My very small related story is in '89 I was in Dallas and got a contracting gig from Aldus to work on Persuasion (Aldus' competitor to PowerPoint) for the Mac. I showed up for my first day, but the guy I was supposed to work for wasn't there yet so the office manager got me a desk and a notepad and IT came and made sure the Mac on my desk was properly connected to the network. After an hour or two of twiddling my thumbs and trying to look like I was doing something productive, my boss came in to say "oh. looks like a lot of us were laid off today and we're canceling your contract."
The Aldus guys were reasonable about it and gave me 2 weeks severance just for holding down the chair for two hours.
It has to be the shortest professional gig I've ever had.