Stiffed at Stuff

Dennis Publishing's brand-new owners aren't scoring any empathy points with their new employees.

Although most of the layoffs associated with yesterday's folding of Stuff magazine aren't expected to be announced until later today or tomorrow, three longtime Dennis staffers have already lost their jobs—and been told they won't be getting any severance pay, either.

Worse yet, the three are all British citizens whose legal residence in the U.S. depended on their employment with Dennis (which has been rechristened Alpha Media Group). "They are understandably pissed," says a former Dennis source about the axed Brits.

An Alpha Media spokeswoman insists the three staffers—two of whom actually work at Maxim—were not terminated but turned out as an unavoidable result of the ownership change.

"They were working here on a particular type of visa that, with the final sale of the company, was dissolved," she explains. And since the three were technically employed by Dennis UK, it will be up to that company to decide whether to grant them severance or find jobs for them back in London.

While that may be true, for new C.E.O. Kent Brownridge to seize on a technicality to deny any compensation to people losing their jobs and their visas goes a long way toward explaining why Advertising Age columnist Simon Dumenco christened him "Dr. Evil."

by Jeff Bercovici