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RadioShack: You've got pink slip

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil

For RadioShack, apparently the best way to deal with employees is not face to face. The electronics retailer this week thought it best to use e-mail to notify about 400 employees at its Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters that they no longer work for the company.

"The work force reduction notification is currently in progress," read an e-mail delivered Tuesday morning. "Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated."

A company representative told the Associated Press that employees were informed that layoff notices would be delivered electronically and that employees were welcome to use the company's intranet to submit questions before the layoffs occurred.

Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, told AP that he had never heard of such a large number of employees being informed of their termination electronically. He said employees could see it as dehumanizing.

"If I put myself in their shoes, I'd say, 'Didn't they have a few minutes to tell me?'" D'Souza said.

Perhaps it's just a normal progression of the medium: We search for jobs online, apply for them via e-mail, use company intranets to change our benefits packages, and even use the Internet to work from home.

Is there really any reason to see your boss anymore? Certainly not to get fired. Not anymore.

Not if you work for RadioShack.