Corporate stuff I don't get - "Mixed Emotion"

If every weekday around 5PM you have the same feeling that you had at Sundays around 6PM when there were no Satellite TV and they would show only one single movie on local TV channel at Sunday 6:30PM -- you probably have a full time job.

If you do you must have gotten a memo like this I received yesterday -

Team –

It is with mixed emotion I share another important change in the senior leadership of our organization. Effective immediately, X will transition from his current duties as the lead executive for Y products to a special assignment . X will remain in this position through April 7, 2007, at which point he has elected to resign from company. I want to thank X for his leadership and contributions and once again congratulate him on his success over the past 15 years.

Fortunately, Z - who has been leading division C for last 7 years - will now be promoted to lead executive for Y products. Congratulations, Z!

I have received several memos like this in my almost a decade worth of professional career. But what I still don't get is "mixed emotion". What exactly does it mean? Does it mean that surreal state of mind where you're sad AND you're happy too? OK, then I want to know when does that happen in real life. Because, you know what, it never happens with me. I am either happy or working.

In this corporate memo, what they are saying is - one old guy is leaving after sitting tight for God-so-many years and another not-so-old guy is replacing him. Well, isn't that either a happy (we saved money. The guy was more playing golf than wasting time in meetings) or a sad (the dude who's leaving knew folks in Senate) thing?

I can understand how for a big group there could be a state of mind called "mixed emotion". US bombed the fuck out of poor Iraqi villages - US happy, humanists and still alive Iraqi villagers are sad. Whole earth - as an entity - has "mixed emotion".

But in individual sense, I refuse to believe there could be such a state. What? "My car has been totaled in a crash. *But* a completely hot chick did it. I finally got to speak with a character shaped like how I always been dreaming of". That will actually be happiness for most guys (unless the hot chick's car has suffered badly as well!), still not what they call "mixed emotion" in those lousy memos!