Viacom, the parent company of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon (among others), recently laid off 7% of their staff. That is 850 people, folks! But apparently, Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami doesn't think it's any reason to cancel Christmas, hosting a party for a chosen few— but Viacom's employee party was officially taken away this year due to lack of funds. This, of course, really pisses off the uninvited. Memo follows.

Macmillan, the publishing giant that's been around since 1843 and includes imprints like Farrar, Strauss & Giroux (home to Thomas Friedman), Picador (Naomi Klein) and St. Martin's (South Beach Diet), gave its employees what passes as a Christmas bonus this year: he didn't lay off anyone but did announce a pay freeze for 2009 "for everyone making over $50,000." That's not as bad as getting laid off, however, which is what happened at Simon & Schuster, Doubleday, and maybe Random House. Lovely! Full memo after the jump.

Are you a Republican who feels some sort of responsibility to aid in the creation of a whitewashed false memory of an uneventful, maybe mildly successful Bush presidency? Yes? Then the White House has a memo for you!

Wow, this beats even the douchey memos or subject-only e-mail missives we're used to receiving. Larry Gagosian, probably the richest gallerist in the world, sent this message to send to his staff in November: "If you would like to continue working for Gagosian I suggest you start to sell some art." The memo originally appeared on Flash Art Online, but now we can't find it—maybe because Gagosian is a big advertiser on that site?—and was also picked up by More Intelligent Life. The rest of the threatening memo—"If you are not willing to make that kind of commitment please let me know"—after the jump.

Gallerist Larry Gagosian may have to turn to the heavens above to help him sell overpriced art, since it appears his staff isn't getting the job done, at least judging by the memo he sent out to Gagosian Gallery employees in recent weeks. "If you would like to continue working for Gagosian I suggest you start to sell some art... The luxury of carrying under-performing employees is now a thing of the past." [Intelligent Life via Gawker]

People editor Larry Hackett sent out a memo late today indicating the celebrity magazine got rid of 18 editorial staff, per the goal it set in early November. The communique, reprinted after the jump, gave no indication of whether the voluntary buyouts the Time Inc. title sought had to be supplemented with involuntary firings. Nor did it specify which staffers were leaving, or which bureaus were most heavily affected. But then it was written by the same guy who let his magazine slide into the common tabloid muck it was once a cut above, only to rationalize and narrowly deny the whole scandal, so what do you expect, forthright, expansive honesty?

With so many layoffs going down today, it's a good time to take a look at how, exactly, a layoff memo should be written. Actually, any time you're critiquing a flood of layoff memos is by definition a bad time. But we'll disregard that for the moment. People need to be let down in the proper way, lest they get justifiably angry enough to put managers up against the wall. After the jump, we analyze five elements of today's memos that illustrate everything you corporate flacks need to know about firing people like us:

Tribune Co. crazy man Lee Abrams to staff: "Revolutions are about 'we'. The leaders need to engage EVERYone. And EVERYone needs to engage the cause. You are either WITH the revolution or AGAINST it. You will either be embraced by the company and win or the company will beat you." Yea, he's lost it. [Romenesko]

Hey, whoa, BLOW UP your television and get ready for DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT sound and visuals comin atcha from a WIDE SPECTRUM OF NEW HOOKS. This is the future, people. The Tribune Co.'s "Chief Innovation Officer" and craziest dude in the newspaper industry Lee Abrams has some new memo-fied ideas that will have you looking at TV weeded out of your mind a whole new way. Consider: "The old line 'Don't fix it if aint broke' makes no sense. It's like saying: Let it break...then we'll fix it." And that's just the beginning!:

Prepare to die, entitled Conde Nasties! Conde has always had a well-deserved reputation as the most opulent and self-important of all magazine publishing companies. Those days are coming to an end. The (gender-neutral!) diva culture that spawned The Devil Wears Prada and a million young aspiring media people who thought that a magazine employee could live the lifestyle of an investment banker—it's all on the way out. We come to bury you, Conde Nast culture, not to mourn you. Contemplate this, special ones: you may soon be forced to travel in (and pay for) common taxi cabs, like the poors! And it gets worse:

Former Time Inc. drones tired of their company's massive layoffs are fighting back. In email form! Susan Haynes, a former editor at Coastal Living, struck back at the parent company for slashing jobs at all of the titles in its Southern Progress division (which sounds like the name some 1965 white civil rights group, but that is not pertinent). We're willing to bet Haynes' "scathing memo" was laughed off by the bosses, right up until it landed in the New York Post this morning [UPDATE: the full emails are now pasted below]: Besides saying that Sylvia Auton, the head of Time Inc.'s lifestyle group, is horrible at her job, Haynes said this in an email to the top Time Inc. bosses:

