It’s “déjà vu all over again” for this blogger, who already saw and wrote about tonight’s episode of The Office — both when it was being filmed and as it later aired. What then to post? Well, for good or ill, recent events in the broadcasting world have shed light on an important and recurring topic in our area of practice: ending an employment relationship. Or, in more colloquial terms, we might describe it as “saying goodbye.”

“Beware the Ides of March,” the soothsayer warned Caesar, not long before Brutus et alia facilitated the Roman dictator’s permanent “goodbye” (or “vale“) in 44 B.C. And now, with the ides still a few days away in 2011 A.D., the month of March has already offered up three high-profile examples of other “goodbyes” in the public arena. While lacking complete information about the separations in question, we can look to their published accounts as representing a broad spectrum of employee departures. In order of ascending preference...