The women occupying the front lawn of Nabisco headquarters posted their governing rules Monday on the lid of a blue cooler, confirming what the company’s facilities team had long suspected: the lawn has a constitution, and the building is not a signatory.
The rules, hand-lettered in marker, read in full: No body talk at the table. Bring a plate or bring a question. The doctor is here Tuesdays and Thursdays. We don’t owe anybody an explanation.
“Four lines,” said a Vice President of Human Resources, who had walked out to read them. “Our handbook has a section on acceptable lanyard length.”
The lawn’s doctor, a nurse practitioner from the patient-vetted directory, sees walk-ins under a canopy and reportedly begins each visit by asking what the patient wants, a practice several visitors described as “disorienting at first.”
The snacks, prepared under the pavilion, are organized on a table labeled PROTEIN, FIBER, JOY, with the third section reportedly the largest.
Company representatives who approached the pavilion Monday were offered a plate and told, politely, that the rules applied to them too, including the first one.
At press time Nabisco had circulated an internal memo asking whether the company could “adopt some of the lawn’s practices,” and a reply from the lawn stating that it could, starting with the first rule, and that the memo was too long.
