BLOOMINGTON, MN — Sources close to Matthias Johnson have just confirmed that the 46-year old middle manager at Rockington Solutions, Inc managed to keep winning friends and influencing people by simply adding a friendly "LOL" to the end of a venomous critique of one of his employees today.

According to Bill Tethers, who was on the receiving end of Johnson's vitriol, the manager had written a paragraph of vicious, bitingly sarcastic criticism, but managed to soften it by adding LOL and a huge smiley face at the end.

"My hair stood on end as I started reading his text," Tethers recalled, shuddering. "It was like he was downing everything about me — the updating work I'd just done on our network, my personal hygiene, even my kid's piano recital last week. It was absolutely brutal…at least, until I read the LOL at the end and realized that he must have been joking, right? Like…maybe he didn't mean it all? I dunno — the laughing emoji at the end really ended up recasting the whole message in a kinder light, I hope."

While Johnson was unavailable to be interviewed on the subject, he did send a charmingly jovial refusal to comment, the full text of which reads: "Of course I don't want to comment for you idiots lol :D."

At publishing time, Johnson had also made it easier for one of his employees to be "let go to pursue other interests outside of this corporation" by sending him the message "you're fired loser haha bye lol."

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