Why I'm Going to Stop Bitching About My Boss on Email
The Post quotes a report today saying that 30-40% of large employers hire staff to read employee's outbound e-mail messages and that anohter 30% are considering the practice.
Now, maybe I'm not a typical user, but I use my "company" e-mail address for everything. I am on it all day anyway and it was such a pain to check my personal e-mail that I just stopped doing it. Of course, I'm not arranging for prostitutes or drug deals via e-mail, just bitching about my job. Oh, wait...
What are the implications of this for political campaigns? Well, what if you work for Rupert Murdoch and the email "monitor" discovers you are receiving e-mails from the Dennis Kucinich campaign? Can you be fired for "violating the corporate e-mail policy?" Would you be fired if they were from Bill O'Reilly?
It may be difficult to prove political discrimination on the part of a company, but if voters perceive campaign emails to be a threat then they won't accept them and we'll all be looking for new jobs.
posted by Robin @ 10:04 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
That's crazy! 30-40%! I like you use my work email for personal stuff. It would really bother me to know that people are reading my messages off of the server.
What gives employers the right to think that this is acceptable?
The fact that they own and are paying for your email service gives them this right. I know that my work emails are checked, while it did bother me at first, I realized my employer is paying for me to have email access and this is a way for them to monitor misuse of company resources. If you don't want to get in trouble for emails, (remember Washingtonienne?) be a professional and use your personal account for personal emails.
I agree that employers do not own their employees ideas. But they do own the medium you're using to communicate those ideas. I doubt any reasonable employer would fire an employee for the simple act of emailing friends (unless it prevented you from doing your job). It's the content that matters (aka Washingtonienne). If you're doing something potentially illegal or against company policy using your work email address, your employer has every right to know.
Take Jack Abramoff. People were pouring over the emails he sent from his work email account. Is this an invasion of his privacy?
Bottom line; treat your work email like your blog. If you don't want others reading it, don't write it.
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