Ethics, or, yeah, we are reading your email
Yesterday’s “spam-a-lot” (see below) episode led to a system administrator looking into the complainant’s email box to check on the spam filters. While looking in said email box, the sys admin saw an email from yours truly, read it, and noted I was referencing a “how-to” URL on our website which, unfortunately, was giving out wrong instructions. He mentioned this to another staff member who then asked me what she should do. I noted to her, after taking a deep breath and glancing at the SAGE Code of Ethics I put on my white board in honor of the auditors’ visit, that she should have seen my original email anyway because I cc’ed her on it and so therefore she could just reply with the correct info.
There is so much wrong with the above scenario I just want to run screaming, laugh hysterically, or add a little whisky to my coffee. Or maybe I should just stop trying to make sense of it all. Why not just let it all be bad? I mean, it’s so much easier and, like my Mediocrity demotivator says, “By the time they notice the difference, it will be too late.”
Seth Vidal said:
May 23, 08 at 5:21 amYou could always think about having the person who read the email fired.
Reading someone’s email, as a sysadmin, is, to me, like reading someone’s email as a postmaster. Sure, you _could_ do it, but you damn well better expect that you may lose your job b/c of it.
kc said:
May 23, 08 at 7:28 amAre we allowed to fire people in academia? I thought we were supposed to “mentor” and “guide” and “coddle”. I think I slept through that meeting…
Seth Vidal said:
May 23, 08 at 8:05 amOh, I think “privacy violation” is a fireable offense.
If not, it should be.
admin said:
May 23, 08 at 2:49 pmOh, believe me, this is definitely on the table. Actually, not so much on the table, more like on my mind and then out my mouth. But I didn’t fire him–it was clear to me that he just hadn’t thought through the implications of his actions. So we met and I said extremely clearly and directly that as much as I like him and enjoy working with him (both of which are true), I would fire him without a second thought if he ever did something like that again. It’s just Not Something You Do. It ended up being a very good conversation, once he stopped freaking.
filberthockey said:
Jun 04, 08 at 3:42 pmIf I register first, can I read your email?