Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs: “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,’ sometimes over internal e-mail,” writes Greg Smith in a New York Times Op-Ed about quitting the investment bank. It has set the Internet alight this morning.
• Why Goldman Sachs is not leaving Goldman Sachs: “In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful.”
• Why I am joining Goldman Sachs: The new P.R. chief “declined to comment.”
• Why I am leaving the Empire: “The Empire today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about remote strangulation. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.”
• Why you should “Deal with it or leave and open an Etsy store”: Screwing clients is what financial firms do, pal.
• We’ll be eavesdroping in the Goldman Sachs elevator for other responses later today.
Other departures:
• Why I left Google: “The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.”
• Why you’re leaving Gatehouse Media: Because you’re a copy editor, and not an executive due to get a large cash bonus in Q1.
• 56 people lost their jobs when VillageNet Media abruptly shut down all of its Maine papers.
• Seven people leaving Rhode Island newspapering (hopefully temporarily): Layoffs at R.I.S.N. Operations, which owns the Kent County Daily Times, The Narragansett Times and other papers.
>> SORTA RELATED FLASHBACK: Resignation letters from journalists.
Non-leaving links:
• Despite Media General’s “bumbling, feckless management team,” Amit Chokshi sees some upsides to buying its newspaper division. Still: “bumbling.” “Feckless.”
• After Twitter bought Posterous, a lot of people moved their blogs to WordPress. WordPress says the acquisition “will be exciting for our friends at Twitter and well-earned for Posterous co-founder Sachin Agarwal,” then gives clear instructions on how to abandon Posterous. My colleague Jeff Sonderman draws some lessons for journalists from the ack.
• LANGUAGE CORNER: Chinese bloggers get around the “Golden Shield” with homonyms, irony, in-jokes. And an American linguist discusses the word “slut.” (h/t: my dad)
• TODAY IN DOONESBURY: Garry Trudeau says, “controversy is obviously good for business, especially if your business is satire.” Blue in Virginia says The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star practices selective outrage when it comes to language. The Athens Banner-Herald rethinks its decision not to confuse readers. And Nick Gillespie writes that Doonesbury would be great if it were funny.
• The race to write the best double-entendre Santorum headline will probably not be settled before June.
•  Alison Draper tells Michael Miner she is in fact looking for a buyer for the Chicago Reader, which according to this listicle is nearly as important as Washington City Paper.
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