Saatchi Invaded by Bed Bugs; Staff Blame JC Penney

(MoneyWatch)  Bed bugs have invaded the 17th floor of the Saatchi & Saatchi building in New York, and staff there are already blaming client JC Penney. A source told AgencySpy:

Notable is the new JCPenney outfitted lounge they installed on the same floor in the free space from all the people they laid off.

Agencies lay people off when clients end their business with them. So was it really the smartest thing to do to blame the client for bed bugs when, let's face it, there's absolutely no proof that Penney has anything to do with this? Thousands of people enter the Saatchi building every day, it could be any of them.

More significantly, Manhattan was infested with bed bugs years before Penney arrived. And Penney, famously, only just arrived.

This kind of nonsensical reaction is to be expected from ad folk, judging by their response to two cases of swine flu that occured at R/GA recently:

"PEOPLE ARE FLEEING," one source tells me. "The whole 4th floor is hysterical right now."

Anticipating that kind of reaction, Saatchi sent everyone a memo that said:

If you have any health concerns, feel free to work from home tomorrow.

My favorite part:

Normal environmental conditions will not exist until Saturday noon ...

"Normal environmental conditions"? Are they switching off the gravity or something? My theory: It's all a coverup. Saatchi is obviously prepping the 17th floor as a landing pad for aliens who will eat the brains of the agency's staff. The scary thing is ... how we will know the difference between the aliens and the regular staff?

Text of the bed bug memo follows after the jump.

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Text of memo sent to Saatchi employees re bed bugs on 17th floor:

Our testing shows that the insect condition is limited to the 17th Floor. We will continue to test other floors on an ongoing basis and react accordingly. As is normal procedure, the second phase of the eradication process will commence at 8pm Friday night and will take approximately 6 hours. Normal environmental conditions will not exist until Saturday noon. Please do not plan to work on the 17th Floor until after 12pm (Saturday). Everyone on the 17th Floor must vacate the floor by 7pm Friday night. All accessible switchplates and outlet covers will be removed during the day (Friday). In 14 days, we will re-treat the entire 17th Floor to be doubly sure that conditions are 100% satisfactory. All chemicals used are DEA and EPA registered and approved. If you have any health concerns, feel free to work from home tomorrow.