The episode opens with Ted talking about his big project of designing the new GNB headquarters.  However, while attempting to pick up a girl in an elevator by bragging about being the architecht on the project, she tells him the project was canned months ago.  When Ted confronts Marshall and Barney, they reluctantly admit that they lied to him and even went so far as to create a fake task force to listen to his GNB pitches the last two months.  They figured with all the bad things happening to Ted over the years, he needed this ... and besides, he was being paid for two months of work anyways.  

In the end, Barney manages to get Ted another job at GNB, re-creating the Employee Transition Room (ETR) from another floor.  The ETR is a very plain room and it's where employees go to get fired.  After Ted designs an incredibly elaborate ETR, he ends up getting fired from that.  Then, to make things even worse, Ted gets fired from his architecture firm and decides to start his own.

Meanwhile, the gang was at the bar attempting to guess which Canadian celebrity Robin went home with and what crazy sexual position he asked her to do.