“To my wonderful staff”: Resurfaced letter shows Joe Biden’s family-friendly management style

A letter Joe Biden addressed to his “wonderful staff” when he was vice president has highlighted the US President-Elect’s past family-friendly management style.

The letter resurfaced on social media on Sunday, as Biden was emerging victorious from the tight election battle with Donald Trump.

Titled “Family obligations”, the memo was sent to the former vice president’s staff in November 2014 when Barack Obama was president, before the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

Biden urged his staffers not to “sacrifice important family obligations for work” and stressed it would “disappoint” him if he found out his staff had worked instead of attending family occasions.

“I do not expect nor do I want any of you to miss or sacrifice important family obligations for work,” he said in the note.

“Family obligations include but are not limited to family birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, any religious ceremonies such as first communions and bar mitzvahs, graduations, and times of need such as an illness or a loss in the family,” he continued.

By coincidence: exactly 6 years ago today, as Vice President of the USA, Joe Biden sent this note to his staff.

I presume in the background, thoughts of his first wife & daughter who died long ago; or his son, who died of cancer just a few months after this note.

Worth reading. pic.twitter.com/UwBbJ8A73i

— dan barker (@danbarker) November 7, 2020

Dan Barker shared the post on Twitter, noting it was coincidentally six years ago to the day that the former vice president sent the note to his staff.

Over 17,000 Twitter users have liked the letter since it was posted on Sunday and it has now been retweeted over 3,500 times.