The fact that it was over the phone is a legitimate insult.
The fact that it was 100 seconds long is a mercy.
The fact that it was 100 seconds long is a mercy.
One company I worked for was acquired by a much larger tech company. We were already had about a 1000 employees. After the big announcement that we were being acquired, we all got an invite from the new company to meet the new executive team at their big corporate HQ.
Got bused over, we were all shepherded into a huge auditorium only to have the CEO of the larger company tell us we were all being let go and turn in our ID's to the security folks now standing at the exits.
It was the quietest bus ride I've ever been on during the return trip.
But people have a spectrum of reactions to being fired, and I think being able to address their immediate concerns one-on-one is important. They may have done it this way in the name of efficiency, but some times it is better to just take the hit and do things the old fashioned way. Nobody is happy about being laid off, but six months from now both employer and ex-employee will feel better about it than the impersonal conference call.