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"You can drink your pain away, but it usually takes substantial amounts of alcohol," an AOLer writes us. The rambling email proves he was up to the challenge. When your employer is shedding a fifth of its staff, why not down a fifth of your pantry's finest Scotch? And they say not to drunk-dial you ex-girlfriend, but drunk-emailing a gossip blog? Gentle readers, never avoid the temptation. The email, in all its drunken-typo glory, after the jump. Bring your drinking shoes.

Friends, Colleagues, former co-workers, Layoff day is always a creepy affair. No more so than this time around now that senior management closely resembles to the creepy pedophiles you see on "Law and Order SVU." However, lets no focus on RONCO lets focus on a little gallows humor. You can't drink the pain away so you might as well laugh through it. Actually, that's not true. You CAN drink pain away but it usually takes substantial amounts of alcohol and leaves you with an even bigger pain. Thus, it's a wash so lets move on.

A consoling fact should be this: view it like a break up. Essentially, what's happening is just that a classic version of "It's not you. It's me". In this particular instance the "you" is "you" and the "me" is AOL. Get that? Good. But, like all classic breakup stories man did this one get fucked up real good and fast-like. I suppose it would be one thing if the date was leaked but thanks to the salacious tendencies of the blogosphere AOL has continually been ass fucked like a prison inmate appearing on their first episode of "Oz: Life on the Inside". Which, by the way, that had to be horrible gig to get in Hollywood. Imagine your agent telling you that you have a recurring three episode arc in a high profile series. Great exposure and an amazing cast to work with. Day one you show up and you have to sell the audience on taking up the turd tunnel. That's brutal especially when you get a re-write and your character gets shived in the middle of episode two. But, I digress, AOL has really been getting ass reamed here.

I mean think about how much of a clusterfuck this layoff is in terms of how Apple released the iPhone. Typically Apple likes to control the flow of information and the product cycle. So when Steve Jobs trots he can wow you with the latest and the greatest. Eventually, there is a big reveal or two and all the mac nerds go off into their corners and have a techno gangbang about how "small - lightweight and cool" their Apple branded nerdrotica is. In the case of the iPhone they had to build hype early. Apple and AT&T had to build hype with the service plan. Court customers and sell the media on the beauty of the iPhone. Essentially, they blew their wad early and opened the door for backlash. No big reveal only a interesting phone that was later unlocked by some 17 year old kid in the middle of East Bum Fuck. Way to go on that one engineers. So, if you cross reference this idea with how any human resources or corporate entity likes to work. You'd want to keep something big under wraps. Something like sayyyyyyyyy.... I don't know letting go 20% of your workforce.

Randy, Ron, Boys. Seriously. I mean really. Seriously. You couldn't keep this under wraps. Now you'll have to get extra security and pray nothing happens. I mean this is Virginia. There are people packing heat up in this mother. While, I don't think anything will happen I would not be surprised to catch wind of a "shock and Awe" like moment where poo is flung upon HR representatives like toads descending from the seven plagues. to sum it up neatly. Wow, did you guys manage to fuck this one up.

So back on track here... yes, you are getting dumped. But, at this point we've established you're getting dumped by a bit of a dumbshit. Now, let's go deeper. You are getting dumped by a total dumbshit. Here's why. Lets go to the nugget drawer on pull out a classic Ron Grant quote:
"I'm just not seeing people working hard enough... I need to walk down the halls and see empty pizza boxes and Chinese food containers outside of people's doors... that's when I know people are dedicated to what they are doing ... I'm not seeing enough cars in the parking lot after 5:00pm... I check and the parking lot is too empty..." I get it. He wanted you all to work harder. He wanted a sense of urgency. He wanted to get the spark going again by instilling a sense of the start up vibe. He wanted to make that happen at a company where the institutional knowledge is so entrenched in bureaucratic bullshit and the last great innovation was AIM.

Ron I appreciate the attempt at being a tough guy but this is the business world and you need to be at least 5' 6" to ride the big kid rides. Next tiem your try to act like a hard ass swing by "can I purchase a fucking clue boulevard" and pick up a sixer of "Business & Motivation 101". Maybe a side of "we can work smarter and redefine the industry again" rather than "work harder, harder harder!"

So lets recapus. I'm sure everybody in Dulles is burpin rainbows and shittin' cupcakes by now. Not only are you getting dumped it's by the town fool. It could be worse. You could work in marketing or member services. If you do work there...I'm sorry but you are so fucked. The bright side is like any shitty relationship leaving AOL seems to be the hardest thing for their employees to do. Once you are out and away the realization hits you: "OH, there are other jobs out there."

So, ask yourself what's worse to be dumped by the town dipshit or to be forced into looking for a new job? I'll give you a hint. It's a good place. Hit the ground running. AOL is going nowhere. Their own senior management has proved they are incapable of running a layoff. Now, how are they supposed to transition to NYC and actually compete when they can't even shitcan their own staff without the blogosphere up their ass? The obvious answer is they can't.

But, let's make some predictions and start with the obvious
On Tuesday October 16 2007 I see:
· Nobody doing a god damn thing
· The largest single instance of corporate assets departing the AOL campus. If it isn't nailed down ... it's going going gone!
· Plenty of employees saying to managers "oh, and another thing..."
· People dialing up friends, loved ones and generally being scarred for their future.

What I am shakey on is:
Can AOL actually survive? They have shown how vulnerable they are to the media. This is like the Anna Nicole Smith stoned out of her gourd and pregnant video tape. Paris Hilton has less press for her night vision bangtime escapade than this fiasco. My prediction is: no. AOL is now more dead in the water than ever. I can only hope Bill Wilson keeps sending the psychotic e-mails to the programming group. Which makes me wonder: if he's writing those how does he have time to actually polish his resume up for Deaf Jam and Sony. I'm just saying....

Anyways, look at the end of the day we can always go back to the movie The Princess Bride. The dread Pirate Roberts always told Wesley. "Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." So rather than sleep terrified. Sleep well as did Wesley. When he quit worrying he was free to continue his life. You've already been tossed overboard and reborn in the waters of a new job market. For that you should be thanking the dumbshits.