“Thank you, reader, for coming in…”

Thank you, dear reader, for coming in. I have some information regarding our organization I’d like to tell you in person. I appreciate what you have done for The Next Web. As you know, The Next Web has had a challenging year and is focused on reducing costs. We’ve had to make some tough decision around eliminating a number of readers. Your position is one of these being eliminated.

Nah, just kidding!

The text you just read is straigh out the Yahoo! “How to Fire Employees for Dummies” manual. Condensed into a few easy to understand PowerPoint slides. Valleywag obtained the slides (clearly marked “Yahoo! Confidential. Do Not Forward”) and published them on their blog. Here is one of the the slides:

As you might know Yahoo! is “getting fit” this Wednesday by firing 1500 people. That procedure is painful for all parties involved so management is trying to coach managers doing the actual firing with these slides.

Expect more Yahoo! documents to leak the following days as those 1500 apparently ‘unfit’ ex-employees use the web, blogs and, no doubt, all the Yahoo! tools to upload every bit of confidential info they can get their hands on.