Pay attention to the e-mail trail
Great story about what people find in email posted by the OC Register and Scaramento Bee
Be careful what you write, experts say, because the whole world – including your boss and your spouse – could know it tomorrow.
By CYNTHIA HUBERT
The Sacramento Bee
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann probably assumed he was making a private joke when he described a colleague as “dumber than a suitcase of rocks” in an e-mail message.
Big mistake.
Last month, his comments about fellow TV personality Rita Cosby showed up in the New York Daily News, and Olbermann had some explaining to do.
In a world where personal missives can instantly tour the globe with a click of the “send” or “forward” button, others have suffered far greater consequences. When they get into the wrong hands, indiscreet e-mails can cost people jobs, clients, business deals, even marriages.
“People are enormously careless about e-mail, until they get burned,” said Atlanta attorney John Mayoue. Electronic messages, Mayoue said, have become “the best, most foolproof” way of outing cheating spouses in divorce cases, and they can cause all kinds of other problems for unsuspecting senders.
According to an annual survey by the technology firm Proofpoint, nearly 40 percent of companies employ staffers to read other employees’ e-mails, and more and more workers are losing jobs for violating e-mail policies. Incendiary e-mails have most famously been used to prove criminal charges against Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who died July 5.
If you want to make sure electronic messages never come back to bite you, said Mayoue, assume everything that you write is being monitored, copied, printed, forwarded.
“Never, ever write anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want on the front page of The New York Times,” said Suzanne Bates, author of the book “Speak Like a CEO, Secrets to Commanding Attention and Getting Results.” Unless you install special software that prevents recipients from forwarding your message, it might as well be on a billboard, she said.
In the legal field, e-mail has spawned a cottage industry of specialists who mine electronic messages to prove infidelity, character flaws and even crime, said Sacramento attorney Paul Hemesath.
BE A SMARTER SENDER
Author, consultant and former Yahoo executive Tim Sanders offers the following top tips of e-mail etiquette:
• Never say no: “E-mail is for yes, maybe, passing on information or answering a question. If you’re going to say no, pick up the phone.”
• Don’t CC Dad: “Try to limit CCing your boss or parents. The person you are sending the e-mail (to) can become rather resentful.”
• Don’t send e-mail with “hot eyelids”: “Never send an e-mail when you’re mad. Touch your fingers to your eyelids and if they’re hot, put the e-mail into the drafts box and revisit once you’ve calmed down.”
• Stop replying to all: “Erase the ‘reply all’ from your e-mail. Take the time to think who the e-mail really needs to go to.”
• Consider the time: “If you are a boss, don’t send company e-mails throughout the night. If your employees see you working late, they will feel they have to as well. This could cause a very resentful workplace.”
