Ah, summer is finally in the air. Exhausted and/or lazy magazine editors and staff reporters are stoked for four-day weekends of crashing in whomever's beach house they can find. The long drunken days of slapped-together service stories and poorly-edited copy are soon to come for them all... except, according to yesterday's memo, for the poor critters at New York magazine. Back to your cubicles! No Hamptons for you!

************************** Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 2:42 PM To: *CMM-NYM-ART/PROD; *CMM-NYM-EDIT; *CMM-NYM-NonEdit/Prod Subject: from adam moss

everybody,

summer is around the corner. and with summer comes summer vacations — or, more immediately, summer vacation requests. they've started to come in, and sarah and i have been puzzling what to do about them given the extraordinarily busy summer we're about to have.

[Ed Note: Blah blah blah, long list of projects, redacted from this section. Something about a special pull-out section on The Clowns Of New York? Special fashion section on the few remaining trannie hookers of the West Side?]

i am inclined to say that we can't afford to allow anyone a vacation, but that strikes me as both cruel and counterproductive, since we'll need you refreshed and rested for battle.

so....

here's what i propose. i am asking as many of you as possible to schedule your summer vacation (single week, i'm afraid) simultaneously, which is to say the week of july 19-23. that's our july down week. if everyone is gone at once, we have a much better chance of getting through the summer without placing too much of the burden on any individual(s).

i will also approve vacations (sparingly) in june. i am going to be very stingy in august and september, but i know emergencies come up, and sarah and i will hear them out. in addition, we will try to build in some opportunities for long weekends and grant them on request.

and for 2004, we are relaxing the rules on what vacation time you have to take this calendar year. because of the extraordinary nature of what we are attempting right now, we will make sure you do not lose any vacation time if you can't find a way to spend all your days this year.

i'm sorry to be something of a scrooge about all of this, but i can't see how to be any more generous and still accomplish all that we have promised. we have a very big opportunity here, and we'll need all of your time and energy and commitment to get it right.

many thanks for understanding.