Do you happen to remember that Coca-Cola video advertisement that ran amidst the TV programs, showing the CC Caravan just going through a peaceful village all lit up for the holidays and with the calm song in the background? It's quite old… Well, that's the spirit that should dominate the spiritual landscape, starting from now and until January. Not for a big number of Yahoo and AOL employees it won't, as they are bound to get fired today and tomorrow. How about that? "Merry Christmas, here's your holiday bonus, don't ever bother coming back from your vacation. Peace and goodwill to you, too."

According to alleyinsider.com, around two thousand people will be laid off by Yahoo, because it is the best thing to do for them at the moment. The reasons are clear and undisputable, unfortunately, for the employees. The disciplinary penalties are to accomplish four things:

1. Improve Yahoo's low profit margins.
2. Raise the average strength of Yahoo's management team.
3. Serve as a swift kick in the posterior to the remaining employees.
4. Demonstrate that CEO Jerry Yang can make the tough, unpopular decisions necessary to get this company humming again.

A crappy position to be in, to be forced to let so many people go, after having invested emotionally in the whole team for as long as 13 years, as he has. I personally don't think that he has the emotional and analytical detachment required for it and that he took a decision that will hunt him for many years to come.

With AOL, the "brunt of the whackage", as the alleyinsider.com said, is going to be taken by the Products and Sales teams. The decision has been made quite a while ago, but it has been kept under QT until now. (Was the purpose to increase the suicide rates around the holidays?)