AOL has had scant need for callcenters for quite awhile, so I'll go out on a limb and guess this was a few years ago. So yeah, pretty boneheaded. Whenever it w

AOL has had scant need for callcenters for quite awhile, so I'll go out on a limb and guess this was a few years ago. So yeah, pretty boneheaded. Whenever it was, that may as well be a different company. Tim Armstrong's AOL, for example, offered buyouts to staff this year, and 1,100 took them up on it, before formal layoffs went down. So no more blindsiding, I think. Say what you want about AOL's clueless past (lol Randy Falco, etc) Armstrong is emphatically not an idiot and he's starting to earn my respect in the impossible job of turning that ship. Layoffs aside, remember that the TechCrunch acquisition has Armstrong's personal attention. Paul Carr isn't a mailroom clerk at a satellite office – he's a high profile component of a crown jewel that AOL has spent some real money to snag. That money was an investment in both people and reputation. Pissing away both over a little mischief that only furthers the public perception of the investment is just unfathomable. It would never get as far as AOL HR.