VIENNA, VA. — How do you now you're fired at an Internet company? When your biography's removed from the website. AOL's Lance Miyamoto, head of HR, has left the building. As a Valleywag tipster first told us and Silicon Alley Insider confirms, Miyamoto is the executive who's quitting in protest of new week's layoffs. (We had guessed, incorrectly, that it might be Kevin Conroy or BIll Wilson.) The question, though: Were AOL CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant so furious over leaks that they fired him? Or was he allowed, nevertheless, to resign?

VIENNA, VA. — In a way, I can't blame AOL CEO Randy Falco for wanting to pack up his bags and decamp for New York. The mood at AOL's Dulles headquarters, judging by the stream of emails I'm getting, could be worse — but only if the layoffs don't hit as expected. From what I gather, more people are hoping to put out of their misery than are praying to have their jobs spared. Top executives draw a special flavor of bile, like Bill Wilson, AOL's vigorously muscular — and vigorously hated — head of programming. The email's subject line read "AOL's Bill Wilson would frag his own mother" — and it got worse from there:

AOL's Dulles headquarters is wracked by rumors. We hear that one reason the company has writhed in the agony of impending layoffs is that its overworked human-resources department has been stretched to the limit by the task of preparing so many severance packages — otherwise, CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant would have made the cuts sooner. October 16 continues to be the day people expect to get the sack. As the start of a pay period, the date will save AOL a bit of money by letting them include staffers' last paycheck as part of their severance. How thoughtful! For Time Warner's shareholders, at any rate. Sightings of boxes for employees' belongings are spreading, too. But there's one mystery: Which high-level AOL executive is quitting in protest of the layoffs?