Open bag, release cat

I was in Utah skiing for a week which was a much needed break from the whole Taiwan situation. An entire week unconsumed by the move. There was some anxiety over ther fact that I was still waiting to hear back from Taiwan HR on the final #'s and the HR rep, as it turns out, was out of the office. Hence, my emails and texts went unreturned. Soon after she came back to work we ironed out the final details and settled on a May 3 start date in Taiwan. They will now prepare the final contract but I think it's a done deal.

Word started to leak out at work as my boss started advising some people of the potential vacancy so I decided I had better draft an email to some people that deserve to know before hearing it at the water cooler:

Since the cat is out of the bag and I'd rather you hear it from me than the rumor mill (if it's not already too late)...

I've communicated my intent to transfer to [my company division] in Taiwan. My wife will be coming along as soon as she finishes out the school year and is very excited about the change. All details haven't been ironed out yet but it looks like the plan will be 3-5 years with me leaving around May 1.

I'm glad someone created the phrase "broadening your horizons" because that about sums up the reason why.

We'll work on transitioning my roles on [this project] and [that project] over the next couple months.

I sent this out to some project members and friends. I put everyone on bcc so there's no endless loop of "reply to all" followed by "stop replying all" (sent to all). It's not top secret.

-Mike
 
It was one of those emails that you compose at the end of the day and then click "send" and bolt out the door like you're holding a grenade pin.
 
When my wife started informing her work colleagues a couple weeks ago she emailed me that one of her mentees was crying having heard the news of her pending departure. I shrugged it off and thought, "typical women", right? What I was not prepared for was receiving a similar, yet more manly, reaction from my colleagues as some of the 20 or so I emailed were quick to tell me that the division was suffering a real loss in my leaving. It is especially touching when it comes from someone who is a bit like me, umm, let's just say not too quick with the compliments. I figured emailing 20 people in a building of 800 was about the right signal to noise ratio to get the word out.
 
In each of the past 2 days since breaking the news I've had several people come up to me asking what the whole story is. I wonder how long this will continue? Probably 3 months...