Cold-hearted bastards. The New York Times sent out a memo to employees this morning telling them that the 14th, 15th, and 16th floors are going to be closed over Thanksgiving weekend so that workers can finally put finishing on the wood floors—a vital job for which the paper has plenty of money. Do you know what this means? The cafeteria will be closed on Thanksgiving. Take your snack from the coffee cart and be happy, peons! Wait, that's closed too:

Newsweek has come up with the worst rationale yet for canceling the annual holiday party: The magazine said it is sacrificing the Christmastime shindig to have any even more awesome party in April. Because spring is totally the time you want to be partying late with coworkers, and the sun goes down three hours later (7:39ish vs. 4:30), so management doesn't have to worry about people punching out early. We suppose this sounds better than "we want to reduce the chances of having to fire you all amid the rapidly accelerating implosion of print media and Western capitalism, just like Condé Nast, Viacom, Hearst ABC News and News Corp. before us." The internal memo is after the jump.

It's a grim day for employees of Citigroup as they hear more about the beleaguered bank's plans to cut costs and slash another 10,000 jobs. But Citi director Dick Parsons doesn't want to see anyone to give up hope. He issued a memo to company employees earlier this morning and urged them to "keep the faith." The memo's below.

Vivian Schiller, the General Manager of NYTimes.com, is leaving the Times to become the president and CEO of NPR. National Public Radio, people! This is a huge announcement for lovers of the liberal media. Schiller has overseen lots of evolution at the paper's website—including the rollout of comments—which is the single best thing the Times has going for it. She became famous for her weekly memos and her devotion to slideshows. The Times had better choose her replacement very carefully. Her going-away email to the staff is after the jump:

When musicians hit the road for a tour, they send ahead a rider to a venue so that the promoters will be aware of all the artist's needs. The lengthy Rihanna tour rider leaked to The Smoking Gun details, as to a four-year old, Rihanna's many needs, including a healthy supply of Fanta, cheese doodles, 24 buffalo wings, and hard-boiled eggs at any time of day or night. Click for the extensive details.Nothing will ever top the epic Foo Fighters tour rider from May of this year, but we are somewhat amused by Rihanna's preferences. Hey, when you know what you want, you know what you want. From the list of what should appear in her dressing room:

The man who shall save newspapers is back with another newspaper-saving memo! Possibly written while under the influence of ibogaine! This time Tribune's Chief Innovation Of New Ways To Make Bongs Officer Lee Abrams is doing what he does best: showering a far-flung newspaper with ideas about how they should do their job, according to none other than career radio man Lee Abrams. "What does Pravda say about our economy?" "Poker is the 21st Century Bridge." Think about it, newspaperpeople! This is hands-down the BEST LEE ABRAMS MEMO YET: And now, Lee Abrams' suggestions to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Robert Thomson is known to be fashioning a more global Wall Street Journal. Thus far, the most striking example of this was when the managing editor sent hustling distributors to hand out copies of the Journal throughout London at the outbreak of the banking meltdown last month. But no one thought the former Financial Times man's ambitions would end there, and they haven't. In a sign he'd love to reconquer his old hometown, Thomson just announced the promotion of up-and-comer Bruce Orwall to chief of the London bureau. Anonymous sources told blogger Nikki Finke the move was coming last night; we've got the freshly-emailed memo after the jump.

To hear present and former Huffington Post employees tell it, the liberal website owes its ridiculously high turnover mainly to founder Arianna Huffington's tendency to use staffers to perform menial personal chores, to an internal culture of nasty screaming and name-calling and to a generally chaotic management structure, such as it is, subservient to Arianna's rapidly-changing whims. But Rachel Sklar managed to last a jaw-dropping two-and-a-half years at HuffPo, a rare achievement that saw her become one of the site's highest-profile editors and a frequent cable-TV talking head. Why would management, as our tipster claims, push Sklar out? Read between the lines in the memo after the jump.

Lee Abrams is back—in memo form! The most high innovative exec at Tribune Co., Abrams' job is just to sit around and compose memos full of CAPITALIZATION and deep thoughts on the newspaper industry. Which are classics! His new memo includes the following things: his thoughts on redesigns; one of his old blog posts, in its entirety; a list of the top-grossing music acts of 2008; and a disquisition on old and ratty hotels. After the jump, enlightment: