Retail giant Wal-Mart has announced in recent weeks that, effective immediately, it is cutting as many as 13,000 of what it somehow has the audacity to refer to as 'jobs' from its corporate payroll. According to Wal-Mart representatives, the, for lack of a better word, positions will be cut from the company's underperforming Sam's Club division. Analysts reported that Monday's layoffs marked one of the largest so-called downsizings of what can hardly even be termed employment in the company's history. CEO Mike Duke 'Obviously, it is a sad day whenever we have to let go of any of the people we have dehumanized so thoroughly that we can barely muster the will to describe them as employees,' Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke told reporters. 'However, this is a business, and we must do what we can to stay competitive while still paying our existing workforce what we actually refer to with a straight face as wages.' Sources inside the company confirmed that roughly 1,200 people will be forced to leave what one might very charitably characterize as their careers in the neon-lit dungeon known as the membership recruitment office. In addition, another 10,000 worn husks of human beings will be relieved of what it literally induces pain to say are their job responsibilities handing out free in-store samples to customers. 'We tried to solve the problem by cutting what is hard for me in good conscience to even call benefits,' Duke said. 'We even tried negotiating with what we would probably refer to as the workers' union if, in fact, they even had such a thing. But ultimately, our only feasible option, financially, was to make what I'm going to just lie and call a very hard decision and let go some of the faceless drones that I condescendingly refer to in public as members of our 'corporate family.'' 'There's no way I can actually say what I am about to say without literally inducing deep, hearty peals of unbelieving laughter from anyone within earshot,' he added. 'But all those laid off should still hold their heads up high.' Thousands of what it just feels really, really wrong to describe as anything other than wage slaves have responded to the layoffs with strong objections. 'It doesn't seem fair, after all the time I put in with this abusive prison state regarded for some reason as a company,' said former membership recruiter Robert Weldon, 46. 'Obviously, this is going to severely reduce the overall quality of the unceasingly grim reminder of financial hardships that I call my life.' Although many experts have deemed these layoffs an unfortunate reflection of the economic climate, instead of what they actually are, which is a borderline fucking human rights violation, a number of prominent analysts said current market trends show that Wal-Mart may soon recover from its current woes, as if anyone with an ounce of human decency even gives a shit. 'Clearly, this move signals what I'm coldly and unemotionally going to describe as a change in Wal-Mart's current business strategy, and statistics show that it may pay off for them in the long run,' economist and author Jeffrey Fields said. 'And as for the poor, exploited creatures whom I shall skirt the issue and refer to simply as workers, I'm sure they will be back on their feet in what no honest observer of the facts could possibly describe as no time.' Added Fields, 'This is, after all, what we still somehow have the nerve to call America.' 