"It's so easy to e-mail, and that's the risk, isn't it?" said John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. "Once you've put it out there, you can't get it back."
Vent to your mom or boyfriend, said Alison Doyle, a job search expert on About.com. "You can have all these feelings but you shouldn't necessarily share them. And don't go on about how terrible this is, and 'I don't know how I am gonna buy the groceries.' Err on the side of too little information rather than too much."
Sometimes, though, an angry goodbye e-mail can alter the terms of a layoff in a good way.
For 20 years, Steve Bass wrote for PC World, a magazine with a circulation of 600,000. He had a popular monthly column, a blog and an electronic newsletter called Tips & Tweaks.
In August, in a cost-cutting measure, the magazine said it would pay only for the blog, which could then be "repurposed" for the column.
"At the time, I was devastated," said Bass, 61, who lives in the Pasadena area and has launched a free e-mail newsletter called TechBite. He e-mailed his readers a farewell, revealing his dismay at what he felt had been poor treatment by the magazine. "I lost a hefty chunk of change," Bass wrote. "It's still a stunner. . . . It gets worse. . . . Unfortunately, the guy I had to deal with didn't know how to negotiate. His tactic was to just say no to everything."
Steve Fox, who became PC World's new editorial director shortly after Bass was sacked, said he received about 100 angry e-mails.
"I have to say I was initially perturbed by it," Fox said. "But ultimately it's about business, and having been a freelance writer myself, I understood why he was upset. He is a talented guy. He did not burn a bridge with me, but I would imagine there were other people here who were ticked at what he had done."
Bass was invited to stay on the masthead as a contributing editor and write occasional features.
Richard Bravo, a 34-year-old New Yorker, did not take the blaze-of-glory approach. He was managing editor of DNR (Daily News Record). In November, the 116-year-old menswear trade publication, the oldest title in the Conde Nast stable, was combined with its sister publication, Women's Wear Daily.
He had reason to be miffed. He was three days short of his third anniversary, so his severance credited him for only two years.
