There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes with losing a great employee. Not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because they’ve been offered an opportunity they deserve, and as much as you wish you could keep them, you know you have to let them go.
After eight years, saying goodbye to someone who has been such a big part of your business feels like so much more than a professional transition. It feels personal. Because it is.
Amelia joined us a few years before COVID, which means we’ve lived through some pretty extraordinary times together. We navigated professional challenges, personal struggles, uncertainty, and all the curveballs that life and business threw at us when we least expected them. We adapted, pivoted, problem-solved, and kept moving forward, even when the path ahead wasn’t entirely clear.
And somewhere along the way, we became more than colleagues.
That’s one of the interesting things about running a small, family-owned business. The lines between work and life can blur in ways that are difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. You spend your days building something together, but you also share pieces of your lives along the way. You celebrate the wins, help each other through the hard stuff, and accumulate a thousand little moments that eventually become a shared history.
Over eight years, those moments add up.
There were annual team trips to incredible places, adventures we still talk about, and nights when we laughed so hard we cried. There were big ideas scribbled on whiteboards, brainstorming sessions that turned into something real, and strategies that helped us build things I’m genuinely proud of and I hope she is, too. There were stressful days, difficult decisions, and moments when we simply had to figure out what came next.
We did it together.
I know some people believe getting too close to your employees is a mistake. That business is business, boundaries matter, and allowing your team to become an extension of your family creates unnecessary complications - all of this is true.
When people leave, it hurts. When the business is personal, change can feel personal, too. And when someone you've come to rely on, laugh with, trust, and genuinely care about moves on, there’s no neat little box that can contain all the feelings that come with it - I know, because I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to contain all those feelings!
But here’s what I keep coming back to: If the price of caring deeply is that it hurts deeply when someone leaves, I’m not sure I want to run a business any other way.
We’re a small company. We don’t have hundreds of employees or layers of departments separating us. We work closely, celebrate together, solve problems together, and see each other through seasons of life that have nothing to do with quarterly goals or marketing plans.
Of course we have become attached.
The very things that make a small business special are often the same things that make it vulnerable. We invest in people, not just positions. We build trust over time. We create a culture rooted in relationships, shared experiences, and the feeling that we're all in this together.
And then, sometimes, someone outgrows the role they've held with us. An opportunity comes along that offers something new, something bigger, or something they simply need to explore.
And we have to let them go.
I keep thinking about the idea of someone flying the nest, although that analogy doesn’t feel quite right. I know Amelia isn't a fledgling who needs to learn how to fly. She's an accomplished professional who has spent eight years growing, contributing, leading, and helping build something meaningful. She isn't leaving because she can't make it here. She's leaving because she's ready to see what else is possible.
I am incredibly proud of her and still wish she were staying. I want good things for her future and it still hurts knowing our everyday routines are about to change. I’m trying to celebrate her next chapter while quietly grieving the end of this one. All proof two things can be true at the same time.
This goodbye isn't just about losing a talented employee. It's about the end of a chapter we wrote together. It's about knowing things won't look quite the same without her, that some of our shared jokes and familiar routines will become memories, and that the team we've known for so long is about to look a little different.
There will be a new normal to find. New rhythms to establish. New people and opportunities to embrace.
But there will also be eight years of memories that don't disappear just because her email address is changing.
We don't get to keep people forever. We can't control how long someone stays, what opportunities come their way, or when they decide it's time for something new. We can build a wonderful workplace, create meaningful relationships, and give people every reason to love what they do, and still not be the place where they spend the rest of their careers.
This goodbye hurts.
I'm going to miss having her here. I'll miss the familiar, the comfortable, and the feeling of knowing she's part of what comes next. And I suspect there will be plenty of moments over the coming months when something happens and my first thought will be that I need to tell her.
And I'll probably tell her anyway. Because let’s be honest I like to talk and she can’t get rid of me that easily.
I'll take the heartache.
I'll take the memories.
I'll take the privilege of having worked alongside someone who made these eight years better than they would have been without her.
And I'll keep building the kind of business where people feel like family, even knowing that one day, I might have to say goodbye to them, too.
Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that a little heartbreak is a fair price to pay for eight years that mattered.
Written from the heart, edited with a little help from ChatGPT.
Laurie Moore serves as the President and C.F.O. (Chief Fun Officer) at PromoCorner, a digtial marketing company serving the promotional products industry for 25 years. She has been a volunteer with the March of Dimes since 2004, and is strong proponent of giving back. Her proudest life achievment is raising 4 insanely independent daughters. In her spare time she enjoys bargain hunting, traveling, watching HGTV, relaxing at the beach and drinking wine.