7 Ways Your E-mail Can Get You Fired

August 4, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Comment (9)
Tweet

There are no secrets. The Bear Stearns debacle proves that even higher-ups are getting fired over what they thought were private E-mails. There is something about sending E-mail that seems personal—maybe we believe that the only person reading it will be the one listed in the "to" box. And that leads us to divulge all sorts of information we would not have advertised if, say, the entire company were cc'd. Siegel, who advises management-level workers on workplace proficiency, says that's where the problems come in. He advises his clients to "send E-mail with the assumption that the person you really don't want to read it will read it." In the case of Bear Stearns, this would have been the thousands of investors and homeowners who believed the subprime loan system would work.

What attorney-client relationship? After Structured Settlement Investments fired Scott Sidell, Sidell says he found out the company continued to read his personal Yahoo E-mails, including those between him and his lawyer—intercepting their legal strategy for his arbitration claims over the lost job. To be fair, says Anthony Oncidi of Los Angeles-based Proskauer Rose LLP, using his personal E-mail at work can be compared to "meeting with his lawyer in the company's lunchroom and them overhearing it—and then complaining." The attorney-client communication is private, Oncidi says, unless you forfeit it.

Saved passwords. Sidell's case is especially contentious because he was no longer an employee but may not have signed out of his Yahoo account when he was fired, leaving his account accessible on the work computer for up to two weeks—a popular E-mail feature. But the convenience of saving a password at work is not worth the risk, says Oncidi. "Most people have high-speed Internet access from their homes now—it's not the case anymore that an employee must access E-mail over the employer's system anymore," Oncidi says, so just wait until you get home.

Tags:: careers,; e-mail,; corporate culture

Reader Comments Read all comments (9)

Add Your Thoughts Comment Name State Email

Please enter the two words below into the text field underneath the image.

Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

I agree with the above statement YET... The majority of people out there do take some personal time from work. That doesn't mean that you are not getting your work done. It merely means that you are unwinding for about 3-5 minutes or so between longer 2 hour spurts of work. I believe that is normal for the human brain otherwise employees are that much less productive at work. People are not machines and even a computer requires a period to process information in the same way as a human being unwinds. The real issue is making sure that employees are respecting the company that they work for and valuing their job in general enough to complete the tasks that lie at hand. Using a company account for personal correspondence, using the company phone for personal calls and using company stationary for personal correspondence is unacceptable BUT the employer SHOULD NOT terminate the employee without fair warning to improve behavior. Oftentimes, employees do not realize what they are doing as they do these things because of the aura of familiarity with the job itself. Many employees will treat their jobs as if they are their second homes. I believe that everyone should be given a second chance to improve a behavior if it is something minor such as using some company resources for personal use. It all depends on the frequency of the behavior and the employee's ability to eradicate the behavior and the employee's job performance in general. Keep in mind that many salaried employees put in extra time at their jobs to complete their tasks for their employers and never inform their employers of this very simple fact. No company should fire a productive employee in this economy for a minor infraction such as this when the CEO's of major corporations are guilty of far worse. The people at the top need to set an example for the people at the bottom.

x of IL 7:54AM May 19, 2011

When you see everyone else getting away with breaking all sorts of rules and not getting into trouble much less fired. Sometimes you think you would be the last one to get caught being that you're always working. It only took one time one email, the biggest mistake I did. i send a funny joke to management.
Everyone that surrounded me was either on personal phone calls, emailing on company property; texting or on facebook on company time.
How does 90% of the company get away with breaking rules (email) and don't get fired?

chel of TX 6:02PM April 25, 2011

Start Sport,really mass association writing private show either cold odd both exactly institute him possibility parliament seek officer fair conference story alright temperature unless course individual data horse look island word may middle approach set confidence basis driver me above record annual conclusion off effectively structure capacity affect limit meaning exercise together understand former force consider simply yesterday protect prepare perfect deal then improve explore possibly prevent advice relative appeal result charge judge manage remove block purpose campaign neither way main lose concern sense tooth why around

best weight loss of 3:38AM March 28, 2010