Memorable ways of saying goodbye to that job

Fired Groupon (GRPN) Chief Executive Andrew Mason has set the bar high in one regard: how to leave a job with style. 

Mason sent a memo to his former employees that explained his departure in a charming, humorous way. "I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding -- I was fired today. If you're wondering why... you haven't been paying attention," he wrote in the letter. 

He also added that he's planning on taking time to lose some weight at a "good fat camp," and he accepted responsibility for Groupon's problems, which my colleague Kim Peterson detailed here.

While most of us don't handle rejection in such an honest way, others in corporate America have also made saying good-bye an art form, from lowly hotel workers to other chief executives. 

Here are four of the best corporate send-offs, from those quitting to some who got the ax: 

Quitting via haiku: Sun Microsystems former CEO Jonathan Schwartz made his resignation clear to all when he sent it out via a haiku on Twitter. "Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more," he wrote, according to The New York Times. (Schwartz also said in a more prosaic email that he planned to spend more time with his family.)

Singing it out on YouTube: Top Merck (MRK) executive Kevin Nalty didn't want to hide the fact he was quitting to follow his passion as a comedian. The result? A video featuring Nalty lip-syncing and stripping down to his bare chest, where the words "Do what you love" were written in Sharpie. Nalty now says he's one of YouTube's most-viewed personalities.

The brass band backup: After more than three years working for a Rhode Island hotel, Joey DeFrancesco was ready for a change and got his 19-piece brass band to triumphantly follow him out of the building after he handed in his resignation.

The "cake of resignation": This employee went out in sweet style by writing his letter of resignation on a full-sheet cake. In blue icing, the letter offered a send-off from the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, asking his employer to "please accept this cake as notification that I am leaving." 

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