GREENWOOD, Miss.--It took less than one month for Middleby Corp. to reneg on its promise that business would go on as usual after they bought Viking Range of Greenwood. About 140 workers out of its 700 have gotten lay-off notices that are immediate. Around half of those firings are at the Greenwood headquarters.

Other moves include the stepping aside of Viking founder Fred Carl, Jr. He's retiring-going to the house after the company said he would stay on as CEO.

Viking is also closing a cooking school in Ridgeland and one in Memphis.

The deal to purchase Viking took $380 million from Middleby, who said they would merge the two operations, essentially. The plan, as the company announced when the buyout happened, was for Middleby to add its technology to Viking products.

The Viking company was started when the demand became high for households to be able to buy industrial strength cooking equipment.