Above: Palmisano abolishes 600 jobs at the Essex Junction, VT, location. "You are all free, free to go!" said IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano to the 600 men and women freed from the corporation's Essex Junction, VT, location. "No more must you live a bleak, hand-to-mouth existence, chained to your desks in a never-ending Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 cycle. Your future is wide-open. Now, go!"

The 600 newly freed workers cleared out their desks and were escorted from the building within an hour. In spite of Palmisano's jubilance, the emancipated wage slaves were strangely quiet as they filed into the parking lot, carrying their work possessions in cardboard boxes.