AFTER media training from p.r. guru and crisis manager Michael Sheehan, Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend is trying to put a new face on his company, which shut down six magazines and slashed more than 350 jobs last year.
However, bitter recriminations continue to roil the company, particularly at Brides magazine, where sources say there has been friction between original Brides employees and a group of workers who were transferred from Cookie magazine when that title was shuttered last year.
Shortly before year-end, an employee at Brides was axed — apparently because of an incident related to her breast-augmentation surgery. News of the ouster has been buzzing around the Condé Nast tower since employees returned from the holiday break.
According to the woman, who was tracked down by Media Ink but was reluctant to speak on the record because it might affect her ability to get a job, she spoke about her procedure to two female colleagues who asked to see the results.
The woman, who was having the conversation in her office, closed the door, and unbuttoned her blouse to reveal a sports bra.
“It was within the confines of my office, behind closed doors,” the ex-employeee said. “There was no nudity involved. They were personal friends who I had known for years.”
Nevertheless, word about what happened ricocheted around the office and one staffer quickly went to human resources, which informed the woman that same day that a complaint had been lodged.
“[Human resources] told me they were going to investigate and that they would get back to me,” she said. Two days later, she said, HR brought her in and terminated her.
“They said that based on additional information, which they did not share, that it was inappropriate and I was fired,” she said. “I was in complete and utter shock.”
Daniel Mareck, a lawyer at Little & Robinson who is representing the axed employee, said he found Condé’s actions “unbelieveable when you consider the kind of images that are in Condé Nast magazines.”
He said his client “showed someone her sports bra-covered breasts, and it was so offensive she was fired.”
He said he has been in contact with Condé Nast attorney Jona than Glassman and is mul ling a suit.
“They gave her no sev erance and are trying to deny her unemployment benefits,” Mareck said.
Glassman did not re turn calls from Media Ink.
A Condé Nast spokeswoman said, “We don’t comment on personnel matters.”
The flap comes as Townsend has apparently expanded his pitch about the new and more communicative Condé Nast.
The CEO made his presentations to combined editorial and business staffs of Vanity Fair and GQ on Wednesday and The New Yorker on Tuesday.
As the New York Observer reported earlier this week, Townsend already visited the company’s back-office operations in Wilmington, Del., before the holidays and has plans for a swing out West to talk to Architectural Digest and Wired employees. Townsend is eventually expected to speak to every Condé Nast title.
According to one insider, Townsend didn’t take questions at any of this week’s sessions.
Menu woes
First, they said goodbye to 100 people in the newsroom right before Christmas. Now the survivors are getting food poisoning.
New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and President Janet Robinson were forced to shut down the New York Times cafeteria as a precaution after “several Times Company employees have become ill with gastrointestinal symptoms over the past 24 hours,” according to a memo they sent around yesterday.
By late yesterday, the company said the cafeteria would reopen today after sanitizing the kitchen, disposing of all prepared food and tossing all self-service food.
That means no bagel/toast area, and no soup and salad bar until next week.
The New York City Health Department and the catering company, Restaurant Associates, which also handles the Condé Nast cafeteria, are trying to find if the cause of the sickness is food-based or not.
Restaurant Associates is not expected to have the results of its tests back until Monday, and the health department won’t finish its tests until next week.
But on the bright side, the cafeteria lines will probably be short over the next few days.