An internal Washington Post staff email, obtained by FishbowlDC:

Subject: Inauguration Day - January 20, 2009
As you know, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 is Inauguration Day. As with every presidential inauguration, this will be an important day for Washington Post Digital and The Washington Post Company. As you can imagine, it also will be a logistically challenging day for many employees commuting to work in the Washington, DC area on that day.

Current crowd size projections for the inaugural and related events indicate that an extremely large number of people will be in the city for this historic event, which will make commuting to work difficult.

In addition, we understand that many Washington Post Digital employees
may want to take the day off to participate in inaugural events.

Accordingly, each Department will determine which employees and/or roles will be required to report to work on Inauguration Day. Of course, Editorial employees, because of their Inauguration Day responsibilities, should talk to their managers as soon as possible to determine their status for that day.

In any event, we will need all employees required to work on January
report to work that day to ensure effective operations. In addition to our normal operational needs, we anticipate an increased demand for copies of The Post, with many online requests and phone calls to our office, similar to the days following Election Day.

Employees who are not specifically required to report to work on Inauguration Day may use a vacation day if they would prefer to avoid the heightened challenges of travel to and from work on January 20.

These vacation leave requests, however, must be approved in advance by
your manager, and must be made in accordance with your vacation leave
policy. Any other special arrangements or exceptions must be approved by the department's VP.

For those employees who normally drive to work, we encourage you to carpool with other Washington Post Digital employees where possible to help reduce congestion in and out of the city.

We appreciate your flexibility and understanding as we endeavor to accommodate as many employees requests as we can while ensuring operational effectiveness on this historic day.

Thanks!