• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 26, 2006

What ostensibly began as a holiday office party lark - the placement of a stripper pole in the office of the chief creative officer of Boston ad agency Arnold Worldwide - has ended up sparking threats of termination to agency staffers who speak about it publicly.

"We wanted to acknowledge that we have received a lot of feedback on the holiday party. Most of the feedback has been positive," Arnold CCO Pete Favat and agency President Pam Hamlin wrote in an interoffice memo, a copy of which was obtained by MediaDailyNews.

The memo goes on to note that some of feedback about the party, which was the subject of a detailed story in hometown paper The Boston Herald was "negative," and the management team cautioned staffers about speaking publicly, circulating emails, or talking to media reps about the incident, under the threat of termination.

"As it relates to the article in the Herald, please note that we have an internal press policy. No one is to speak to the press about anything related to our company or our clients without approval," the memo stated.

"In addition, videos, work, internal information, emails, client information, presentations, memos, and the like, are not content for public display. Nothing should be posted on U-Tube, MySpace, Blogs, etc. or forwarded to the press without approval."

The agency managers added that, "Moving forward, violation of this policy will result in termination."

According to the newspapers account of the Havas unit's party, it was something Michael Scott, the inappropriately fictional boss in NBC's "The Office" couldn't have come with in his "wildest dreams."