Help... left my terminal unlocked at work...

Rebchappers

I hope that someone may be able to offer me some help here. I was ill at wok today with sickness and halfway through a telephone call, i had to ask a colleague to take over whilst i ran to the toilets. I came back approx 4 mins later to find the colleague sat in my chair at my computer. They said... you need to go home, i have logged you off your computer and i will take over. I was really grateful, said thank you and went home. This evening i have received a call from my boss after the said colleague had made a compaint to him....the colleague HADNT logged me off and had in fact gone through approx 400 of my SENT EMAILS ( not even those in my inbox) and a couple were about this colleague. They were private emails sent between me and another colleague, that this other colleague had taken exception to. In order to find these emails, the colleague would have had to search.... and they stated to my boss that they ''didnt realise'' it wasnt their email account, despite specifically telling me that they had logged me off. These emails were sent about 8 weeks ago, so they would have had to sift through hundreds of others before coming to these... the subject headers wouldnt even have given anything away. At what point did they not realise it wasnt their account?? Perhaps the fifty or so i had sent today to my husband? I am so angry and upset, as it appears the colleague did this deliberately. Yes, i know i should have locked my terminal, but at 15 weeks pregnant and throwing up, i just forgot. This colleague is now claiming we are bullying her... even though the emails were private ( and marked as restricted - if this makes any difference) betwen two colleagues that were never intended to be seen by anyone else. They were our opinions.

Anyone got any ideas where i stand on this???

Anihilator

No such thing as a private email at work.

For me there are three seperate issues

1) Not safeguarding your terminal is almost certainly a brech of IT policy. The fact you were ill is mitigating however

2) Misuse of company email. Severity depends on content, frequency and volume as well as what you should have been doing at the time you sent these

3) Harassment/Bullying - by far the worst

I dont think trying to defect the blame to your colleague for reading them is a good idea. At worst they will get a warning but all it will do is make it look worse for you as you arent being a grown up and owning up and being remorseful.

One thing to bare in mind. Nothing on work email is private.

McKneff

Sorry but emails on a company computer are not private, your company probably has a policy about this. If you are chatting via email in company time you are not working.

You will probably have to face a disciplinary. and this could possibly be for gross misconduct which is a sackable offence. i also hope you learn from it.

iamana1ias

Rebchappers wrote: »

I hope that someone may be able to offer me some help here. I was ill at wok today with sickness and halfway through a telephone call, i had to ask a colleague to take over whilst i ran to the toilets. I came back approx 4 mins later to find the colleague sat in my chair at my computer. They said... you need to go home, i have logged you off your computer and i will take over. I was really grateful, said thank you and went home. This evening i have received a call from my boss after the said colleague had made a compaint to him....the colleague HADNT logged me off and had in fact gone through approx 400 of my SENT EMAILS ( not even those in my inbox) and a couple were about this colleague. They were private emails sent between me and another colleague, that this other colleague had taken exception to. In order to find these emails, the colleague would have had to search.... and they stated to my boss that they ''didnt realise'' it wasnt their email account, despite specifically telling me that they had logged me off. These emails were sent about 8 weeks ago, so they would have had to sift through hundreds of others before coming to these... the subject headers wouldnt even have given anything away. At what point did they not realise it wasnt their account?? Perhaps the fifty or so i had sent today to my husband? I am so angry and upset, as it appears the colleague did this deliberately. Yes, i know i should have locked my terminal, but at 15 weeks pregnant and throwing up, i just forgot. This colleague is now claiming we are bullying her... even though the emails were private ( and marked as restricted - if this makes any difference) betwen two colleagues that were never intended to be seen by anyone else. They were our opinions.

Anyone got any ideas where i stand on this???

Dole queue I expect.

Assuming you aren't supposed to be spending your entire day b1tching about colleagues and e-mailing your husband (50 times a day, seriously???) they can quite happily classify this as misconduct and sack you.

dramaqueen1973

[


QUOTE=Anihilator;26969723]No such thing as a private email at work.

For me there are three seperate issues

1) Not safeguarding your terminal is almost certainly a brech of IT policy. The fact you were ill is mitigating however

2) Misuse of company email. Severity depends on content, frequency and volume as well as what you should have been doing at the time you sent these

3) Harassment/Bullying - by far the worst

I dont think trying to defect the blame to your colleague for reading them is a good idea. At worst they will get a warning but all it will do is make it look worse for you as you arent being a grown up and owning up and being remorseful.

One thing to bare in mind. Nothing on work email is private.[/QUOTE]



Have to say I agree with the above

xx

Bobl

"fifty or so i had sent today to my husband?"

Forget anything else, you should be sacked just for that. What do you do all day, obviously not your work!

They have a very tight case to dismiss you, for breach of Company policy, sending private emails in work time on work equipment, and of course harassment of a colleague - I don't think you have any defence at all.

Anihilator

Oh and inclusion I agree that anything less than dismissal would be a win for you. There certainly is enough there to justify a dismissal.

BitterAndTwisted

I don't see how slagging off a colleague in an email can be construed as harassment or bullying but whatever, the other points are valid. Depends on how valuable you are as an employee to the company. I wouldn't sack you for it but other employers might, especially if they're seeking to get the head-count down.

Rebchappers

Thank you all for your replies. I do understand all of your points and am grateful for you for taking the time to reply.

Vader123

Sorry, but you are responsible for the security of your account.

Plus personal emails at work are asking for trouble.

Vader

nickyhutch

It really does depend on the company's policy. Some allow "reasonable" use for personal mail. Others don't because they're huge organisations and the mail slows the whole network down. Arm yourself and read the policy. If the mails about your colleague weren't sent to him/her, I can't see how they're harrassing or bullying, though, to be honest. It's not against the law to b1tch about people, but may be against company policy to use their email system to do that b1tching.