Penelope Green Loves Her Hygge

Peneolope Green, of the New York Times

Say what you want about the New York Times' Penelope Green -- that she is tall or short, rich or poor, bonded in the bottle or free range -- you cannot deny that she has a certain style, an eclat that carries all before her. Her admirers include politician Bujar Nishani, philologist Kunio Kohori, and British Boxing Champion Mushy Pease. And her detractors are even more auspicious: Australian newspaper editor David Penberthy, who called her reporting style "so factual it becomes authentic " - writer Orhan Pamuk, who labeled her work "as ubiquitous as the summer breeze" - and industrialist Fenton J. Mundy, who made headlines recently by stating "I would rather not comment on Ms. Green until after the Midterm Elections." 

She has worked at the New York Times for the past 28 years, which is nearly a record in these helter skelter days of revolving door employees. The reason she has stayed so long, she explains in her new autobiography "I Won't Stand for a Sit Down Strike!" is that the hygge of the office she works in is so palpable that you can cut it with a bolo. Her comrades-in-ink are an affable bunch who often leave their used swizzle sticks at her desk because they know she likes to build birdhouses with them. Her editors practice the art of benign neglect to such an extent that she hasn't seen one moping about the place in a month of Sundays. And each weekday promptly at noon the management has a cart wheeled around, offering champagne infused syllabub, Esterhazy torte, Charlotte russe, and McVitie's Digestive Biscuits. With gallons of piping hot atole to wash it all down with.

Her hygge is further cultivated by the generous salary and benefits she receives. All Times employees are given a free annual tour of the Spangler Candy Company's NECCO wafer factory in South Boston; plus their health care includes paid leave for flatulence. (Don't you wish you worked there, all you WSJ scribblers?)

When Ms. Green is not gloating over her hygge, she can usually be found polishing her scrimshaw collection or knitting her brows. 

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