Feel bad for employees who get fired? Maybe you should pity those who do the firing. A new study released this week in Boston has found that managers run double their usual risk of a heart attack during the week after they dispense with someone's professional services. The research offers some of the strongest evidence yet that even brief spurts of on-the-job stress can be bad for the heart.

The study, conducted at 45 hospitals across the United States, attempted to see whether anything that happened at work in the days before people's heart attacks might have contributed to their health problems. "The strongest effect was for working under a high-pressure deadline and having to fire someone," according to the authors of the study.