Chad Is Leaving the Company, and His Farewell Slideshow Deserves a Glow-Up

Every workplace in America has a Chad. Maybe his name isn't Chad, but you know the guy — the one who's been in the cubicle farm so long he has opinions about the good parking spots. And when Chad announces he's leaving for a new opportunity (or, let's be real, retirement and a fishing boat), someone in HR inevitably whispers the words that strike fear into every party planner's heart: "We're doing a slideshow."

We need to talk about that slideshow. Because right now, it's a crime scene.

The Farewell Montage Is a National Institution (With a Production Problem)

From Des Moines to Dayton, the office send-off follows a script older than the fax machine: a conference room, a sheet cake from the grocery store bakery, and a projector chugging through decade-old photos that look like they were taken on a potato. Someone inevitably included a picture so cropped you can see the edge of a different photo behind it. Someone else used the WordArt option. Nobody talks about it, but everybody remembers it.

Here's the thing nobody admits: those photos aren't bad because they're old. They're bad because nobody did anything with them. A photo of Chad in a Santa hat at the 2014 holiday party isn't just a photo — it's an artifact. It deserves a frame. Or at minimum, a little shimmer.

Why a Glitter Edit Works When Nothing Else Does

There's a psychological phenomenon we just made up called the Sparkle Halo: when a photo has even a modest touch of glitter, viewers assume care went into it. The pixel dust says "we loved this guy" in a way that a default transition never could. A slow zoom on a grainy photo of Chad at the company picnic says "deadline." The same photo with a soft sparkle trail says "we're going to miss you, buddy, and we're not crying, you're crying."

It's emotional judo. The glitter does the sentimentality so the slide captions don't have to.

The How-To: Shimmer Without the Disco Ball

The goal is tasteful, not "Chad fell into a craft store." Follow these field-tested rules:

1. The 20 Percent Rule. Glitter should cover roughly one-fifth of the image — a corner burst, a subtle sparkle along Chad's coffee mug, a glint on that trophy from the 2019 chili cook-off. Resist the urge to coat the whole frame. We've seen things. We can't unsee them.

2. Match the sparkle to the moment. A gentle shimmer for the candid by the water cooler. A slightly bigger burst for the promotion announcement. Full confetti energy is reserved for one photo only — ideally the one where Chad is mid-sneeze at the summer picnic. That's comedy gold and it earns its fireworks.

3. Keep the old photos old. Don't try to sharpen a 2009 iPhone photo into 4K. The softness is the charm. A little glitter on top of a soft-focus memory reads as nostalgic. Aggressive filters on top of it read as a haunted MySpace page.

4. Consistency is king. Pick two — two — sparkle styles for the whole deck. One subtle, one celebratory. Mixing six different glitter effects makes the slideshow look like a casino threw up in the break room.

5. Save the best for last. The final slide — the one everyone screenshots — should be the money shot: Chad's face, a warm shimmer, and a caption that doesn't try too hard. "Good luck out there, Chad" hits different when it's glowing.

A Note on Slideshow Etiquette

A quick word to the party planner: the glitter edit is the garnish, not the meal. The order of operations still matters. Photos in rough chronological order. Music that doesn't have explicit lyrics, because Sharon from accounting will file a comment. And for the love of all things HR-approved, get consent on the embarrassing ones — or at least make sure Chad has a good sense of humor before the sneeze photo goes public.

Also: test the projector beforehand. Nothing kills a glitter moment like a bulb that renders your shimmer as a gray smudge. We say this from experience and we're still not over it.

The Real Point

Somewhere between the cake and the awkward group photo, the farewell slideshow is the one moment where a whole office agrees on something: this person mattered. A few well-placed sparkles don't change that — they just make sure the memory lands the way it deserves to. So go ahead. Bling it before you bring it. Chad earned it, the parking lot is cheaper than a gift card, and honestly? The sheet cake will thank you.