This memo from Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and CEO Janet Robinson, sent to all of the New York Times Company staff at the Times Square headquarters, crossed our transom earlier today:
Colleagues,
We have learned that several Times Company employees have become ill with gastrointestinal symptoms over the past 24 hours. We are working with the New York City Department of Health and Restaurant Associates to determine if the cause of these symptoms was food-based and will provide additional information as soon as it becomes available. While we do not know if the cause is food-related, as a precaution, we are closing the cafeteria for the day. In order to understand what the cause is, we need to know who has been affected and when. Please contact [Redacted] if you have experienced any possible symptoms. Thank you.
As far as we know, all affected employees are on the mend.
Arthur and Janet
“Could this possibly explain why The Times’s restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, grabbed his coat and left in such a hurry a few minutes after the memo hit his inbox?” wondered the paper’s Diner’s Journal blog. This sounds bad! And you thought things over there couldn’t get much worse. Now Times staffers have to tell HR before they are forced to run off to the bathroom to make what we’ve come to call “the Devil’s Decision.”
“Could this possibly explain why The Times’s restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, grabbed his coat and left in such a hurry a few minutes after the memo hit his inbox?” wondered the paper’s Diner’s Journal blog. This sounds bad! And you thought things over there couldn’t get much worse. Now Times staffers have to tell HR before they are forced to run off to the bathroom to make what we’ve come to call “the Devil’s Decision.”
