[mefistofelerevised]

work ethic or jerk ethic

[netmilsmom]

You company email is NEVER Private.

[Erik Latranyi]

It’s easy to get drawin into such things.

Coworkers are mostly considered ‘friends’, so humorous e-mails and off-color commentary can come easily....especially if you do this at home with non-work friends.

The policies for use of e-mail are in place to protect companies from unscupulous lawsuits made by co-workers looking to get rich.

Trust me, if the P&G workers were only warned on this, someone would have come forward to say they were “offended” and would start a lawsuit.

[donhunt]

Typical. Act stupid and try to get away with it.
These fools should run for Congress. They’re dumb enough.

[RAO1125]

One of the electricians who got fired there now works for the company I do (a competing paper company). Nice guy, excellent electrician. Their loss is our gain. We have guys who have done far worse and barely got a slap on the wrist, but being a union shop doesn’t hurt.

[Gay State Conservative]

Geeze...anyone with an IQ over 50 knows that when you work for a large corporation you must *always* be *very* careful of what you put onto paper...or onto a computer keyboard.

[StolarStorm]

Personal usage of company email is pretty much universal. You should see some of the emails I've gotten from execs...

Actions like this are just a way to lay people off without severance or unemployment compensation.

There should be a simple standard applied to this sort of thing, if only a select few get fired for personal usage, then they should get the unemployment.

[detective]

This stuff is serious.
I know someone who was fired just for receiving offensive emails and not deleting them. The company did a review of all computers, the email was on this guy’s computer. He was let go.
He got a lawyer and eventually got a settlement from the company years later.
I know a woman who was fired for having offensive emails on her computer while she was on maternity leave. A memo came around to delete all offensive emails and that there would be a check of all computers and disciplinary action would be taken against those who still had offensive emails on their computers. She was on maternity leave, never got the message and a search of her computer found several offensive emails. She got a lawyer and sued and eventually won.
Another woman was out sick and an African American was at her desk and found material that was deemed racist in her desk drawer. (It was a list of jokes, some of which were racial). She was fired. I don’t know if she sued or not.

[Mark was here]

This is the fruit of zero tolerance thinking, we should embrace a diversity in e-mail content.

[donhunt]

These are the same people that would raise holy hell if their paycheck was short by thirteen cents but can’t remember a simple rule about email in their employee’s handbook.

[GodfearingTexan]

Makes me wonder if they were fired more for convenience due to problems with P&G’s health. Many years ago the state of Virginia fired a whole bunch of DOT employees after analyzing how much time was spent online during the workday, determining that they obviously weren’t working. This kept them from having to cut other costs.

[Graybeard58]

I don’t have an office computer, only a personal one but I have one simple rule about emails and that is if the letters “FW” appear in the title, they get deleted unopened, I don’t care who they are from.