Hi Guys,

There are a few really important things that I'd like to go over with all of you.

1. DON'T BE LATE
Interning at ELLE is an opportunity that a lot of people would kill for, and while it isn't paid, it is a chance for you to learn a lot about magazines and your role is actually crucial to the work that we do. When you interview and accept this job, part of that includes coming in 3 days a week and being ON TIME at 9am. This past week many of you have been very late and that has put us in a terrible situation. We are shooting almost every single day until Christmas and we have important things that need to be done right away in the morning.

2. DON'T LEAVE EARLY
I came back from my shoot today in the afternoon and there were no interns to check in anything and we had a TON of things that came in for 2 different run-thru. I know this seems like a tedious task but it is probably the MOST important thing in the accessories dept. If you have a job, or school, Alexis needs to know well in advance your schedule. If you had previously committed to a certain schedule for the semester, please try not to change it in the middle.

3.BE PROFESSIONAL
I know that the atmosphere in our office can be very casual and relaxed, but that is not an invitation for the interns to use bad language, talk back to editors or assts and discuss their personal lives and talk loudly. Sometimes I cannot hear anything on the phone because people are discussing the latest Hills episode really loudly. Be respectful of our workspace + environment and keep your voice down and be polite. Please also be courteous to our freelancer Caragh, treat her as an editor and offer to help her as well.

4.CLEANLINESS
Our office + closet are a MESS! Totally unacceptable. This is the interns responsibilty, it is your job, please take it seriously. I have never seen a closet in such an atrocious state. Don't leave bags of stuff lying around, this is how things get lost. There is always more cleaning to do. I don't understand why it is such a mess every single day, our office too. Sometimes I cannot even get in the door. This has to change right now. Please clean up the office and closet before you leave for the weekend. Use Nina Garcia's office + the fashion closet as an example. The fashion interns manage to keep those spaces spotless and it is embarassing that our interns cannot.

5. BE EFFICIENT
Any task that we ask you to do needs to be done quickly and accurately. Returns have been going way too slowly. It should not take you all day to DHL or Dynamex something. We are extremely busy and do not have time to wait for you take 10 min to find the camera or a post-it note. Figure it out! My camera can no longer be used as a check in camera. I have an extra camera and will set it up as a second intern camera. Anything Ellyn asks you to do should be a priority, but please also complete tasks before starting new ones.

I am a big fan of rewarding people for good work, and giving them more responsibilty + interesting tasks, but so far no one has proven themselves capable of handling the basics. I want this to be a learning experience for you but you also need to honor the commitment that you have made to us this semester. There are only a few weeks left so let's try to get it together and make this work. Feel free to ask us questions about the industry/business, but try to judge when it is an appropriate time to ask us about that, not when we are really busy. If you would like to talk to other editors about their experiences and how they got started, please ask their assts if they have time to meet with you.

Let's try to make a huge improvement for next week.

Thanks,
Nina

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Earlier: 'Times' Announces Newsroom Layoffs

Permalancers that currently have health benefits will be grandfathered in; they were told that they're "lucky" enough to pay 40% of all their healthcare costs up to $25K, after which they're responsible for the whole shebang. They can also opt for some sort of "catastrophic package," which sounds like something that would have been nice to have lined up, oh, say, last week.

Freelancers, however, are not grandfathered, and will be responsible for 80% of the cost of their healthcare—that is, if they successfully jump through the hoops (1,280 hours!) required to actually qualify down the road. Details were few and far between, and the permapoorlancers don't seem much comforted that a larger meeting is planned for next week with representatives from Viacom and Aetna.

In a classic corporate moment, one intrepid 'lancer was escorted out of a meeting with HR when a staffer tattled to management that he was recording the goings-on on his PDA. Way to stick together, team.

HR demanded that he delete the recording.

Says a Viacom permalancer:

If they are doing this to save money maybe they should rethink the hundreds of millions of dollars in severance packages they have given to the corporate douchebags who have left the company in the past year—we get emails congratulating them and thanking them every few months which is the biggest slap in the face of all. I'm sure the money they are saving in screwing 14,000 people out of their benefits is helping some dickheads who need a few million more to buy another trip around the world.

Here's how they were planning on telling people: Viacom sends out Christmas party invites to staff, but permalancers have to go pick them up. (Nice caste system.) So when permalancers went to pick up the invites, they were told "go across the table to pick up your new paperwork."

We hear that at least one manager will give his or her permalancers "off the books flex holiday days," but that's not a company initiative by any stretch.

What's more:

Tuition reimbursement is gone. Dental is gone. Commuter pre-tax deductions via WageWorks is gone. The healthcare goes from United Healthcare to Aetna.

Best of all: The company has asked workers to sign the paperwork before they attend the informational session that explains it.

————— Forwarded message —————
From: Ellen Kavier
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:26:14 -0500
Subject: [NYT Newsroom] Message from Bill Keller
To: newsroom@ahot.nytimes.com

To the staff:

Despite growing pressure on the newsroom budget, The Times has continued to
turn out great journalism, whether it's covering Iraq, New York City or the
most crowded Presidential campaign in memory. We've been able to do this,
in part, because each of you has helped us save money by finding new and
more efficient ways to do what we need to do. That has enabled us to avoid
the kind of drastic staff cutbacks other news organizations have endured.
Jill, John and I greatly appreciate everything you have done.

As we approach 2008, it is clear that the newsroom is going to have to do
even more to tighten spending, and to help the publisher and the Times
Company meet the difficult financial challenges facing our industry. While
we are committed to retaining our competitive muscle, we will be facing
some tough choices about where to save. That is why I must tell you that
there are going to be layoffs in the newsroom, for the first time in recent
memory. The people who are affected are not journalists, but that does not
make this news any easier to share.

Today we notified the Newspaper Guild that about a dozen support positions
within the newspaper are being eliminated. We will, for example, be
closing the Recording Room as well as trimming a number of clerical and
secretarial jobs. The people in those jobs will receive the severance they
are entitled under the Guild contract.

During 2008, we also expect to eliminate a few management jobs in
administrative areas.

This staff reduction does not include any journalists, nor any widespread
buyouts, as has happened in the past. But as many of you know, we put into
place a hiring freeze several weeks ago, and except for those jobs that are
critically important to our future ambitions, we intend to enforce it. As
journalists resign or retire from the Company next year, we will be trying to fill their
positions internally.

As we move into 2008, we will be rethinking coverage priorities and how we
use our space and our people, but always in ways that preserve what The
Times does best. In the future, as in the past few months while these
matters were under review, we have worked closely with our partners on the
business side, with a single shared ambition: to seek cutbacks and
reductions that are as strategically focused as possible, and do nothing to
damage our core journalism.

Bill