This is a confusing time for Hewlett-Packard employees.

First the upside: After the enormous success of their first tablet fire sale, where the HP TouchPads literally flew off shelves as consumers clamored to get their hands on the soon to be extinct tablet, HP recently announced the second and last round of their TouchPad fire sale, exclusively for HP employees.  So whether they’re a fan of their own product or not, they have a chance to purchase one, yes only one, tablet: either the 16GB for $99 or the 32GB for $149.  If they don’t like the tablet they could easily sell it on Amazon or eBay and double their money.  The news was reported by TechCrunch after receiving an email from an HP employee containing the internal fire sale.

“After a thorough review of options, I’m pleased to share that starting at 9:00am (Pacific Time) on Wednesday, September 28th, HP employees in the United States will have one last chance to buy an HP TouchPad through the Employee Purchase Program on a first come first serve basis,” wrote HP senior vice president and general manager Stephen DeWitt.

But there are rules regarding the sale.  Aside from the one tablet per employee policy, the sale is web-based and purchases can only be made through their online company store, TouchPads bought during the sale cannot be exchanged with other products in the EPP, it could take as long as 10 days before employees get their purchased tablet, and it’s a first come, first served basis.  So 48 hours before the fire sale, the store will be open to accept reservations.

The downside:  Since HP announced that they would stop production of their webOS devices, the future of the webOS division has been bleak.  And now it looks like dark clouds are above HP’s Palm division, as more than 500 employees will be sacked.

“As communicated on August 18, HP will discontinue the development of webOs devices within the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, which ends Oct. 31, 2011,” an HP spokesperson told AllThingsD. “As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce. Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by our commitment to our webOS customers and will work to ensure that support and service for customers are not adversely affected. HP is exploring ways to leverage webOS software.”

This wasn’t much of a surprise, as HP already announced the date of death for webOS, October 31, 2011.  The irony.  Though they said that they would still support webOS users, I don’t think employees in that division would want to keep working on a hopeless project.