30 July 2007
E-mails can cause office strife, report warns
Learning simple rules could help employees avoid sending out embarrassing messages.
E-mail blunders happen somewhere in the world 42 times a minute, causing office conflicts and even getting people sacked, according to commercial work-space consultants, officebroker.com.
An e-mail was sent to an external advertising company with the word 'walking' misspelled for something much ruder.
As well as quoting statistics, the officebroker.com report lists a number of e-mail horror stories, including:
- A boss who sent out everyone's salary details to the entire company (realizing his error he faked a fire alarm and rushed to everyone's computers to erase his error).
- An e-mail was sent to an external advertising company with the word "walking" misspelled for something much ruder.
- Accidentally confessing use of illegal drugs to senior management (the individual in question was made to leave the firm soon after).
Employees need to be educated to take time and think hard before hitting the 'send' button.
Poor use of "reply all"
Other bad e-mail mistakes include:
- A colleague being cc'd on an e-mail chat containing nasty comments about his wife.
- Accidentally hitting "reply all" and "outing" a friend's sexuality to his family.
- A police officer who e-mailed her entire force by mistake to ask "Who stole my yoghurt?" (replies included suggestions about sealing off the area and bringing in dog teams to search for criminal evidence).
Officerbroker.com warns that employees need to be educated to take time and think hard before hitting the "send" button and check whether it's right to use the "reply" or the "reply all" button when sending a return.
Got a news story? Contact the newsdesk