RadioShack employees would learn the fate of their job, and if they would be terminated or not, in an e-mail.

In a corporate downsizing, RadioShack Corp. sent 403 employees an e-mail telling them their services were no longer needed.

According to the Los Angeles Times, RadioShack spokesman Charles Hodges said the company had notified employees in the last 10 days that they would learn of their fates through an e-mail. At 8:45 a.m. - the designated time - employees were glued to their computer screens at the company's headquarters in Fort Worth.

The fateful missive read; "The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

USC business professor Warren Bennis tells the paper, "I thought I had stopped being surprised at the callousness of corporate acts."