Last week, we learned that four people had asked to be let go at Irvine, Calif.-based Entrepreneur magazine. We spoke to publisher Ryan Shea, who told us he was amazed that his staffers wanted to brave the iffy employment market of the current economy.

Our sister blog FishbowlLA said those who left the company are research editor James Park, associate editor Kim Orr, associate editor of franchise Allison Gergley and associate Web editor Elizabeth Wilson. Although Shea had said these staffers had previously been part of former editor Rieva Lesonsky's team (she left the magazine in April 2008), she told FishbowlNY that only two of the four had worked for her.

Lesonsky, who started content provider GrowBiz Media with her three top editors from Entrepreneur after leaving the magazine last year, said she had nothing to do with the recent departures. "The corporate culture had changed a little," she said about her reasons for leaving. "It had become untenable for people who had been there for so long."

Not surprisingly, last week's post opened up a firestorm of commenting speculating about why these four staffers left and how Entrepreneur is doing. Shea told us the magazine is doing well but we agree with many commenters: it's not a good sign when staff members ask to leave.

Unlike our commenters, we will not speculate on why these people wanted to leave Entrepreneur (but if they want to tell us, they can email us). However, having been through unemployment ourselves, we know that if you want to quit a job it's to your advantage to ask to be "fired" so you can receive a severance package, COBRA health insurance and apply for unemployment. Shea told us last week that the magazine had offered its departing staff members severance packages. If you're going to leave the company anyway, that is the way to go.