The sad truth is that sometimes companies fail.

Maybe there’s no such thing as a good way to let your employees know that you’re closing up shop. But there are decent ways, better ways. Call a company meeting and tell everyone face to face. Have managers pull their teams into smaller meetings to be told.

A great way NOT to do it?

Follow Arrow Trucking’s example. According to TheTrucker.com, Arrow stopped payment on the fuel cards their drivers used to gas up while on the road. So the driver’s first hint that something was wrong was when they found themselves far from home, with no fuel money to get their rigs home.

Others at the company headquarters reported that 200 workers were told today to pack up and go home, according to the Business Pundit.

Owning a business doesn’t automatically make you care about the people who work for you. I’m guessing the officials who had to make the decision to ‘suspend operations’ didn’t do so lightly. And maybe they even did think about all their employees and how they’d feed their families.

But it’s clear they didn’t think particularly hard about how to tell them the news.