"A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview"
About this Quote
The phrase "one of her jobs" is the quiet punch. Not her whole job, not an aberration, but a routine duty folded into the workday like expense reports. And that duty, "the farewell interview", is an exquisitely euphemistic label for what is essentially exit management: the bank rehearsing its own innocence at the moment it cuts someone loose. It's HR as narrative control, the institution gathering intelligence, sealing leaks, and laundering blame. Westlake lets the bureaucratic language indict itself.
The subtext is gendered and moral without getting preachy. "Her jobs" suggests a professional who has climbed into the machinery; she's not the villain, she's the instrument. The retirement detail adds a late-life reckoning: this isn't a youthful misstep but four years spent officiating endings, a position that requires calm, polish, and a deadened empathy. Coming from Westlake, that matters. In his fiction, crime isn't just a guy with a gun; it's the smooth function of organizations. This line is the cold open to that worldview: the real caper is how institutions make harm feel like paperwork.
Quote Details
| Topic | Retirement |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Westlake, Donald E. (n.d.). A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-friend-of-mine-now-retired-was-then-a-major-124642/
Chicago Style
Westlake, Donald E. "A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-friend-of-mine-now-retired-was-then-a-major-124642/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-friend-of-mine-now-retired-was-then-a-major-124642/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
