Recently, CNN released their latest list of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. With everything from e-mail firings to snoozing-on-the-job cable technicians, America's biggest corporate giants still manage to make negative headlines. What shouldn't surprise you at all is the fact that the CNN editors had a hard time narrowing down their list to exactly 101.

We have all experienced some sort of embarrassing corporate gaffe – whether it is a human resources issue or the inevitable e-mail oops, corporate life sometimes has its bumps in the road. The most difficult part of the challenge is often dealing with the aftermath of an office shakeup, such as staff reduction.

By now we have all heard about the mass firings of 400 Radio Shack workers via e-mail. Workers were asked to stay at home and wait for an e-mail that would outline the status of their employment with the company. So they sat. And waited. And they received the following curt note via their inboxes: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”

What human resources genius gave permission for that heartless gesture?

I once worked in a corporate cube farm that went through an unfortunate period of downsizing. The preliminary “layoffs are coming” announcement was made at a company-wide staff meeting. The next week, we were all told that the layoffs would occur the next morning. Everyone showed up the next day, wearing their business best and ready to work… or beg for our jobs. I sat at my desk, flipped on the computer to log into the network, and was met with a huge “Access Denied” icon followed by the blue screen of death. That was my first indication that my job was in jeopardy.

We waited around as we were called, one by one, into our respective supervisor's offices. My turn came, and I was reluctantly let go. (At least my severance package wasn't too paltry.) While I was let go in a much more gentle way than Radio Shack's employees, it still begs the question, “Is there a good way to reduce your workforce?”

If there is, Bank of America didn't get the memo. First, they eliminated over 100 tech jobs, and then announced the jobs were being outsourced to India. Then the laid-off employees were presented with the salt that was poured into their jobless wounds: In order to receive their severance packages, the jobless workers had to train their Indian replacements.

Most seasoned office employees know that companies generally fire or lay off workers on Fridays. That practice was even lampooned in the 1999 movie “Office Space,” a cult film classic that laughs at every office cliché known to modern cubicle existence. When discussing office-wide layoffs in the movie, the character Bob Slydell, an office efficiency expert, states, “We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.”

However you choose to handle your own office reduction, don't take any business ethics advice from Radio Shack or Bank of America. CNN's 101 Dumbest Business Mistakes is not the place to earn publicity.