The worst part about breaking bad news is watching how they react. Some get real quiet. Some get mad. Some just stare blankly, not quite believing. But not this guy. The moment I got to ‘severence’, he began to cry. A grown man, bawling on my desk. How would that make you feel? I’ll tell you – awkward.

I sat there, watching him cry, waiting for him to stop. Hoped my secretary wouldn’t knock on the door – she had a habit of coming in at bad times. I sighed as he babbled something along the lines of “If I lose this job, I’ll have to throw myself off a cliff and get insurance to feed the kids!”

Empty threats, I knew. When you’ve been a manager for as long as I have, you get used to hearing them after a while. So I just kept quiet and turned away – that always worked. And after a long while, he got a grip. Wiped his eyes, thanked me, left. Just like that.

Huh, I thought, examining my fingers. That went well.

So it came as a surprise when Monday’s news said something about a man driving off a cliff.