Office Email Accounts

[Pared]

Just wondering...

Do any of you use your office email for personal reasons or comments? I know any good setup can easily track down and trace email that gets sent to and/or from your accounts.

I'm curious to know if this would be able to be used against you as evidence in a Court of Law or grounds for dismissal. Would this be considered a violation of your Privacy?

Here's an example: I email my co-worker and rip my boss and our CEO to shreds, calling them every name in the book. Can they use this as basis for anything?

And no, I'm not in that situation.

[mgoblue]

Re: Office Email Accounts

Work has every right to read your e-mail...I'm not sure if they could fire you for that, but I would personally just use work e-mail for work.

Personally I just access my personal e-mail through a web page at work and send stuff to friends and whatnot that way.

Or you can access your e-mail through the iPhone you know you're buying at some point :wink:

[thejake]

Re: Office Email Accounts

You should treat most email as a post card. Anybody can read it if they really wanted to.

[ac11367]

Re: Office Email Accounts

I try not to use office email for any personal reasons. Since office email is a part of the company's private network, they can fire you for including inappropriate contents (curses, porn, sensitive company info, etc, they have softwares that flag keywords) in an email. BUt most firms will give you a warning first before laying down the hammer, except if you divulge company secrets. Company's email is not subject to the protection of first amendment and you're not entitled to privacy because it's the property of the company.

[Pared]

Re: Office Email Accounts

Or you can access your e-mail through the iPhone you know you're buying at some point :wink:

Interesting comments. I see how it is company property... but in the scenario I posted it is an office topic you're discussing amongst a co-worker... your ill relations with a boss/fellow employee.

Can you bad mouth your supervisor and have them hold it against you?

[ac11367]

Re: Office Email Accounts

Interesting comments. I see how it is company property... but in the scenario I posted it is an office topic you're discussing amongst a co-worker... your ill relations with a boss/fellow employee.

Can you bad mouth your supervisor and have them hold it against you?

Your supervisor even has the right to printout your email conversation, make a copy for everyone during your next office meeting, and use that as an example to communicate what not to do with office emails, if he/she is that big of an a-h0le. Like back in class when your teacher intercepted notes passed between classmates, he/she would actually read the content out loud for the whole class to hear.

Remember, your privacy is not protected in any shape or form, and the contents can be used against you, either directly or indirectly.

[mjb2124]

Re: Office Email Accounts

I never use office email for personal use and I would urge everyone else not to as well.

Basically, you are using their computer on their network and that's all that matters. Your employer can search it and fire you if they want. Just like your office desk/office/cube. Your employer can search that area whenever they want.

Here's an example. There is a guy I work with who's manager thought he was spending too much time emailing buddies and doing things at work he shouldn't have been doing. He came to me and told me he wanted access to that person's email. I said "No, but if HR tells me to do so, I'll do it". So he went to HR and HR told me that yes, he should have access on grounds that the PC was not being used for business purposes. So I gave his boss access. That person was later fired for certain findings within his email.

Bad mouthing a boss over email? Probably not grounds for firing, but your boss will probably make your life hell if they find out. Plus, your boss will also look for other reasons to fire you or even lay you off the next time they need to trim the work force.

[fishepa]

Re: Office Email Accounts

We give manager's access to their employee's email all the time.

[MassNole]

Re: Office Email Accounts

Perfectly legal for your employer to do as they please with your emails and would be fully admissible in any trial.

[capa]

Re: Office Email Accounts

How about a work at home employee who surfs the internet and uses an internet based web mail system like hotmail or their ISP's internet based email? They are logged into their company's internal network, but have access to the internet from within this network.

A little different flavor of same problem/question...

[Pared]

Re: Office Email Accounts

I never use office email for personal use and I would urge everyone else not to as well.

Basically, you are using their computer on their network and that's all that matters. Your employer can search it and fire you if they want. Just like your office desk/office/cube. Your employer can search that area whenever they want.

Here's an example. There is a guy I work with who's manager thought he was spending too much time emailing buddies and doing things at work he shouldn't have been doing. He came to me and told me he wanted access to that person's email. I said "No, but if HR tells me to do so, I'll do it". So he went to HR and HR told me that yes, he should have access on grounds that the PC was not being used for business purposes. So I gave his boss access. That person was later fired for certain findings within his email.

Bad mouthing a boss over email? Probably not grounds for firing, but your boss will probably make your life hell if they find out. Plus, your boss will also look for other reasons to fire you or even lay you off the next time they need to trim the work force.

Ha, that's going a bit too far... if you can't use discretion with that then you deserve to be dealt with.

We give manager's access to their employee's email all the time.

Ha that's great. Any good stories come of it?

[ac11367]

Re: Office Email Accounts

How about a work at home employee who surfs the internet and uses an internet based web mail system like hotmail or their ISP's internet based email? They are logged into their company's internal network, but have access to the internet from within this network.

A little different flavor of same problem/question...

Hmmm. All I know is, once I logged on to my company's network, its firewall would bar me from accessing any personal email accounts.

I would say that if you are logged on to the company's network, they have the right to monitor all of your activities (contents within your personal email; what you post on Operationsports, etc), because they are the ones providing you with that connection, and they're the ones who paid for that connection. And per company policy, that internet connection should be used for only business purpose, and they have the right to police it anyway they please to make sure employees adhere to their policy.

[TarHeelMan]

Re: Office Email Accounts

At my job, my Hotmail account is blocked. So no worries there. I wouldn't email something from work that couldn't wait until I got home, anyway.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: Office Email Accounts

Considering it's not your computer, and you're not paying for the internet, your employer should have every right to be able to trace all the websites you visit and all e-mails you send and receive.

I don't use my corporate e-mail for personal use (ie. e-mailing friends) and there are certain sites I don't visit on my work computer. It's all about smart decisions.

[ODogg]

Re: Office Email Accounts

I agree with you all who are saying that the company you work for has every right to monitor your email but just to add a voice of reason here, I think all employers know and understand that most employees occasionally email family or friends regarding personal non-company related emails. I don't think most companies fire or discipline anyone for that as they understand it, it's mostly if your company believes your job duties are lacking because of such abuse.