No one wants to get a cryptic email like the one below, which we were forwarded a little while ago. But that’s especially true at the chaotic Washington Times.

Date: Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Subject: All Staff Meeting Today
To: “twteveryone@washingtontimes.com”

Dear Colleagues,

At the request of Jonathan Slevin, Acting President and Publisher I am notifying you of an all staff meeting (all employees) that will be held in the Ballroom today at 3:30 p.m.

Sonya R. Jenkins | Vice President | Human Resources

First word trickling out of the meeting? Michael Calderone says “significant staff reductions” and, get this, a switch to giving the paper away for free in some markets, a la The Washington Examiner model.

Sources inside the newsroom tell DCist that those layoffs have been said to include a whopping 40 percent of the staff, to be laid off over the next 60 days. No one seems to know who will be getting the axe just yet.

UPDATE 4:22 p.m.: More on that “60 day” deadline. Times employees tell us they were required to sign that they had received a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act letter, which is required before mass layoffs at a company of more than 100 employees. So that means that no employees can legally be laid off until 60 days have passed from today, under the WARN Act.

And we’ve yet to get more details on how this proposed free distribution model would work, but this is how Calderone is describing it:

There will be “controlled-market local circulation,” with the local print edition free in certain areas of Washington with a premium price for home-delivery. “No-cost distribution will focus on targeted audiences in branches of the federal government as well as at other key institutions,” the release said, although there will be single-copy sales in newspaper boxes and select retailers.

So, not exactly like the Examiner, more like a hybrid of it and the existing Times subscription service.