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[navelgazer]

Do you write thank you notes, bereavement notes, to your colleagues? Thanking them for a dinner (which almost never happens, but theoretically). More often, we get emails about a death in a staff or faculty member's family. Do you write a quick note to someone you don't know? We have a very large faculty, 70 +. I would definitely do it in my area of 15 faculty members, but that hasn't come up.

It's not that I'm against it, but it literally never occurred to me until recently. Is it bad that I didn't think to write a note when my chair had surgery? Information is passed around really strangely. For instance, I got an email about my chair's out-patient surgery afterwards, but it sounded like it was widely known in the department that he was going to the hospital.

I feel like, at a job with 70+ coworkers, I would only write notes to people I knew personally. I still don't know some faculty members by face. But, tenure track might be different. Urgh. Any thoughts?

[ruralguy]

I would only send a sympathy card to someone I knew reasonable well.

Of course, its never a bad thing to send one to someone you only know casually (or hardly at all).

As for thank yous...I think its become standard to thank someone at the time of a dinner, and then perhaps bring a small offering at dinner, and then be done with it. I would only send a card or even an email if the dinner ended up being quite lavish, or some other gift was given.

[cranefly]

I prefer to offer sympathy in person, rather than send a card.  I attend colleage's relative's visitations in some cases, when I know the colleague quite well. I think it says more than a card.
When it comes to thanks, though, I send cards. Maybe that's weird, but I think the art of the thank-you card is being lost and shouldn't be.

[anon99]

We usually send a card signed by the department members who are around.  We also usually send flowers for births, deaths and serious illness.