A major media company, New York Times I believe, yesterday fired 21 employees for e-mail violations. Apparently, the content was sexually suggestive.

Remember the good old days, when your sex life was a private matter, and opening other's mail was taboo?

-- Big Brother (@ .), December 02, 1999

Answers

most corporations have made their e-mail policies so strict that they can fire just about anyone for the smallest infractions. maybe the corps like it this way. I think everyone needs to lighten up just a little.

-- brownshirt (anticorp@hotmail.com), December 02, 1999.

Call me old fashion, but it's kind of hard to get interested in someone at work if you can't have a "sexual" attraction to them. How do you do this? By talking about the sports stats or the weather? Hardly! I would have never dated anyone at work (or gotten married to one of them) if we didn't "banter" sexually. Now a days, you have to watch what you say (or write) because someone (not likely the person it's ment for) will be offended and sue you! Give me a break!!!

-- P.A. (adkins@webbernet.net), December 02, 1999.

Shrug. If the intention was to stop employees from bringing disrepute on the company (as was claimed), then a warning followed by an example case would have sufficed. This looks like a company finding a convenient way to lop off some dead wood. A lot of other employees got off with warnings. My guess? Those people would have been sacked some other way sooner or later.

Anyway, they were using company resources, probably on company time. If you got caught sending personal snail mail through your employer's system, or telling dirty jokes over the phone, would you expect your privacy to be respected? Email is no different, it's just easier for them to catch the people they want to catch.

If you're bothered by privacy, encrypt your email. It's not hard.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.

Peeking at someone's snail mail, in their box, is a felony. Peeking at a worker's e-mail, in their box, is the responsibility and right of management because they "own" your PC?

Let's call harassment harassment.

My point is that paranoid management often is paranoid because it actually has something to hide! It then assumes EVERYONE must also have something to hide, so it reads your e-mail.

-- Hokie (nn@nn.com), December 02, 1999.

Exactly Colin,
And PGP is the program to use.

MIT distribution site for PGP

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 02, 1999.

So do you really think these employees would not have been fired if they had used PGP? Give me a break. They would probably have been fired, then turned over to the FBI as suspected terrorists.

PGP only works in a free society.

-- (@ .), December 02, 1999.

Link - Sun-Sentinel

New York Times fires workers for offensive e-mail

      
Web-posted: 7:52 a.m. Dec. 1, 1999

NEW YORK -- More than 20 employees of The New York Times Company have been fired for sending e-mail the company deemed "inappropriate and offensive."
     Russell Lewis, president and chief executive, and Cynthia Augustine, senior vice president for human resources, sent a memo to all employees telling them of the firings.
     "While the Company does not routinely monitor the e-mail communications of employees, we do investigate when a violation of the company's e-mail policy is reported," the memo said. "Such a case occurred recently ... and as a result, more than 20 individuals have been terminated for violation of our e-mail policy."
     All 23 of those fired worked at the Shared Services Center in Norfolk, Va., which company spokeswoman Nancy Nielsen said was a hub for processing payroll, invoices and benefits.
     The fired employees "all transmitted clearly inappropriate and offensive material, which left no doubt as to the discipline required," the memo said.
     Other employees received disciplinary warning letters.
     "In the past, one or two people here or there have been fired for e-mail violations, but this is the first time we've had a big number like this," Ms. Nielsen said. "I bet it will be the last."
     She declined to release details. The memo referred to company e-mail policy, which said computers cannot be used to "create, forward or display any offensive or disruptive messages, including photographs, graphics and audio materials."

-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), December 02, 1999.

It gets better. Even if you send something to one person, and they send it to another person who finds it offensive or whatever, you'll probably still the one held responsible. By and large, it's the company's equipment, the company's connection, the company's resources, and the company's time. See http://www.mlb.com/speech1.htm for a somewhat lawyerly dissertation, if you're so interested.

-- The Whistler (I'm Here, I'm There, I'm Everywhere@so.beware), December 02, 1999.

Sorry 'bout that. Link

-- The Whistler (I'm Here, I'm There, I'm Everywhere@so.beware), December 02, 1999.

"PGP only works in a free society."

Despotism changes mathematics? ;)

I do agree with your point though: by chiselling away at privacy, monstrosities like Clipper become conceivable, and then it's a short hop to "Now only criminals need to encrpypt", and encryption becomes a crime. I know it's unworkable, but that wouldn't stop the FBI/CIA/NSA/Squirrels from trying it and then settling for a compromising that chips away a few more protections.

The best way to fight that (IMO) is to use encryption habitually and casually (and encourage your acquiantances to use it), in the same way as you use envelopes around your mail instead of postcards.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.

P.A., I essentially agree with your thinking and viewpoint. However, I have in the past found this aphorism useful to keep in mind: "Dates are easier to find than good jobs". Do a risk-benefit analysis on this subject, and you will likely find IMHO that members of the opposite sex are best pursued away from work environments. Two older, more crass versions of the above are "Don't get your honey where you make your money", or (for doctors, lawyers, etc.) "F**k yor practice and it'll f**k you." Now, if a truly spontaneous and mutual attraction develops over time, that is another story. However, in these PC times, where feminist '"men are pigs"/women have a seemingly constitutional right never to be offended' memes rule, if in doubt, the answer is no.

I have also heard this one: "there are two kinds of women you can generally be yourself around: those whose good opinion of you is largely locked in {wives, mothers, sisters}, and those who cannot harm you. Women in the workplace are not in either category. Handle them as you would lethal quantities of any high explosive.". I interpret the last sentence as meaning A) carefully, and B) as little as possible.

I hope for the best for you. Perhaps BS workplace rules of the type you referenced will be part of the debris swept away by Y2K. It has to do SOME good, surely?

my website: www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), December 02, 1999.

I was going to suggest encryption too, but I don't think that would help much. They would still come down on you, and try to make you decode the mail....then you would refuse and be fired anyway.

political correctness SUCKS!

We crossed the line of usefulness for that crap a LOOOOONG time ago. Not that we should say whatever we want all the time, but it is WAY out of hand.

-- C. Hill (pinionsmachine@hotmail.com), December 02, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

I'm all for PGP. However, at work, they can capture your keystrokes.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 02, 1999.

Remember the good old days.... when stealing from your employer was wrong?

-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), December 02, 1999.

One good thing about a Y2K meltdown will be an instant disappearance of "political correctness".

-- A (A@AisA.com), December 03, 1999.