Tony, come in. Have a seat. Now before we begin, I just want to say… You have one kick-ass cubicle. We all love walking by your work area; with the most epic movie posters, and your comic book figurines posed meticulously in an all-out war next to your pencil cup.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that we’ve all taken a shot at the basketball hoop over your wastebasket. We can tell you have worked really hard on making your cubicle awesome-sauce. Which makes this really difficult for me.

You see, Tony, you didn’t quite reach your numbers last quarter. It’s nothing personal- it’s purely budgetary- but we’re gonna have to let you go.

We know you have quite a bit to pack up, so we left a dozen banker’s boxes on your desk. We didn’t have time to assemble them, so you’ll have to do that. I know it’s terrible hearing this first thing on a Wednesday morning, but we wanted to tell you now since it’s probably going to take you until lunch to de-inflate the bouncy house.

Best of luck.