly update email from our office manager that was mostly about the break room refrigerator policy,” said coworker Dana Oppenheim, adding that a couple people who happened to see Wheeler heading for the door at the end of the day did take a moment to wish him well. “So that’s it, I guess. He’s gone now.” Oppenheim added, however, that Wheeler’s unheralded exit made sense given that in five years at the company he had never become important enough for coworkers to acknowledge his birthday.